Very excited to share my most recent episode of Conceptually Speaking! No matter where you’re situated in the English Studies penumbra, @manshel.bsky.social’s research on the history of English education is must-read scholarship. #literacies #edusky #academicsky open.substack.com/pub/trevoral...

This week you can visit Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again, a free exhibition by the National Library of Ireland located at the Bank of Ireland Cultural and Heritage Centre, Westmoreland Street, Dublin. 🏛️ Mon-Sat: 10am-4pm: https://ow.ly/azvM50YB91g

English Meet for teachers in the Dublin area. Thursday 7th May, 7.00-9.00pm. #edchatie Free tickets: www.eventbrite.ie/e/english-me...

📖 Next weekend we'll start our slow-read of Bleak House by Charles Dickens (one "installment" of chapters a week, all the way through August) For those interested, feel free to message @thevogelman.bsky.social or me and we'll send you more details! docs.google.com/document/d/1...

The Fortnightly is on its Easter holidays. Here’s last Saturday’s edition. open.substack.com/pub/juliangi...

Snippet in Waterstones Oxford from my IT review of Rory Carroll’s A Rebel and a Traitor. www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Bottom is transformed into an ass! #MoonMad www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo... Two asinine transformations (many more to come): Mariah Gale at the Globe in 2023, dir. Elle While; full puppet head worn by William V. Ranous in the 1909 Vitagraph silent film (string just visible under his chin).

Free tickets for the English Meet on Thursday 7th May, starting at 7.00pm. www.eventbrite.ie/e/english-me...

One irony is that the effect of pushing kids onto devices all day turned 21st century schools into 20th century offices with kids working all day on office equipment on task completion.

'What We Tried to Bury Grows Here' by Julian Zabalbeascoa: traumatic Spanish Civil War impact captured. My review in yesterday's Irish Times: www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Fortnightly 203: Neither a hurling stronghold Rory Carroll & Roger Casement, Claire Keegan, Julian Zabalbeasco, English Meet 2026, Bennie Kara on Graham Nuttall, Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh, Barbara Oakley and more. open.substack.com/pub/juliangi...

English Meet on Thursday 7th May. Top-class CPD. Free tickets: www.eventbrite.ie/e/english-me...

English Meet 2026: English teachers share enthusiasms and great practice. Thursday 7th May, 7.00pm. Free tickets: www.eventbrite.ie/e/english-me...

My article in today's @irishtimes.com

A thing of beauty. A Hosting is published on April 16th. www.lilliputpress.ie/products/a-h...

Julian Girdham on A Rebel and a Traitor by Rory Carroll: Thrilling account of a key figure in Irish history. Author expertly arranges a huge range of characters and locations in absorbing story about Roger Casement www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

My review in today's Irish Times.

Not just the students. Now some of my *peers* send me things that have the oily slick of LLM-smoothing all over the writing, and that read nothing like their previously unique, spiky or quiet or odd voices. I know I’ve seen this film before (and I didn’t like the ending)

English Meet 2026 for teachers of English in the Dublin area: Thursday 7th May, 7.00-9.00pm. Free tickets: www.eventbrite.ie/e/english-me...

Three years into the AI era, educators say they face a major crisis. Bosses and clients replacing tutoring jobs with AI. Replacing *athletic coaching* with AI. Many students now cannot grasp why they would *not* use AI for schoolwork. And worse. The 5th installment of AI Killed My Job—educators:

Lysander: I'm in love with you now! It makes perfect sense! #MoonMad www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo... Lysander (Nathaniel Martello-White) makes a case for men as completely rational creatures, never swayed by their emotions. Helena is BAFFLED. @the-rsc.bsky.social 2011, dir. Nancy Meckler.

Free tickets for the 5th English Meet. Thursday 7th May, 7.00-9.00pm for teachers of English in the Dublin area. #edchatie www.eventbrite.ie/e/english-me...

James Baldwin. It's been a long time. Best novel to re-start with?

From today’s Irish Times x

Teaching, L.M. Sacasas and Rory Sutherland's Doorman Fallacy: www.juliangirdham.com/blog/teachin...

Fortnightly 202: Donna Leon, Duff Cooper's 'Operation Heartbreak', @erinmaglaque.bsky.social on Caravaggio, researchED Cork, @karenswallowprior.bsky.social & @carlhendrick.substack.com on reading, @conorsmurf.bsky.social on AI in teacher training, & more. open.substack.com/pub/juliangi...

202: Extravagant handlebar moustaches open.substack.com/pub/juliangi...

On teaching and 'The Great Pottery Throw Down'. www.juliangirdham.com/blog/on-the-...

(New). Thoughts on English teaching in Ireland and the US, prompted by a paper by @manshel.bsky.social. juliangirdham.substack.com/p/extra-engl... Mentions for @inotenews.bsky.social @conorsmurf.bsky.social @sarfern.bsky.social @clanavtra.bsky.social

Do you like excellence about his ex-excellency? Then this piece of brilliant writing is for you. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

On the latest episode of the podcast, @erinmaglaque.bsky.social joins Thomas Jones (@moonjets.bsky.social) to discuss the ways that Caravaggio represented his models’ bodies on canvas and what makes his paintings so unnerving. Listen here: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

Very interesting to read these reflections on how US and Irish schools overlap and diverge when it comes to high school English!

Beryl Bainbridge drew on her own life for her funny, dark novels. As two of the British writer’s best works, The Bottle Factory Outing and An Awfully Big Adventure, are republished this month, John Self reassesses her writing www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

(New). Thoughts on English teaching in Ireland and the US, prompted by a paper by @manshel.bsky.social. juliangirdham.substack.com/p/extra-engl... Mentions for @inotenews.bsky.social @conorsmurf.bsky.social @sarfern.bsky.social @clanavtra.bsky.social

'Her Breath in Mine' | The Women of Seamus Heaney's Poetry For International Women's Day at #SeamusHeaney: Listen Now Again, join us for an uplifting, thought‑provoking celebration of women. 📅 Sat, 7 March at 2pm: https://www.nli.ie/exhibitions-events/her-breath-mine-women-seamus-heaneys-poetry#SeamusHeaney

Dirty Linen is now available to buy in the US. Here is a review by Geoffrey Cobb in the New York-based Irish Echo. www.irishecho.com/2025/9/gut-w...

We’re a month away from the book release date and 2 months away from some great CPD around ‘An Inspector Calls’. @zarashah.bsky.social, @xris32.bsky.social and @funkypedagogy.bsky.social all speaking! 🤩 Sign up below! @hugheshaili.bsky.social @miriamhussain.bsky.social @teachals.bsky.social 👇🏻

Helena: you're MEAN, Demetrius: I'm OFF #MoonMad www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo... L, 2008 revival of @the-rsc.bsky.social Dream dir. Greg Doran, Demetrius (Edward Bennett) & Helena (Natalie Walter); R, more restrained: 1963 RSC, dir. Peter Hall, Helena (Diana Rigg) & Demetrius (Barry MacGregor)

NEW BLOG: We need to talk about oracy A taste of my ResearchEd talk yesterday learningfrommymistakesenglish.blogspot.com/2026/03/we-n...

Great day at Research Ed Birmingham yesterday. I spoke about AI & education: what needs to change. You can download my slides here: bit.ly/DCBrum2026 Subscribe to our Substack here: substack.nomoremarking.com Next intro webinar in April - register here: www.nomoremarking.com/events

As some of you may know, I’m writing a book on the history of high school English in the United States, and I’m excited to share a new article from that project—“High School English and the Making of American Readers”—out today in American Literary History! 🧵 academic.oup.com/alh/article/...

For @newyorker.com, I wrote about how "The Great Gatsby," which turns 100 this month, went from flop to high school classic, and whether the novel can survive another hundred years www.newyorker.com/books/page-t...

English teachers in the Dublin area. The fifth English Meet is on Thursday 7th May. Eager for presenting volunteers. Do get in touch! #edchatie Free tickets: www.juliangirdham.com/blog/english...

I used to love teaching "Their Eyes Were Watching God." I got to interview @marcusluther.bsky.social about teaching it today. Teachers: Keep this novel alive in classrooms, and check out Marcus's *amazing* teaching resources in this interview. open.substack.com/pub/spencerl...

Fortnightly 201: Filling buckets again English Meet 2026, Barbara Oakley, Emma Smith, Jonathan Bate, Rosita Boland, Mackenzie Crook, Riz Ahmed & Hamlet, Toni Morrison, Kazuo Ishiguro and more. open.substack.com/pub/juliangi...

English teachers in the Dublin area! www.juliangirdham.com/blog/english...

English Meet 2026: the fifth gathering of English teachers based in the Dublin area, to share practice. Thursday 7th May, 7.00-9.00pm. If you'd like to present, get in touch. Free tickets: www.juliangirdham.com/blog/english... @inotenews.bsky.social

If you liked this experiment, I published a full piece today in the same vein: a text that gets 100 years older with every section, from a modern blog post to a medieval chronicle. It's a single story spanning 1000 years of English. See how far you get. www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-ba...

Christopher Ewart-Biggs Literary Prize shortlist revealed. Shortlist ‘highlights the depth of analysis brought to bear on various aspects of recent Irish history’, says Prof Roy Foster www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...