I can't even pretend to be surprised.

‘Before being forced to flee their homes, the Romanians, some 20 families in all, had lived in the affluent (and reasonably mixed) Lisburn Road area of south Belfast.’ I wrote this in *2009* in the Irish times N I has had a racism problem for a long time www.petergeoghegan.com/2009/08/06/r...

Complaining about nightlife when you *checks notes* choose to live in Soho is like living in South Kensington and complaining about the museums. Or moving to Hackney and grumbling about creatives. Living in Richmond and hating green space. It's all getting a bit silly, isn't it?

Though to be fair, he did just gift the world a clip where a Government Minister says “We’re perfectly entitled”

Weary observers may recall a version of this stunt being pulled by the Department of Social Protection, which spent several years pretending it didn't know what the word biometric meant after its minister stood up in the Dáil and stated that her department wasn't processing biometric data.

Yesterday Jim O’Callaghan, looking like he attended immediately after belatedly being tagged in the ice-bucket challenge, stood up in the Seanad and said that Ireland was was going to use its own legal definitions of what biometric identification is. Except that’s not how EU law works.

The domestic abuse backgrounds of arrested rioters is even starker for Belfast

I will just note that Dublin's Congolese community were able to protest about the horrible killing of Yves Sakila without so much as breaking a window.

We can't look away from the images of families fleeing burning houses without calling this out as a pogrom, whipped up by influential actors who care nothing for the people of Belfast: www.irishnews.com/news/norther...

The pre-existing conduits for non-state violence directed against minority groups in NI being tapped make this scarier; from my admitted outsider perspective it seems way more targeted and organised than, say the riots in Dublin and the mainland UK.

I did think of something else to say: tomorrow members of the Irish government are going to make statements feigning horror and shock at what's happening in Belfast. They will be lying. They are complicit in it.

When masked men organise violence, patrol neighbourhoods, intimidate families and drive people from their homes, Northern Irish people recognise patterns that many English commentators seem unable to see. This is an attempt by loyalist gangs to make themselves releavant. 3/

The areas most associated with anti-immigrant violence didn't emerge from nowhere. For decades, parts of loyalism have been linked to paramilitary organisations involved in drug dealing, extortion, intimidation, pogroms, and territorial control. 2/

English commentators need to stop analysing Northern Ireland through an English lens! When you see anti-immigrant riots in Belfast, Ballymena or Larne and immediately reach for "Britain's far-right problem", you're missing half the story. This isn't just racism. It's loyalist terrorism. 1/

I do think a lot of English-based analysis of what happened in Northern Ireland last night is missing the specifically loyalist aspect of the violence. These are groups with a long history of violently driving out "outsiders", turning their sights on a new vulnerable minority.

“Did wokeness go too far?” we ask as we are governed by a man who has been explicit for years that he regards women and Black people as inherently inferior

Finally some answers about how the system worked well for decades - presumably the decades before trans people existed, at some point in pre-history. But for the last few thousand years, it's really an admission that trans inclusion was not a problem.

On the other hand: When some 22nd century Jared Diamond writes a new version of Collapse, they will point to things like this.

If you or I had installed a water connection without the utility company's knowledge that was not linked to our account, we all know they wouldn't be saying that we have to be partners. Link to article: arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Lookit, when Ireland's censorship act was passed in 1929, everyone swore 'real literature' wouldn't be banned. They were wrong. #SpéirGhorm

That's all, folks.

TFW you realize some people enjoy science fiction for VERY DIFFERENT reasons than you do…

Can't even run a 22-month stalking campaign any more, because of Woke.

How many women in Northern Ireland have been stabbed to death in the last few years without loyalists needing to riot over it?

Man doing nothing about exports to Russia and planning to deport Ukrainians back into war zone appeals for 'moral clarity.' No wonder he looks like Uriah Heep.

Nobody tell JK Rowling. They're doing woke delivery now.

Every text I send my friends includes a brief bio of myself in case they forgot

hey quick question, am I having a stroke

"Catholics and Protestants need to stand together now" - the most hateful sectarian piece of shit you know, trying to convince you to help him harm migrants.

Kind of impressive that FIFA have ended up with a World Cup somehow more cursed than the one that they had to move to Christmas because the heat would have killed the players.

We live in the stupidest timeline.

Publisher: "You've got an image problem John" John: "Don't worry, I know exactly what to say"

Liz Kendall: "... if they repeatedly refuse to take the action required Ofcom can apply for business disruptions, which means they wouldn't be able to have their services available in the UK" Susanna Reid: "And how often as that happened?" "It hasn't happened.."

Someone just said they were going to the “Polish seaside” and I made a joke about how were you going to polish the seaside is it all pebble beaches and now I’m explaining the joke to a Polish person and I just want to die because linguistic jokes don’t work like this

To figure out who owns a derelict property, simply squat in it for a few days and see who runs crying to the press

BALLS MEET EGGPLANT

The agency trying to get me to pay for a "contract lawyer of the year" award are vexed that their offer is not being met with my acceptance.

final point of this hits the nail really

1/3 The far right propaganda flooding our zone is shifting. Its White grievance Narrative has focused on immigration & small boats but it can only endure only so long as the numbers fall. So the Narrative is being reconstructed, against black & brown Britons instead. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

IDK man, he got 24 years in prison I don't think we need to nuke him too www.irishtimes.com/podcasts/ear...

Loyalists are anti-violence now 🤨

How interesting that Meta called @wired.com "dishonest" and then (quietly) removed the face-recognition system it had previously (also quietly) integrated into an app downloaded onto 50 million phones. Dishonest!

Reposted with alt text (not my screenshot) bc holy mother forking shirtballs

(I prefer going out door knocking with canvassers as I think it gives you a better sense than randomly stopping people in the street - in my experience this tends to bias towards the sort of person who likes to stop to talk in the street and most people don’t like to do this)

A conference is taking place in Dublin on Thursday 11th to highlight a MASSIVE threat to Irish nature. Judicial Reviews have been a critical means for local communities to challenge wrongful, damaging environmental decisions, but they're going to be severely restricted by legislative changes.

Same-sex marriage is an instructive analogy here, but not for the reasons Streeting thinks. “Trans women can still use toilets - just not women’s toilets” is just like “gay people can still get married - just not to other men”.

this week marks 10 years since "milkshake duck" was coined

A decline in teen births is a good thing! It was a hard-won achievement thanks to better sex education. Not everything can or should be blamed on smartphones

I wonder if there's any space left on this year's Iona Institute Sexy Summer Camp, the summer camp designed to INCREASE the rate of teen pregnancy. What parent wouldn't want to send their little Saoirse and Fiadh to that?

“He abstained on votes about third-country returns because some countries under consideration are not “safe”, adding people are entitled to a “proper hearing” and you could end up “sending someone back to their death”.” I mean that’s a reason to oppose not abstain but still, Ciarán Mullooly?!!