Maura asked me to talk about the history of the idea of community, which is quite a big topic. What I do for a living is basically to work with activists and social movements, and from that point of view community is often very important, both as something people fight for and as something people fight with, a source of strength. In Ireland we can see this from the Whiteboys and the Land League up to the struggle here in Erris, the anti-fracking movement or the fight against water charges. Around the world community is central to indigenous struggles from the Ogoni to First Nations and Native American resistance to Keystone XL and other tar sands projects, but also to the movements of shack-dwellers in South Africa, farmers in the Narmada valley, No TAV in Italy and so on. So in this talk I will look at the difficulties involved, the history and where there might be some hope.