The Timeline of the Irish Left gives an overview of the development of the Irish Left from the beginning of the 20th Century right up to the present. It aims to represent how different strands of the left in Ireland have branched, merged and split over time, and currently contains 166 organisations.

The timeline was initially an update of a left ‘family tree’ created by John Goodwillie for Gralton magazine, which covered the period from 1960-83, and we are indebted to his work on this and also for suggesting subsequent corrections. Several helpful additions and corrections have also been provided by commenters on the CLR and contacts on Twitter, for which we are grateful.

It is a continuing work-in-progress, and corrections and contributions are always welcome - please feel free to leave a comment on this page, or contact us by email.

Of course there are issues with this type of representation: minor groups with few members are shown alongside established parties, and can thus appear equally significant or impactful; and organisations with sporadic activity over a period of years will look like they had greater continuity.

However, the timeline hopefully still provides a useful image of the history of left politics in Ireland; and if you click or tap entries, you can get a more detailed summary of any organisation that is listed in the archive.

View the timeline of the Irish Left

Technical Note

The timeline is generated using a custom javascript module. If anyone would like to re-use it for their own project, the code is available to view and reuse , under GPLv3 licence.