Show Notes
In this episode we talk to Jason Brannigan. Jason is an anarchist activist in Belfast and member of the anarcho-syndicalist group Organise!, as well as being involved in Just Books, which encompasses a library of radical material, meeting space and education project. We discuss Jason’s background in Belfast, his involvement with Just Books and Organise! and the development of both since the 1990s, political organising in workplaces and communities in the context of the North, and the current focus and prospects for anarchist organising in Ireland. The Organise! website is at organiseanarchistsireland.com, where you’ll find their publications, Black Star and The Leveller, as well as background on the organisation and Just Books project. Just Books provides an open-access library of anarchist and Left publications. If you have books or materials to donate, get in touch with Just Books via the Organise! website.
The Irish Left Archive Podcast looks at Left politics in Ireland, talking to activists, writers, historians, politicians and others involved in Left organisations and movements about their experiences of participating in Left parties and campaigns. The podcast is hosted by Ciarán Swan and Aonghus Storey.
View this episode on our website: #36: Jason Brannigan: Organise!, Just Books, and Anarcho-Syndicalism.
More from Irish Left Archive Podcast
In this episode we talk to John Fay about Newshound. John set up Newshound in 1996, after moving from the U.S.A. to Ireland, as a daily curated source of news on the North and the development of the peace process. It later became part of Irish-American news site, Irish Central, and ran daily until 2018.
In this episode we talk to Eugene McCartan. Originally from Co. Down, Eugene has been an activist with the Communist Party of Ireland since joining in Dublin in 1974. He served as the party’s Chairperson from 1989 to 2001 and then General Secretary until his retirement from that role in 2023.
In this episode we’re joined again by Charles Tuba for a discussion of Jack Holland and Henry McDonald’s book, INLA: Deadly Divisions, which tells the story of the origins and development of the INLA.
This episode is a round up of the Irish Left Archive project in 2025 and answers to some listener questions. Thanks as always to everyone who has supported and engaged with the archive by sending documents, speaking on the podcast, emailing, commenting, and using the site.
In this episode we talk to Madeleine Johansson of Red Network. Madeleine moved from Sweden to Ireland in the 2000s where she became active with the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP) and People Before Profit (PBP). She was a party organiser and director of elections for the 2016 General Election campaign in Dublin Mid-West, subsequently co-opted on to South Dublin County Council in 2016, and returned in the 2019 and 2024 local elections. Madeleine was a founding member of Red Network, which was formed in 2021 within People Before Profit before becoming an independent party in 2025. She is the author of Class War – Not Culture War (2025) and Reform or Revolution – Sweden, Socialism and The Welfare State (2022), available from the Red Network website.