The James Connolly Festival kicks off with a screening of Donal Higgins' excellent 'The Republican Congress', exploring the story of the 1930s Republican splinter group.

Republican Congress is an often overlooked period in Irish history.
Though it never realised its full potential it is a vitally important part of socialist-republican history. It offered a vision, however short-lived, of an alternative Ireland that wasn't dominated by capital and the church. It was able to bring the most progressive forces together and got them thinking about what society they wanted.
There is a lot we can learn from Congress and apply to modern Ireland.