Irish detainees from the Gaza flotilla have told their lawyers they were kicked, pushed and cable tied. Outside the notorious Ktzi’ot prison where they are currently held, Miriam Azem told me of “aggressive treatment and violence” the detainees say they received: www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025...

Our investigation — also in today’s New Statesman - is based on months on months of research, 29 interviews with current and former TBI staff, FOI disclosures and public documents. Do have a read www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

REVEALED: Donald Trump has picked Tony Blair for central role in Gaza ‘peace plan’… …but in our inaugural investigation for @thenerve_news, we reveal extensive previously unreported links to Israeli defence, media & tech. 🧵 1/ www.thenerve.news/p/tony-blair...

16 Irish citizens have now been detained by Israeli authorities including poet Sarah Clancy @sarahmaintains.bsky.social www.rte.ie/news/middle-...

All eyes on the flotilla.

"At least nine Irish citizens have been detained by the Israeli military after an international flotilla trying to deliver medicine and food to Gaza was intercepted overnight, organisers have said." www.independent.ie/world-news/m...

Sarah Clancy and Chris Andrews have both been kidnapped by the IDF. Contact Dept of Foreign Affairs: Address: Iveagh House, 80 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, D02 VY53 Website: www.ireland.ie/dfa Telephone: +353 1 408 2000 #globalsumudflotilla

Please read and reshare our statement on the Global Sumud Flotilla. We at Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann offer solidarity in this time of crisis. irishpen.com/2025/10/02/g...

We could blame Irish Governments over two decades of failure to even begin tackling the housing crisis - but what about the people who are too lazy to work one job during the day - and another overnight? www.corkbeo.ie/news/local-n...

On October 8, we will host a panel on Irish Women Writers! Chaired by Marjorie Howes (BC), this event has a book launch for Paige Reynolds' (Holy Cross) new book & a panel discussion, including Claire Bracken (Union College), and Kate Costello-Sullivan (Le Moyne College)

Q. Can you vote in the Presidential election next month? A. Of course I can. I always vote. Q. Are you on the Register? A. Why wouldn't I be? *Checks Register. Name absent* Q. Who erased me? *Applies to be registerred* There are only a few days left to register.

Hello good people of Bluesky, would anyone have access to a PDF of this pls: Victorian Crime Fiction in the Twenty-First Century: A Review Essay, 2015–2024 Available to Purchase Michael Harris-Peyton Dickens Studies Annual (2025) 56 (2): 311–358. doi.org/10.5325/dick...

Posting this piece by Louise Burne again about Maria Steen and the election because I think it’s the only sensible piece I’ve seen amid the pity party www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/comm...

Wouldn’t be at all surprised if Maria Steen is on the ballot paper for the next Seanad election, the first with the unified universities panel. There is a case that merging the two three-seaters creates an opening for a viable second candidate on a Mullen-esque platform

This fellow, at 81 years old has spent the last year seizing control (with his family) of a significant bloc of the US media ecosystem. Trump has appointed his company as new part owner of TikTok US (think what Musk did with the invisible Twitter algorithm) and his son just captured CBS.

“AI” isn’t a tool or technology or even a cluster of technologies with a misleading name. It’s the infrastructure at the foundation of a form of capitalism dependent on data brokering. We should be teaching our students about this and not teaching them about “responsible” use.

In discussion with a computer scientist from the University of Cambridge last night: Me: "you've described some of the things that AI is good at. How would you describe the category of things it's not good at? **pause** Him: "Anything where it has to be right".

Found this beautiful @janeclarke.bsky.social poem in Poets Lane way Roscommon today. Look forward to meeting her in N9vember with @marjorielotfi.bsky.social retreat in Scotland.

Our friend, poet and activist Sarah Clancy, is on the Spectre, one of the boats on the Flotilla which was attacked last night. Contact the Taoiseach and Tánaiste to demand protection, there must be safe passage for all trying to break apartheid Israel's illegal siege of Gaza. #LiftTheSiege

Digitization alert! We recently digitized materials by and about Irish patriot and suffragist Maud Gonne. The materials include correspondence, photo, articles, Women's Prisoners' Defence League records, and more. Check them out: https://findingaids.bc.edu/repositories/2/resources/254/digitized

Roddy Doyle: ‘I got a phone call from one of the New Yorker’s famous fact-checkers’ . Doyle, Anne Enright, Colin Barrett and Belinda McKeon reflect on their relationship with the magazine ahead of an Abbey Theatre celebration. Plus panel listing all Irish in mag www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

'President Michael D. Higgins this afternoon received the newly appointed Laureate for Irish Fiction 2025 – 2028, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, at Áras an Uachtaráin.' #SpeirGorm @president.ie

The hype is real. This two hour long doc about extreme birdwatching is an absolute delight, and nothing less than a soothing balm in horrible times. The makers have put the whole thing up on YouTube, for free with no ads, and all of you should watch it right now. www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl-w...

The Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH) has published new tutorial videos focusing on searching BBIH and using BBIH to research the histories of race and ethnicity, gender, LGBTQ+, emotions, social class, and health.

This is a great cover.

Between the autism comment yesterday and now this, I’m beginning to suspect that the Healy Rae’s aren’t the impressive statesmen I’d initially thought

A Personal Anthology is a weekly mailout in which a guest editor (writer, reader, critic, mongoose) picks and introduces a dozen favourite short stories. So if you love short stories and would like to take part, let me know! (DMs open.) In fact, I have an empty slot NEXT WEEK. Carpe Diem!

Brilliant breakdown on the Jimmy Kimmel story 🔥🔥🔥 Thank you @underthedesknews.bsky.social

“People not 'units' - are Ireland's housing targets wrong?” my podcast yesterday, RTE Behind the Story, with Katie Hannon, David McCullough & Fran McNulty #housing #speirgorm www.rte.ie/radio/podcas...

Lorcan Sirr: Dublin is becoming a place of extremes, home to only the very richest and the poorest

Genocide. The finding of the most comprehensive, most damning report to date into the conduct of Israel in Gaza. Our report for @virginmedianews.bsky.social - including the increasing cultural and sporting push to move away from “business as usual” with Israel.

AI is the wrong tool to tackle complex societal & systemic problems. AI4SG is more about PR victories, boosting AI adoption (regardless of merit/usefulness) & laundering accountability for harmful tech, extractive practices, abetting atrocities. yours truly www.project-syndicate.org/magazine/ai-...

Worth pointing out too that the five most frequent non-politicians invited to BBC Question Time (as of last year) were *all* Spectator writers. The Far Right is being actively normalised in the British mainstream.

“They reveal an Ireland where the promise of equality is receding." www.rte.ie/news/ireland...

My interview with Colm Tóibín: ‘All the emotion I was suppressing, that I didn’t know what to do with, was grief’. He discusses taking ketamine as therapy; loathing business news; writing method; novellas; plot vs atmosphere; point of view; the importance of sleep www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Attention #AcademicSky Everyone is talking about books, but thousands of academic journals were also pirated and are entitled to up to $3,000 *per pirated volume!!!* if editors submit titles to join the suit. Incredible opportunity for underfunded journals to get some $$! #SkyStorians #MedievalSky

'“We refuse to have our kids’ minds poisoned in schools and universities with a twisted interpretation of the history of these amazing islands. We will not stand for it.”' (Nigel Farage). 3/3

No matter how vile you find Farage, pay attention because he is borrowing from DeSantis, Trump, and Rufo.

‘The Sound Atlas: A Guide to Strange Sounds across Landscapes and Imagination’ by @michaelavieser.bsky.social & @ekostories.bsky.social, a wonderful book of 36 short essays on sound in place & imagination I commissioned for @reaktionbooks.bsky.social. Published this week.

Academics are under unrelenting pressure to accept the narrative of the inevitability of #generativeAI & to embrace it in teaching & learning. We resist - because it is ecologically destructive, ethically corrupt, & because it undermines the thinking abilities that make us both human & intelligent.

Our Irish Studies Seminar programme for the autumn is now available - all events will be in hybrid format and everyone is welcome. For more info and registration: www.qub.ac.uk/schools/Iris...

"As the credits rolled on screen the Venice crowd gave a standing ovation. For about 23 minutes hundreds of people applauded the makers of 'The Voice of Hind Rajab', a story about the 5 year old Palestinian girl who was killed by Israeli forces in 2024" A report on the film.

The bands own video, uncut: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nto-...

This is excellent from TCD colleagues @clarekelly.bsky.social @kbruisch.bsky.social & Caitríona Leahy and just the sort of critical thinking and leadership we need to resist the relentless and harmful march of AI.

We are lecturers in Trinity College Dublin. We see it as our responsibility to resist AI www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025...

Part one goes out tomorrow night at 9.35 on RTÉ 1, so better put a voice on part two for the following week. #DevDoc

✨ It's official! We're now accepting proposals for #RSVP2026, "Movements and Migrations"! We invite scholars to examine the relationship between periodicals, migrations, and movements for our 2026 conference in Dublin. Full CFP and more details on our main website.

Dedicated to the one I hate: Frank McNally on how a book inscription came back to haunt Patrick Kavanagh