Left Archive: Sligo Star, Connolly Youth Movement, November 1986

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Many thanks to Alan Kinsella/Irish Election Literature for forwarding this document to the Archive. As Alan notes: “This is an issue of The Sligo Star which was produced by the Sligo CYM and supporters (which I had confirmed by Declan Bree). It’s interesting in that the topics covered are much more ‘relevant’ than many Left Wing publications.”

In twelve pages the publication contains a lot of content. There is a report of a September meeting of Sligo Corporation at which Councillor Declan Bree spoke about Cranmore Housing Estate and noted the fact that tenants were being asked to pay for the installation of fireplaces and chimneys.

There’s discussion of the excessive costs of school books in working class homes and how ‘The Department of Education has again completely ignored the issues involved’.

One large article concerns Abbott Laboratories, a US pharmaceutical company which had then recently opened in Ireland. The piece notes a range of issues relating to the company internationally.

The Editorial notes that:

It is not enough for the Government to abolish fees for second-level schools and then maintain that there is a free education system. Educational costs for pupils and parents range from travel costs to meals and the largest proportion of such costs consists of text books. VAT ON TEXT BOOKS IS STILL CHARGED AT THE LUXURY RATE, THUS IMPLYING THAT SCHOOL BOOKS ARE NOT A NECESSITY.

It argues that ‘the only way to ensure [access to equality of educational opportunity] is to institute a totally unbiased free school book scheme’

The only clear mention of the Connolly Youth Movement is on page 10 with an advertisement for the CYM Sligo Branch Annual Dinner Dance at the Great Southern Hotel Sligo.