Malta Workers' Memorial and a Palestine mural in Valetta skate park.

Mohamed Harbi has passed away- a participant in and historian of revolutionary politics in Algeria and man of principle who fought against tyranny and for social justice. What a life he led maitron.fr/harbi-mohamm...

Ireland is neither magically immune to historical and contemporary antisemitism and its recent exacerbation nor is it some sort of den of unchecked antisemitic violence. There is space for a proper discussion of this but I don't think the celebrities of X discourse should be leading it...

All my emails consuming me when I return to the office after the holidays.

On January 1, 1804, revolutionaries established the independent country of Haiti, the first nation to permanently ban slavery. As we begin a year engulfed by the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence, it’s worth reading the Haitian Declaration of Independence in full. 🇭🇹

Lovely New Year's Eve visit to Mdina. Malta is such a fascinating place. Was struck by this representation of Marianne erected by the French when they captured the city, was vandalized by the locals and then re-erected by the French.

Ending the year by throwing vulnerable people who have been failed by disastrous government policy on housing under the bus. Despicable stuff. Simon Harris claims ‘significant number’ in emergency accommodation ‘don’t have housing right’ www.irishtimes.com/ireland/hous...

🚨PSA🚨 Brassed Off is available to watch on the Channel 4 app. Nothing more festive than a film about Maggie Thatcher savaging mining communities. It is such a good film- empathy, humour and righteous fury. Pete Postlewhaithe's best performance and that is saying something.

In fairness to Stephen Collins, a man who gets paid for recycling the same three columns (Sinn Féin are Marxist terrorists, we need to join NATO, stop whining about housing and public services) should be happy with his lot- he is stealing a living. www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025...

While the current government in Israel, presiding over genocide in Gaza, has been esp proactive in approvals of illegal settlements in West Bank, every Israeli government has approved, protected and expanded settlement. Settlement and the violent displacement it entails is a function of the state.

It was blustery and Baltic but also nice festive fun🥶🎅🏊‍♂️

For the day that is in it, Mainie Jellett's Virgin and Child

At home for Christmas and we are watching Midsomer Murders with wine and someone was just murdered by means of the cuckoo in a cuckoo clock. Nothing more festive than this😂😂

Meant to keep track of what I read this year but of course that didn't happen. I also have a good habit of giving away books I enjoyed but here are some of my favourite fiction and non fiction reads from this year.

Warming up for Christmas Dublin style with Damien Dempsey.

Turned up at the National Archives in Algiers in three quarter length shorts because it was too hot for this poor pasty Irish man and I couldn't enter due to the dress code so a soldier that was posted there lent me a pair of his jeans so I could go in. Classic Algerian generosity!

Last bit of pre-Christmas admin done (and an exciting one at that!). Now I can properly switch off and prepare for the most festive event of the year- Damien Dempsey at Vicar Street!

Not only does the Irish state not charge VAT on private school fees, it actually provided tax relief on them, cross subsidising social segregation. Would be great to see parties of the left across the board agreeing to change this. www.independent.ie/irish-news/e...

Chercheuses et chercheurs intéressés par le politique dans le #Sénégal contemporain, Marie Brossier, Amy Niang et Etienne Smith préparent pour Politique africaine un numéro consacré à ce pays... à vos plumes... polaf.hypotheses.org/11371

Santa on the Liffey.

Just had a group of kids call to the door and sing a rousing version of Jingle Bells that ended with a chant of Up the Dubs! A sure sign that it's time to put the out of office on and close the laptop.🎄🎅

By this standard which nobody actually adheres to Jews would be precluded from identifying as Zionist because of what Zionism means to every Palestinian on the planet. Is this standard reciprocal or do are there competing claims on the basis of standpoint which need to be independently interrogated?

A must read from Muriam Haleh Davis on Fanon's reception among Algerian leftists after independence. www.scienceopen.com/hosted-docum...

The argument that Zionism as a political project should be above critique because it is the basis for the state of Israel is deeply problematic. Did this logic apply to the USSR? Does it apply to those parties who would like to see an end to the UK? Not to mention the erasure of Palestinians...

Grim statistics in this piece about the economic and social impact of Israeli repression in the West Bank. www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41...

Just published online & open access: @tlgrady68.bsky.social 'Nationalising Bodies, Shifting Loyalties: Exhuming the War Dead'. 1000s of national cemeteries in Europe contain the WWI & WWII dead. Yet, determining their nationality was never clear cut. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

I have an extremely niche question related to post-WWII Cameroonian poetry & a writer name Jean Ikelle-Matiba. Is there anyone out there in our beautiful world who knows his work?

As archaeologists we can often feel detached from contemporary politics and powerless to act when we see wrongdoing but we are not and we should not sit back. Here are some clear steps that can be taken to try to halt the theft of Sebastia. everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/2025/12/16/i...

Get your hands on this next year. As well as a deeply insightful thinker on the culture and history of this island, Stephen is a wonderful writer and this is sure to be a cracking read.

Sick of privately educated people holding forth about immigration as a threat to social cohesion without reflecting on how the institutions of elite reproduction that produced them are designed to perpetuate privilege and undermine social cohesion...

Marking students' reviews of Ranajit Guha's the 'Prose of Counter-Insuregncy' and I am pleasantly surprised to see no evidence of AI as of yet. Maybe Chat GPT can't cope with subaltern studies style of writing! I always find it a useful article to get students thinking.

The idea that being far too opposed to the mass incineration of children in Palestine is somehow to blame for the mass murder enacted at Bondi is fundamentally not just absurd, illogical and indefensible: it is part of the broader project to exploit violence and death to justify even more of it

The map which demonstrated the totality of full Israeli control in the occupied Palestinian territory (East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza) which, according to the reports of the time, shocked Barack Obama when he saw it for the first time in 2015.

Whenever people want to justify the de facto single state reality of the occupied Palestinian territory I just show them maps like this and ask them what it means

It shouldn't need to be said but claiming that Israel's actions make people anti-Semitic allows anti-Semites off the hook and follows the anti-Semitic logic that Jews are responsible for the actions of Israel. An irrational and racist hatred of Jews is what makes people anti-Semitic.

Horrific news from Australia. A deadly antisemitic attack on Bondi beach.

Some ceasefire... And most of those they have killed are civilians including children. The same as in Lebanon.

As if the people of Cork needed anymore encouragement😂

The forgotten war between France and Cameroon

Sorry to report that I think the latest version of Knives Out is by far the weakest despite an ecclesiastical theme that I'd normally really enjoy. Much less humour and fun than the other iterations. Great cast though and great to see Irish man Daryl McCormack holding his own alongside major stars!

Mulled wine and Knives out. Feeling very festive.

i also believe in building a better world for workers. i also believe that all people are entitled to respect and dignity and that there ought to be social sanction for those who openly degrade others. you call me a “n*gger” to my face and i am not going to smile and shake your hand.

Didn't realise the "woke cancellation of Christmas" was monolingual and thus decolonial😂😂

Wait until Stephen Collins finds out that there are already foreign troops frequently landing at Shannon Airport and that they have likely used it in the past as a stopover on their way to commit war crimes... Debate policy by all means but this stuff is just willfully ignorant.

Shocking but not surprising account of police violence in Berlin.

Go dona. Is léir go bhfuil duine sinsearach éigin san Údarás gafa le AI agus á bhrú chun cinn bunaithe ar chuid de na fógraí agus ábhar eile atá curtha amach acu le bliain anuas.

Listened, for my sins, to the Linehans interview and honestly...

Porters during the Cameroon campaign. All too often forgotten in both the history and the memory of the Global Great War.

A friend just returned from Palestine. Daily humiliation & oppression is intensifying everywhere: raids, settler attacks, home seizures, checkpoints, systematic discrimination for Palestinians in 1948 Israel. It's hard to fathom. Yet this is what so many in Washington defend. 🧵>>>

Repugnant. How anyone can defend this type of rhetoric is beyond me. This is who Keir Starmer chose to serve as Under-Secretary for Migration and Citizenship. Morally bankrupt.