We’ve reached San Diego and The Kroc Center for Peace - beautiful campus on the pacific!

Our Ethan Lay at US Consulate in Belfast for a briefing on our Carnegie Center for Weaving. Thanks everyone for a great morning’s animated debate!

Our weaver @karenhamilton.bsky.social working on #TonySmithLoomDonation after his visit to help her set up his old tapestry loom! #BacktoLife in every sense.

This was when Tony Smith came from Yorkshire with his family’s tapestry loom to donate it for our Weavers’ Studio! Karen has brought the loom #BacktoLife

Our weaver @karenhamilton.bsky.social working on #TonySmithLoomDonation after his visit to help her set up his old tapestry loom! #BacktoLife in every sense.

Our Ethan Lay at US Consulate in Belfast for a briefing on our Carnegie Center for Weaving. Thanks everyone for a great morning’s animated debate!

What does one call a clatter of looms? We’ve been donated another tapestry loom to add to our growing collection!

Our COLA board of trustees hard at work planning our #BacktoLife future as Carnegie Centre for Weaving and community resource

Look who’s moving in! What do think is happening in our big back room?

What does one call a clatter of looms? We’ve been donated another tapestry loom to add to our growing collection!

Look who’s moving in! What do think is happening in our big back room?

The wonderful @SaraDybris McQuaid from @aarhusuniint.bsky.social tells our story, linked to her local library in Copenhagen. Historian-in-residence in 2025, friend of our elegant heritage asset.

Our COLA board of trustees hard at work planning our #BacktoLife future as Carnegie Centre for Weaving and community resource

Now in full flow!

All set for our fascinating discussions tonight at 6.30 on our history in Peacebuilding.

Tomorrow Thursday at 18.30 @carnegieoldpark.bsky.social

Important opportunity to learn about and discuss Peacebuilding in north Belfast - Thursday at 18.30, at Carnegie Oldpark library led by Sara Dybris McQuaid our historian.

Look who visited us! @thedangerousharpist @ursulaburns drops by to explore our acoustics!

Well, we’re so pleased! Great job. Now for some planting…

Great bunch of visitors from @InspiringYarns and @seamusheaneyestate.bsky.social to explore our Weaving Centre and plan exciting #BacktoLife collaborations!

Inspiring Yarns hosts fascinating discussion at Castle Espie on all matters yarns, wool, flax, spinning and linen, promoting their ideas, networks and ambitions -practice, theory and sustainability! I had a tiny walk-on part explaining the Carnegie Centre for Weaving. m.youtube.com/watch?v=WMuH...

Two of the wonderful Else Regensteiner weaving text books donated by her Chicago grandson Jesse Sinaiko to Carnegie Oldpark Library. Delighted weavers, grateful charity, humble donor - everyone happy!

Two of the wonderful Else Regensteiner weaving text books donated by her Chicago grandson Jesse Sinaiko to Carnegie Oldpark Library. Delighted weavers, grateful charity, humble donor - everyone happy!

From Chicago to Oldpark! Our newest donor Jesse Sinaiko gifts his grandmother’s weaving books for our library - Munich-born Else Regensteiner (1906-2003) is a guru of the American tradition

Exciting visit to our weavers’ studio - watch this space for further news! #BacktoLife in so many ways.

Here ends our recent wee series of #CaliforniaCarnegies and #ColoradoCarnegies! We visited Cahuenga, Santa Barbara, Lincoln Heights, South Pasadena, Denver Main, Decker, and Idaho Springs - a spectacular range of styles, locations, histories and stories of staff and users

Here ends our recent wee series of #CaliforniaCarnegies and #ColoradoCarnegies! We visited Cahuenga, Santa Barbara, Lincoln Heights, South Pasadena, Denver Main, Decker, and Idaho Springs - a spectacular range of styles, locations, histories and stories of staff and users

#ColoradoCarnegies with Denver main, replacing the original Carnegie next to it, as one flourishes a free public library and the other is converted to a museum. Congratulations to @denvercitysound.bsky.social for far-sighted investments, beautiful architecture and coherent positive planning.

The public library in Denver built to replace the Carnegie, a stunningly successful beautiful modern edifice full of books, art and ideas. We enjoyed our #ColoradoCarnegies after our #CaliforniaCarnegies a beacon of learning in spectacular space. Carnegie legacy continued by @Denverlib

We’re moving from #CaliforniaCarnegies to #ColoradoCarnegies The amazing main Denver free public library was a lengthy project - so much that Carnegie missed the grand opening because they were still debating the fittings and shelving… Now a civic building (events, weddings etc.)

La pièce de résistance of our #CaliforniaCarnegies series, Lincoln Heights free Carnegie Library (1916) in LA. Modelled on an Italian villa, thrumming with the local immigrant community and staff who experienced a scale four earthquake!

South Pasadena Carnegie library #3 in our #CaliforniaCarnegies - a lovely shaded edifice, fine statuary, elegant spaces - huge gnarled fig tree outside!

Art meets reality (or is it vice versa?)

We visited Cahuenga Carnegie in Los Angeles, on our tour of #CaliforniaCarnegies. A beautifully decorative yet functional library in an area of acute deprivation. Armenian Korean and Ukrainian languages, music, English and Spanish classes, talks and seminars all in positivity

The Santa Barbara Library, #1 of our #CaliforniaCarnegies enjoys stunning art, notable architecture and special staff - knowledfriendly to visitors. Librarian Gerard was intrigued by our stories of #IrishCarnegies and our own plans for the Carnegie Centre for Weaving in North Belfast!

The first of our #CaliforniaCarnegies is found in Santa Barbara, a fine public library with many decorative features; helpful and informative staff eager to help - and learn about their benefactor. Some lovely art too as well as archives, books and music.

#IrishCarnegies #24 Carnegie was uncertain about the huge technical school next door (I do libraries not education!). Eventually the baroque facade emerged, ionic columns, dramatic staircase, literary stained glass, a (leaky) cupola, carved wood, high windows. A pièce de résistance!

Rathmines Carnegie Library Dublin #24 in our #IrishCarnegies. 100th Anniversary brochure of heritage and architecture plus many enthusiastic users and borrowers! @fingal.ie @carnegieendowment.org

Rathmines Carnegie Library (1913) enjoys a fascinating backstory. #24 in our #IrishCarnegies started conception in 1887 when Rathmines adopted the Libraries Act, built a library. Carnegie at first declined the bid in 1902 (you’ve got one!); evidence on population growth swayed the donor.

The elegant Pembroke Carnegie Library graces South Dublin by the canal on Anglesea Road by the RDS. Embassy quarter fuels frequent use said librarian Gemma. The 1916 Defence of the Realm Act had prohibited buildings of over £500, so it took till 1925 to win relief! #23 in our #IrishCarnegies

We enjoyed the super #Dublin cycling infrastructure on our tour of #IrishCarnegies Most journeys across the fair city were 50% plus on segregated lanes!

Searching for Pearse St. Carnegie library in our bible of #IrishCarnegies we thought Brendan Grimes of UCD Archives had forgotten it! However the fault was ours - it was listed as Great Brunswick St (#22 in series) as Pearse hadn’t yet done his thing. An imposing double-fronted edifice - ‘severe’?

#21 in our #IrishCarnegies - the squat but purposeful Charleville Mall Carnegie Library (1910) beautifully located on the leafy canal, not far from O’Connell St, Connolly and Croker. ‘Respectable piece of architecture enlivened with some good brick detailing’ Grimes. Sadly ’closed for lunch’

We’ve returned to our wee series of #IrishCarnegies this time #20-24 in Dublin. Andrew Carnegie gifted 2500 libraries around the globe, 66 on the island of Ireland! #BacktoLife

Cahirciveen Carnegie Library County Kerry, one of the 66 #IrishCarnegies enjoys a chequered birth: - two architects sacked (inc Daniel O’Connell grandson of the Librrator) - a decade of delay (1902-1911) - poor governance (Ctte of over 50) Story from Brendan Grimes’s book on all on the island.

Our scout Jill visited Cahirciveen Carnegie (c1910), in Kerry, a huge small town library, dogged by controversy (more soon!). It’s under yet another reconstruction for #BacktoLife efforts. More #IrishCarnegies coming up!

Mystery guest came visiting to show support for our #BacktoLife endeavours and to share and learn - who might she be?