walkable cities strongly encourage a feeling of imagined community that helps make you a good citizen. if you experience the city only in slices it's easier to see large swathes of it as fundamentally alien or hostile.

A full recording of Saturday's Symposium on 'Peasant Movements and Land Agitation in Ireland' is now available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJaf... @marcmulholland.bsky.social @peelersandsheep.bsky.social @petergray47.bsky.social @sophcocooper.bsky.social

This would be a great thing for so many people! petition.parliament.uk/petitions/75...

An organisation’s culture is set by its leader, Starmer dislikes making an argument for anything (because he’s bad at it) and that attitude spreads all the way down the party.

‘Quite frankly absurd’ ‘I’ve met many doctors in my life & none of them have ever glowed like that’ Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe who was among the Conclave who elected Pope Leo tells #Newsnight what he thought of this image, and of Donald Trump’s claim he was portraying himself as a doctor 👇

BREAKING: the judges who dismissed high-profile cases in immigration court against two international students who have advocated for Palestinian causes, Rümeysa Öztürk and Mohsen Mahdawi, were fired yesterday, alongside four other judges. /w @haleaziz.bsky.social and @nicknehamas.bsky.social

I feel like I’m losing my mind, we’re gambling with a generation of kids so the tech bros can be emperors

"A whole civilization will die tonight" This man is the purest distillation of the American capitalist imperialist psyche, untrammeled, unconfined, and flourishing in all its evil. Pure hatred and greed. And not a single person seems able or willing to do fuck all about it.

Delighted to see that Northern Ireland is leading the way in the UK on this! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Just going to leave this here.

Huge PhD Opportunity - the Catholic Church and Environmental History in South Africa!

Reliance Building, 1890.

When the US admits that they killed any “military-aged men” who walked within 3km of a downed pilot they mean any boy lanky enough to be a teenager and any middle-aged man able to walk unaided with a cane got shot in the head for the crime of walking.

Rules and norms about war crimes are a global public good. If you or anyone in your family is between 16 & 60, male, & walks, you have a direct personal interest in it not being legitimate for them to be assinated for walking within any undeclared 3km radius around any combatant.

So looking forward to digging into the 1926 census! www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

THEY TRAINED THE AI ON ACTUAL WRITERS. YOU CANNOT TELL IF SOMETHING IS AI SIMPLY BASED ON IT USING PROPER GRAMMAR. IT STOLE FROM US!!! IT STOLE!!! IT IS A THIEF AND I WILL NOT EVER BE QUIET ABOUT IT!!!!

"Some active-duty Marines are already calling Mr. Hegseth’s agency the 'Department of War Crimes.'" With good reason. At any other point in recent decades, the congressional Armed Services Committees would have put an immediate end to this madness. Now ... crickets. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/05/u...

I mean, I understand why the US military destroyed 3 of their own aircraft during the rescue mission, but I'm constantly bamboozled by the amount of the money that the US is willing to spend (and literally burn) when it comes to the military while not providing basic services for their citizens.

Shop local, folks!

Just as a reminder, the second iteration of the Ku Klux Klan was wildly and violently anti-Catholic.

Mustafa Barghouti: "The passing of this criminal law.. & the way they celebrated the passing of this law.. shows you one thing. Israel has moved so far in the direction of fascism. This is a fascist govt and these are fascist ministers & this is a fascist establishment"

So excited to see so many publishing projects start to emerge! In the last few weeks, I've: got the galleys for an edited collection, nearly finished a co-edited special issue, ✔️ final touches on a book chapter, & awaiting the proofs of an article. May actually need to do some new writing soon...

Not just that, but very often being wrong is *good*. Science isn't about being right, it's about learning. We can learn new things when we're wrong! We arguably learn *the most* when we're wrong!

100% this.

Barrett now asks about the "messy" applications of birthright citizenship, asking how the government would deal with "foundlings" where the parents aren't known. SG starts by deferring to a statute on that and Barrett responds immediately with "yeah yeah yeah yeah but what about the Constitution"?

news to the enslaved!

ICHS 2026 Symposium: Peasant Movements and Land Agitation in Modern Ireland,  Institute of Irish Studies, QUB, Saturday 11 April 2026, 9.30-4.00pm. All welcome (in-person and online). Further details and registration👇

Sotomayor now jumps in and is reading directly from Wong Kim Ark, specifically language which appears to completely reject the SG's argument that the key question is "allegiance." She also hits him on the specific historic comments of the drafters making clear that birthright means birthright.

Listening in to the birthright citizenship oral arguments. I won't be fully live-posting through them, but will highlight some comments. I'll have a quick analysis up after the arguments, later this afternoon.

THE RUNAWAY NUNS HAVE BEEN GIVEN PERMISSION TO STAY FROM THE ACTUAL VATICAN! Honestly, ✨icons✨.

Recently published | Race, Violence, and Form is available now. One of the first in the new Studies in the Global Nineteenth Century, the book employs exciting new methods to understand nineteenth-century Irish literature and culture. More here ⬇️ www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10....

The Israeli parliament has approved the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of murdering Israelis, marking a major victory for Israel’s far-right, which has pushed hard for the measure. Per AP, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to the chamber to vote yes in person.

Jaysus Effin' Christ. I hope this leads to a better policy of scrutiny. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/06/b...

Hi everyone, here's a little thing I wrote about ghost tours as a tool for historical research (?). If you don't have access but would like to read, let me know! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Netflix Trump’s execs 🤝 advisors Struggling to get the audience to focus for more than a few minutes

sites.google.com/view/whai202... We are delighted this afternoon to present the final programme for our conference in May. Registration and further details will be made after Easter.

Revisiting publishing revenues for a chapter on public history and I'm reminded of the astonishing statistic that UK consumer publishing has annual revenues of £2.5 billion while academic publishing, the bit aimed at the tiny percentage of us working in research, earns £3.5 billion.

Delighted to announce that my new book, a global history of Saint Patrick’s Day, will be published by @uncpress.bsky.social in early 2027. Big thanks to @bc-irish-studies.bsky.social @gihnyu.bsky.social @ndirishstudies.bsky.social @iehs.bsky.social @unlv.edu and everyone who helped me along the way.

Was not expecting to find this when looking for 'Irish' paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago catalogue. 'The Irish Question' by (American) De Scott Evans, 1880s.

Iran launches ‘missiles’. Israel and the US launch ‘strikes’. The media kills people less directly by assigning legitimacy through language. Framing matters @news.rte.ie

It’s been out a while now, but Rosemary Sweet and I have written a book about #18thcentury British travel to Spain and Portugal that is free to download here! uclpress.co.uk/book/no-coun...

Student visas from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Sudan and Myanmar abruptly cancelled by the UK home office this wee, including for those on UK government sponsored scholarships.

On Sat 11 April we will be hosting, in association with @irishhistorians.bsky.social, a day symposium on 'Peasant Movements and Land Agitation in Modern Ireland'. This is a free event, open to all in-person or online via Teams. More info at www.qub.ac.uk/schools/Iris... #IrishStudies

So the hard drives for MRI machines are unavailable and now the helium they need is off the market too

It is absolutely insane that the US appears to have targeted desalination plants first – putting them onto the board. Iran seems to have already retaliated against one in Bahrain. This is one of the most obvious ways this could spiral.

Article in the Journal of Historical Geography with @mudderofpearl.bsky.social and @lizgabbett.bsky.social detailing preliminary findings from the project 'Locating Bench Marks, Preserving Heritage' doi.org/10.1016/j.jh... @heritagecouncil.ie @ulresearch.bsky.social @unioflimerick.bsky.social

This is no different from Putin saying MH17 was shot down by Ukraine or Assad saying rebels gassed themselves.