Research Undertaken with Dr. Conor McCabe

Financial Justice Ireland is pleased to announce a forthcoming collaborative research publication with Dr Conor McCabe.

This collaboration follows FJI’s support for, and participation in, recent courses delivered by Conor, drawing on his book Money. 

The research will examine pedagogical questions arising from the delivery of these courses, with particular attention to recurring questions raised by participants that point to important gaps in knowledge about the Irish economy and its distinct class relations.

By commissioning this research, FJI aims to identify key knowledge gaps and generate fresh insights to inform our education and campaigning work, as well as that of our wider network.

For many years, Conor’s books have been essential tools in supporting FJI staff to understand the Irish economy. We look forward to further developing our partnership with him through this research and through our shared commitment to education and justice.

Conor’s research paper is provisionally titled Activist Education and Financial Justice: Reflections, Strategies and Tactics.

The abstract for the forthcoming work is as follows:

From September 2025 to June 2026, a series of workshops were held in Dublin and Ennis which looked at the political economy of money and finance in Ireland. Although open to the public, they were primarily aimed at social, community, political, and trade union activists. The core text used was Money by Conor McCabe, who also gave the workshops. It was published by Cork University Press in 2018 as part of the Síreacht: Longings for Another Ireland series and had itself arisen out of an earlier series of classes held in both academic and non-academic settings across Ireland from 2010 to 2016 in the wake of the global financial crisis.

This paper will reflect upon those workshops, which span 16 years, providing key insights from McCabe and recent participants as to the objectives, achievements, and lessons learned. It will enquire into pedagogy as social justice, its rationale, methodologies, and ambitions, and how these were utilised, adapted, and proceeded through by those involved. At its heart is the idea that the classroom is the “last chapter” of a textbook, the one that cannot be written but must be created anew each time it is taught in a dialectical fashion in any space serving as a classroom, be it on the streets as walks, in a room with a whiteboard and PowerPoint, or in a field at a climate camp with markers and a flipchart.

It will also reflect on the theoretical tools needed to interrogate the ideological apparatus and coercive supports which root themselves through Irish society in its totality. These are not the same as telling a story or adding better facts to an already-existing paradigm. It is one of the key tensions within activist education. Whereas the banking method treats theory as a static instrument to be applied to reality in a causal manner, critical pedagogy relies on the concept that it is only truly taught as part of a dialogue. In other words, the way it is taught is essential to the overall objective, which is to challenge the dominant ideological common sense that serves to justify, not interrogate, the world.

This process cannot be replicated online. It cannot be done through TikTok videos or sassy posts on Instagram. This does not mean that such practices are to be abandoned; rather, it is about having clarity as to the differences between education and dissemination. Furthermore, while analysis may be explained through narrative structures, reality itself cannot be investigated in that way. Economic class relations are not easily captured by character, plot, and motivation, although stories structured in that way are quite seductive. It demands a critical process of active engagement with largely uncommon concepts and methodologies in order to see these relations and their institutional supports. It is quite the ambition for a workshop; this paper will interrogate whether, and to what degree, these objectives were achieved, in order to facilitate future workshops and classes.

Follow Conor's work here https://conor-mccabe.com/about/