When he ran Labour Together, Cabinet Office minister Josh Simons hired a PR firm to investigate journalists After our revelations, and a flurry of news stories, Simons finally gave his side of the story But it doesn't seem to tally with the facts... 🧵 democracyforsale.substack.com/p/mcsweeney-...

‘Absolute hell’: Irish man with valid US work permit held by Ice since September

Wrote about how more families present to emergency accommodation in the Dublin region due to notices of termination over any other single reason for their homelessness. Evictions are the issue, and building public housing at scale is the solution.

If you're in Ireland, you can watch the Irish Oscar-nominated short film Retirement Plan on the RTÉ Player. Directed by John Kelly, written by Kelly and Tara Lawall.

New polling on Ireland's housing crisis: - 81% want the government to build more social housing "even if there are local objections" - 64% disagree government is making progress on housing - 67% would vote for a constitutional right to housing - 29% are personally affected by the housing crisis

🔴 BREAKING: Labour Together paid controversial PR firm £30k to investigate journalists who were digging into how its undeclared funding Reporters from Sunday Times, Guardian and other outlets targetted *And* Morgan McSweeney knew about it Full story: democracyforsale.substack.com/p/exclusive-...

Highly recommend this exhibition, As If, at the International Centre for the Image in Dublin, by Eamonn Doyle, Niall Sweeney and David Donohue. Runs until April 5th.

According to this Guardian investigation, this jet refuelled at Shannon Airport on January 21st and February 1st.

"We are now seeing eviction rates that have not been seen in Ireland since the 1850s." A damning reality laid bare in this piece of well-researched analysis.

I'm totally pinching myself announcing this, but a film about my life journey rewilding a West Cork farm, An Irish Atlantic Rainforest, will get its first screening at the Dublin International Film Festival on Saturday the 28th of this month. Tickets are available here: www.diff.ie/programme/an...

Blair and Mandelson will go down in history as crawlers and creeps. “And for what? To be remembered as grasping minions of autocrats and abusers?”

Oh well! To host the last game, the Irish gov spent €4.2m on a licence fee to the NFL, and another €5m on infrastructure and “operational costs”. DCC spent €350,000. Imagine if that money was spent on local sporting initiatives? A lot of kids in Dublin City don’t even have a pitch to play on.

Good piece by Keith Duggan in Minneapolis.

Good piece on the generally very ropey “job creation” figures when it comes to data centres.

MUBI has acquired My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow, and the upcoming sequel My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile. Part 1 was the best film I saw in 2025. It's almost five and a half hours long, but there's not a moment wasted. Highly recommend.

The doctors and therapists treating people experiencing A.I. delusions and suffering from A.I. chatbot-induced psychosis.

The European Commission has launched a new formal investigation against X under the Digital Services Act, to "assess whether the company properly assessed and mitigated risks associated with the deployment of Grok's functionalities into X in the EU."

Tá agallamh agam leis an ealaíontóir Fearghus Ó Conchúir san Irish Times inniú.

Last month, I wrote about the very sad story of Jim O’Neill, whose body was found in the Phoenix Park in Nov 2023, but whose family wasn’t informed of his death until Dec 2024. Today, his family met with Fiosrú, Office of the Garda Ombudsman, who are investigating the Garda handling of the case.

Looking forward to hosting this conversation with Maria 'Masha' Alyokhina of Pussy Riot in Belfast on January 29th as part of the Out To Lunch Arts Festival. Her new book, Political Girl – Life and Fate in Russia, is out now. Tickets are from £8, details here:

AI companies insist LLMs are "learning" rather than storing copyrighted works in their "memory". Is that so? "OpenAI’s GPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini, and xAI’s Grok have stored large portions of some of the books they’ve been trained on, and can reproduce long excerpts from those books."

Wrote about the Irish government's plan to expand data centre development across the country through the new Large Energy User Action Plan. Ireland has very high data centre density already, with around 50% of metered electricity in the Dublin area used by data centres, and 22% nationally.

The Irish Times view on the price of a pint: not so plain

Interesting new report from the European Council on Foreign Relations. - Just 16% of EU citizens now see the US as an ally - 66% of people surveyed in the UK feel pessimistic about their country's future - 37% of Russians surveyed feel the US is an adversary (down from 64% in 2024)

Update on this from the Complex CEO/Artistic Director, Vanessa Fielding.

The Complex arts centre in Dublin is set to close today barring a last-minute funding breakthrough.

Full coverage of very interesting Media Committee meeting with Gardaí currently focusing on X / Grok.

Note who was defending Harris here.

How rotten does X have to be before politicians finally leave it?

The Irish public should listen to what An Taisce is saying about all of this.

Non-consensual AI images on social media ‘illegal content’, Irish regulator says

As Elon Musk's X continues to sink to new depths, there are serious questions to be asked as to why legitimate media outlets, government departments, state agencies, etc. etc. remain on the platform. I wrote this last November.

Wrote about plans afoot in Leitrim in Ireland to rebuild Gralton's Hall, the subject of Ken Loach's film, Jimmy's Hall. Behind this project is a small group of people including a powerhouse of dance and Leitrim culture, Edwina Guckian. You can find out more about the project at graltonshall.com

Writing this piece about the connections made between AfghanI refugees and local Irish people was quite heartening www.irishtimes.com/life-style/p...

Wrote about some forward-thinking activists in and of Ireland for 2026.

Wrote about how an aspect of social media behaviour in 2025 felt like more people withdrawing than “engaging”.

Some thoughts on themes and touchstones across the arts in Ireland in 2025.

It’s winter solstice on Sunday, so get ready for Grianstad 🌞 - register for a free ticket - you’ll receive an email on Sunday with the audio - check your local sunset time, head out to watch the light, press play 30 mins before sunset - listen wherever you are in the world, headphones ideally

The body of James O’Neill, who was found dead in the Phoenix Park in Nov 2023, lay “unidentified” in a Dublin morgue for over a year despite having nine forms of ID in his pocket. Solicitor representing the O’Neill family describes the case as “baffling”.

It’s winter solstice on Sunday, so get ready for Grianstad 🌞 - register for a free ticket - you’ll receive an email on Sunday with the audio - check your local sunset time, head out to watch the light, press play 30 mins before sunset - listen wherever you are in the world, headphones ideally

"Palestine Action-affiliated hunger strikers are likely to die without David Lammy’s intervention, lawyers representing the prisoners have said."

United left can’t wait for the next election. It needs to build a housing movement

Register for free tickets to Grianstad 2025, an immersive solstice audio experience. Sunday December 21st, sunset, wherever you are.

I wrote about The Complex in Dublin, the latest in a long list of arts spaces and venues for culture under threat of closure in the Irish capital.

Reviewed CMAT’s show in Dublin.

“RTÉ will not participate in the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest, nor will RTÉ broadcast the competition. RTÉ feels that Ireland’s participation remains unconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there.”

Agallamh anseo le Peadar Ó Goill. Bíonn Scéal ar fáil san Irish Times gach Máirt.

Had a chat with @louisemcsharry.bsky.social on her podcast about some big changes happening in her life. I’m full of admiration for Louise’s openness and vulnerability, and I hope what we spoke about might start a broader conversation in Ireland and elsewhere.

Ireland has one of the best and most genre-diverse music scenes in the world, but there’s a lack of clear and well-resourced funding pathways. Many musicians are dealing with constant financial precariousness. I wrote about the need for a large, dedicated music fund distributed at a local level.

Excited for this!