Isabel Allende is right the child specific and persecutory wrong of forcibly separating children from their parents has many iterations across space and time. From the Author’s Note in The Wind Knows My Name:

Extraordinary visualization of the starvation campaign in Gaza by Liat Kozma and Lee Mordechai (Hebrew U): bearing-witness.com/starvation-s...

Happy to say that I’ve done this 🇪🇺 and it’s fairly easy

On average, someone has died in ICE custody every 6 days this year, yet the agency is rapidly expanding detention by converting warehouses into immigration detention camps. ICE is putting lives at risk and must not move forward with this reckless plan.

Denmark's coal-to-wind transition is one of the most dramatic energy transformations of the past three decades. In 1990, coal provided 90% of Danish electricity. Today it is under 3%. Wind now covers roughly 60% of electricity generation. The last coal plant is scheduled to close by 2028.

"All the sacred rights of humanity are violated by insisting on blind obedience" - #MaryWollstonecraft, born on this day, from her early feminist text 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman' 1792. UK women's suffrage banner by artist Mary Lowndes, 1908 #WomensArt

"Implementing a ban is not the way to go." 🗣️ Shakar from the OCO Youth Advisory Panel told the Oireachtas Joint Committee yesterday that we should be focusing on smart filtering instead of blanket bans. Let's prioritise safety-by-design. 🛡️

Poor old Orwell’s corpse, spinning at such a furious rate it’s boring its way right into Earth’s core. “Objectivity” “Legal” “Empirical”

I have GONE WILD on the 1926 Irish census and have made some fun discoveries: Trinidadian medical students, a Baháʼí couple in Donegal, the Irish widow of an emigré Cossack, and Egyptian sailors in Cork city - among many others.

“Everyone can be / wrong. Life is a right not / collateral or casual.” — Suheir Hammad . . . This poem appeared in ZaatarDiva by Suheir Hammad, published by Cypher Books, 2008. Shared here with deep gratitude.

BREAKING: We're joining over 120 organizations issuing a travel advisory to warn anyone visiting the U.S. for the 2026 FIFA World Cup of possible civil and human rights violations. FIFA must pressure the Trump administration to protect the people traveling to and working at the games.

‘You exist as the stars exist, participating in their stillness, their immensity.’

First shared by @greens-efa.eu almost four years ago, this message feels just as urgent today amid a deepening energy crisis. We can’t keep ignoring the root cause: our dependence on fossil fuels - driving conflict, damaging our environment, and pushing costs ever higher for ordinary people.

Peacefully protesting schoolchildren. And what happened next?

Legal doomerism and defeatism are self fulfilling. And may get you blocked.

How tragic that you could publish, then re-publish, then re-publish, then re-publish, then re-publish a cartoon like this over and over again...

Shivering and hungry mothers bore their sickly infants, doomed before they saw the light, both soon frail flotsam on far Lethe's shore. — from Ethna MacCarthy’s The Charity (a treasure of undiscovered beauty ⬇️) www.rte.ie/radio/lyricf...

The Ghost crime against humanity, felt more than known, present more than said (revised) fromsaltintears.com/the-time-to-choose/the-ghost-crime-against-humanity-waiting-to-be-seen The example: Israel’s persecution of Palestinian children #anychildismychild #internationallaw #childrights #spéirgorm

8 year old Han Kang from Light and Thread

Northern Gannet, Ballycotton Bay #Birds

A thought: will the Vatican City be the first state in Europe to free itself from U.S. tech dependence?

Killing for kicks and content

‘Others are using this energy crisis to accelerate structural change: France has doubled funding for electrification, while Spain’s rapid expansion of renewables has reduced its reliance on gas & kept electricity prices low through the latest shocks’ #spéirgorm www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

UN experts demand cessation of all military operations in #Lebanon, suspension of arms transfers to #Israel & support for humanitarian response. “We are witnessing utmost contempt for international law, the legal order, diplomacy & the lives of civilians.” www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...

That time of year again!

“We have come too far together toward the end now / to fear the end.” — Louise Glück . . . This poem appeared in The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck, published by Ecco Press, 1992. Shared here with deep gratitude.

"With cemeteries inaccessible, they resorted to schools, mosques, backyards, sidewalks. All became makeshift burial sites, even as the death toll climbed into the tens of thousands. So bloody was the fighting that many corpses were left on the streets." www.latimes.com/world-nation...

‘It seems reasonable to believe — and I do believe — that the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race.‘

The psyche of Lebanon’s children, recorded their reality up until the time of the massive bombardment. Bombers overhead, a sky filled with menacing threats of destruction.

"Gaza was the laboratory. Minab is the market. The result is a world in which the most consequential targeting decisions in modern warfare are made by systems that cannot explain themselves, supplied by companies that answer to no one," writes Avner Gvaryahu www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

And that’s the meaning I intend when I call for radical justice for children ✨ fromsaltintears.com/radical-justice-4-kids

Ominous

BIG - Pope Leo XIV: Enough with the idolatry of self and money! Enough with the display of power! Enough with war! True strength is manifested in serving life.

The only way to durably protect hauliers - and the economy - against fossil fuel shocks is to support them to electrify trucks. Sales of electric trucks in China outsold diesel trucks last December. So far this year, only one electric HVG was newly registered in Ireland. #fuelprotests #speirgorm

A pictorial reminder ⬇️ that attacking children’s homes (civilian objects) disproportionately affects children in so many ways bsky.app/profile/from...

Yes. #spéirgorm

Israel kills more than 300 in Beirut. Unclear what the targets were. 1/3 of victims women, children and elderly. Israel said it hit Hezbollah command and control centers, but the only Hezbollah official reported killed was a top aide to the group's secretary general. apnews.com/article/leba...

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez Calls for EU to Suspend Trade and Diplomatic Agreement with Israel After Israeli Strikes on Beirut World reacts to ‘brutal’ Israeli attacks on Lebanon after US-Iran truce Israeli attacks have killed over 200 people and wounded 1,000 others.

Authorities report that over 200 people were killed and over 1,000 injured in Lebanon, overwhelming hospitals. Many others are still feared to be trapped under the rubble. Humanitarian partners say that strikes have continued overnight and today. More: bit.ly/4vkWJhv

I really miss @rteradio1.bsky.social Drivetime from 6 to 7. And because I switch to something else I miss Arena @rickoshea.bsky.social ☹️ #spéirgorm

Difficult to describe how unusual it is for @icrc.org to speak publicly like this. "Heavy explosive weapons with wide-area effects struck densely populated urban areas, including the capital Beirut, without effective advance warnings." ICRC Outraged by Deadly Strikes in Densely Populated Areas

"The equivocal response of the Irish government stands in stark contrast to that of Spain [which] barred the US from using its military bases and Spanish air space to US planes involved in the war on Iran. Meanwhile, the Irish government [continues] to allow Shannon to be used by US warplanes."

Sandwich Tern, Ballycotton - a few already back here now from their wintering grounds, some from as far as South Africa. #Birds #BirdsSeenIn2026 #IrishBirding

💔 I wrote this in January 2024 citing DCIP, an extraordinarily brave & progressive organisation that took children’s rights seriously. And now Israel assisted by some and aided by the silence of others in the international community has made complete Palestinian children’s abandonment.