What a striking image of a tube carriage from this weekend. Via Danny Briottet

Along with the General Secretary of @ucu.org.uk, we stood with colleagues of @ucu-ulster.bsky.social outside @ulsteruni.bsky.social this morning in protest at the shocking plans to make 450+ redundancies.

#skystorians Please sign and share. Petition to save the Humanities at University of Hertfordshire c.org/kK5v9MTdNr

Today’s launch of “Belfastmen” at the Linen Hall Library with the inimitable @elainefarrell.bsky.social! Kindly hosted by Patsy Horton, on the library’s 2038 birthday! What would the founders think of this gay history book, I wonder…

Bargain & free delivery... though I wonder if someone familiar with Northern Ireland's history is being cheeky with a price of 16.90... 🤴🍊 www.amazon.co.uk/Belfastmen-I...

Last call for Belfast-based folks: my 2nd book launch is tomorrow (Wednesday), 1pm at the Linen Hall Library - a reading & 'in conversation' event with Elaine Farrell, legendary author of Bad Bridget! Sixty odd people booked-on but room for a few more! Tickets here: linenhall.com/event/belfas...

'Birmingham City University has blamed low demand after deciding to close its master’s course in black studies just a year after it launched.' Yet another example of commitment (sic) to racial equality in higher education. Shocking after a 1-year trial. 1/3

This is cool: a Portuguese LGBTQ+ media platform has picked up on the article about my book in the Guardian, and reflected on some similarities between Northern Ireland's and Portugal's queer history.

📢JOB ALERT 📢 We are looking to appoint a F/T open-ended Lecturer in Late Medieval / Early Modern History (1400-1700) @lancasteruni.bsky.social. This is an amazing opportunity that we are very proud to announce, so please spread the word far and wide! www.hr-jobs.lancs.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

My second (and final!) Belfast book launch will be this Wednesday at the Linen Hall Library - an afternoon in conversation event with the brilliant author of Bad Bridget, @elainefarrell.bsky.social! linenhall.com/event/belfas...

I see Keir Starmer is banging the drum for British steel. No word, however, about higher education. Steel contributes around £9.8 billion to the UK economy a year (including downstream impact), while universities add well over £100 billion...

A genuinely useful checklist here for UK academics navigating the perma-crisis.

I've been so busy at work I haven't had the chance to share that my book is now in paperback!!

This should be fun at the QFT in Belfast (Friday 15th May)! www.qub.ac.uk/events/whats...

This will be the second of my Belfast book launches - an in conversation event with the wonderful @elainefarrell.bsky.social, superstar author of Bad Bridget!

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Hertfordshire has long been one of the finest centres of historical research in the UK. This is a body blow to the entire historical profession in this country and to humanities education and research in general. This kind of destruction has to stop before we lose everything of value.

Our Irish Studies International Lecture will be given this year by Prof Hedwig Schwall (KU Leuven) on 'Interactionality in Contemporary Irish Fiction'. Tuesday 12 May at 5pm, in-person and online. Register at: www.qub.ac.uk/schools/Iris... All welcome!

2014 REF: 2026: closing UG History

"Modesty and Modernity"; "My Mind Wanders" (Ireland: Catholic Truth Society, 1951; 1961) 10 years later, he was still thinking about those risqué dresses

HAPPY MAY DAY✊🟥 For Radical May, 'Friends in Common' is half price! Treat yourself! It's a book about friendship & radical struggle, historically & today. It argues that friendship has revolutionary potential in the face of a profoundly anti-social capitalist system (1/8)

Happy May Day from "La Guinguette", successor to the Alpenpost, published (well, hand drawn) on this day in 1938 in a town outside Paris.

retweeting for those who (quite rightly) logged off for the bank holiday weekend... strange to see myself described as a 'Northern Ireland historian' (though I guess it's now right in both senses)

thread of artworks in 'Irish Culture and Partition, 1920-1955' that I got to see in real life. First, the cover - 'Four Green Fields' by Evie Hone, 1939. I arranged a private tour of government buildings for this one.

A wonderful afternoon today, chatting to a Belfastman in his early 90s who had come across my book & wanted to share his memories of the gay scene, dating as far back as the 1940s! Reassuring to hear I’d got the history pretty much ‘right’… tho it sounded even cruiser than I could have imagined! 😅

Great to see @tomhulme.bsky.social work featured in @theguardian.com today.

1/ 🧵 The Festival of Britain opened this day in 1951 - according to its official guide a 'united act of national reassessment, and [a] corporate reaffirmation of faith in the nation’s future’.

The Oughley Shed installation was one of the most moving pieces I've ever seen, using David Strain's diaries and a recreation of the safe haven of his wee shed. @tomhulme.bsky.social has done wonderful work on these stories.

“Belfastmen: An Intimate History of Life before Gay Liberation” @cornellupress.bsky.social featured in the Guardian! 🥹 www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

absolute nightmare juice

Well, well, well.

On protecting what matters. @ihr.bsky.social @royalhistsoc.org @histassoc.bsky.social History UK www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

#speirgorm if youre in #Dublin next two weeks there is an amazing #theatre festival on called Wilde Stages Formerly the international dublin gay theatre festival Please #reshare #lgbt #Ireland #drama gaytheatre.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/...

Some recent book reviews on #FirstView now 👇 📚 @tomhulme.bsky.social on @tricksterprince.bsky.social's Songs of Seven Dials 🔗 doi.org/10.1017/S096... 📚 @hamishkallin.bsky.social on @lauracforster.bsky.social's The Paris Commune in Britain 🔗 doi.org/10.1017/S096...

blast from the past: my first book - 'After the Shock City: Urban Culture and the Making of Modern Citizenship' - is on sale for £28 boydellandbrewer.com/book/after-t... *warning: does not contain gay sex*

PSNI charged three times more 'terror' display cases relating to Palestine Action - a group only banned last year - than they have for loyalist paramilitaries in over 25 years. Amnesty NI said using terror law against peaceful protest was 'absurd'

How about this for presentation? Nothing like buying a book about local history from a local independent bookshop. @bridgebooksdromore.bsky.social @tomhulme.bsky.social P.s. Bridge Books are also running the Dromore Book Festival next week - check it out!

🚨 New book give away!!! 🚨 As my book Connoisseurs and Conmen is out a week today I'm running a competition, for students, inspired by the book's subject, the trickster John Hilditch. The winner gets a free copy of the book. @h-materialculture.bsky.social @manchesterup.bsky.social

mind boggling response from a Labour MP. She either: does not have a clue how important universities are to the local economy; knows but doesn’t care because of some sort of ‘anti-elitist’ brainworm; or knows but is too worried to admit it lest it upset Reform voters. none reflect very well on her!

My review of The Log Books is in the May issue of @historytoday.com! A delight to spend time with such a rich & engaging text.

This is a super book and a great addition to the literature on queerness in NI (which is a rapidly developing field with some brilliant authors in it).

My book is currently on sale for the bargain price of £17 (with free delivery!) blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

stats for Irish politics watchers: applications from students in the south/RoI to study for their undergraduate degree at Queen's in the north/NI have steadily climbed from 1,279 in 2021 to 2,275 in 2025. This year, that figure is looking to be another *40% higher*...

I'm bowled over by the first endorsements my forthcoming book has received. Such brilliant authors - WOW! You will love it too . . . 🐟🌈📚 UK: yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300... @yalebooks.bsky.social US: yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300... @yalepress.bsky.social #booksky #histsci #queerhistory 🗃️

450 redundancies announced at the Ulster University. The impact of this will be devastating to staff, students & the functioning of the North as a whole. From social sciences speaking truth to power, to art giving this place joy - the decision must be reversed. Can you sign & share this petition?

Handy Guide: ✅ Free Speech: When GCs who had no relation to my University complained to try and get me kicked off my course ❌ Not Free Speech: Exercising one's right to peaceful protest against those advocating your exclusion from society – on the campus you have to live and work in