Very much enjoyed doing this video interview about my article! Thanks to @erikahanna.bsky.social and @urbanhistory.bsky.social for the opportunity. Hopefully of interest to colleagues across urban history and environmental humanities #UrbanHist #UrbanStudies #EnviroHums #CoastalHist

In the latest Urban History interview, @erikahanna.bsky.social speaks to @samgrinsell.bsky.social about his recent article 'Urban History as Urgent Work'. It's an incredibly rich discussion of the intersection of urban history and environmental history, and how we do and communicate our research

Supernaturecultures. Folklorists from Ireland, Norway, Iceland & Scotland explore traditional ecological knowledge, encounter, & nature recovery in a more-than-human North Atlantic. @artshumanitiesucd.bsky.social @ucdhumanities.bsky.social @bealoideasucd.bsky.social @ucddublin.bsky.social

First time I've seen this postcard of the Somali village at the 1907 Dublin Exhibition in Herbert Park. #dublin

Myself and Colin Breen have written in "Maritime Ireland" about seaweed harvesting on Ireland's coastline, in 19th century. These are local rights, well known and established through built features (e.g. wrack walls, kilns, etc). There is no way that such rights be taken over by foreign companies.

The book is out! Race on Screen: Audience Racism in Twentieth Century Britain is on the shelves. Get yourself a 20% discount and use code GRANDY26 at www.cambridge.org/9781009650939

Please join us for the launch of our 'Women Strike Back!' exhibition on Monday 9th March. The wonderful Vanessa Kasuule will be joining us for a poetry reading. You can book your tickets via: ticketpass.org/event/ELVTJM...

Indicative of a) how communities can come to rely on universities as provisioning community services b) how a prestige project can become a liability c) how positive heritage narratives don’t pay the bills d) abt what constitutes legit use of student fee income www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Just discovered this wonderful interview of Oliver McDonagh by Roy Foster, with Roy wearing a really fantastic pair of glasses. www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Unison strike today in Bristol

Today we're celebrating #EllenHutchins, Ireland's first female field botanist, for Intl Day of Women & Girls in Science! She began to study plants in her early 20s, gathering more than 1,100 plant specimens over several years before passing away age 29. #CrawfordArtGallery #WomenInSTEM #GirlsInSTEM

Yahoo Fine Gael’s rule in Westminster is over

*drum roll* Here is the cover for my book, which will be published by @cornellupress.bsky.social on 15 April 2026! I thought it would be nice to share a bit of info on who these men were and how their lives and interests inspired the design...

OUT NOW! The Modern British City 1945-2000, ed. by Simon Gunn, Peter Mandler and Otto Saumarez Smith, brings together architectural, urban and social historians, to chart the extraordinary changes that took place in British cities between the end of the Second World War and the early 21st century.

It is publication today for Late Heaney I am told, although I imagine it’ll be a while before I see it between ice storms and the broad Atlantic. I thought I’d share a few thoughts about it, as it’s a different kind of book for me in form and style. global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Just a few of the historical treats that await #Skystorians in person or online in the week of 26 January at the IHR: Robert Bickers speaks on Charles Archer in Shanghai and Hong Kong, the Long 18th-centuryists appreciate Penelope Corfield's work and women rebel in the medieval Mediterranean. 1/2

Weaving and crafts community: we have a loom that needs saving. It's beautiful and looks to be in great shape. Please share to all Irish crafts people. #Speirgorm #crafts #weaving #loom #Ireland

Hello historians - there is a specific purpose role now advertised in UL’s history department - Title of Post: Assistant Professor in Irish History (specialism History of the Family) - all details are over on UL vacancies! Do share! #jobsky #skystorians #speirgorm #speirghorm

A non-fiction book following a 678km journey on foot across Ireland. Author Tim Hannigan explores the land’s troubled history and asks why public access to Ireland’s beautiful rural landscapes is so limited. Due to be released on August 27th, mark your calendars! K.H

Don't forget to submit your abstract for our 2026 conference 'Intimacies in nineteenth-century Ireland' @maynoothuniversity.ie deadline for abstracts 1 Feb! For more see ssnci.org/annual-confe...

Raindrops in lichen. The magic of an Irish Atlantic rainforest 🌍

Excited to be organizing and moderating this discussion on urban history as an interdisciplinary research practice in a few weeks — if you're in Cambridge, come join us! Registration at the link below 👇

'Despite all their difficulties, universities remain an enormous and irreplaceable national asset. As well as educating millions of people, they generate about £24bn in export earnings, which is about 1% of GDP – more than aircraft manufacturing and legal services combined'. 1/2

My book is a bargain right now, especially as printed in colour! MUP sale runs to end of the month ("discount will apply automatically at checkout, unless based in North America. North American customers, please enter discount code JAN40 at checkout"): manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526168511/

Keen to know more about 'Thermal horizons: energy and infrastructures of British global power, c. 1830–1900'? Join us to discuss Alex Bremmer's paper on Tuesday 13 January either in person at the Institute of Historical Research, London or on Zoom, 5:30 GMT. Free and open to the public.

Woo hoo! My essay on Catholic chapel-building in Ireland 1780s- 1820s is now available as #OpenAccess - so if you want to read it, you can just click right through. GRMA to the IReL agreements for that! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Turned up for a day of research at Limerick archives with no snacks and no sense of how far it is from the nearest shop. The archivist gave me half her sandwich and her granola bar. I’m still so grateful / embarrassed every time I remember

I think we need a mega thread of everyone's craziest archive stories.

Thanks to @djrgrey.bsky.social for this @genderandhistory.bsky.social special issue! My article is on visa bans for mixed couples in Morocco, but check out @emmakale.bsky.social on Mughal harems and @emilyncock.bsky.social on disabled convicts in Australia onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14680424...

Just listened to this piece on RTE Radio 1. The sting in the tail, as ever, is she's a Tr*mp supporter who didn't expect that dealing with the immigrants would mean her: "unreal that someone can be treated like vermin for a petty crime that was committed ten years ago". www.rte.ie/news/ireland...

Some tweets on the pre-Famine structure of the Irish peasantry. The academic consensus of a massive landless proletariat at social war with tenant farmers is, I think, unsupportable.

A joy to examine this terrific PhD on urban photography & social welfare in the 1st half of the 20th c. The strengths are myriad, but I was most struck by how visual culture informed welfare state narratives; important to remember as modern British urban history is moving to a post-1945 focus.

It has been an utter joy to supervise Sadie’s brilliant PhD

Dustjacket

Only just clocked that a podcast to which I contributed is actually on BBC Sounds! Thereby achieving a longstanding dream of being on the Beeb ... #skystorians #earlymodern www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Slightly surreal for the Modern British City to be co-reviewed in the Literary Review alongside @holsmith.bsky.social's wonderful Up in the Air, on the page after my father's new book on Vanbrugh. Three excellent books I think, & Jerry White concludes of MBC that 'Its richness is truly staggering'.

Vivid memories remain of our National Trust report, an audit of existing research on country houses' colonial histories. Here is a recent open access article about The National Trust and future possibilities for exploring colonial history by Jessica Moody. www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

New article! Joe Curran on '(Re-)Making the ‘Stateless Capital’: Edinburgh and Dublin in European Context, c.1820–1850' academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-...

I finished my paper talking about my grandparents, and the ways that we talk about people as demographics or lost causes

I couldn’t stop thinking of this awful tragedy all day. If a lane is so overgrown you can’t see a cyclist until 1s until impact, surely you shouldn’t be driving that fast even if it is under speed limit. Seems like a licence to kill cyclists. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Spotify has laid off thousands in recent years, while reportedly paying artists $0.003 per stream. Spotify profits rose 28% in Q3. Its CEO is worth $9.8 billion. It's making money off ICE recruitment ads. Don't you think it's time put a wrap on corporate greed and exploitation?

It's Christmas buying time, so why not buy someone Marc Mulholland's 'At the Rising of the Moon: The Peasantry and Ireland from the Tudor Conquest to the Fall of Landlordism?' (Or order for your library). Tweet summary of the book below.

This was a hugely energising two-and-a-half days. Big thanks to Greywood Arts Centre for hosting us, to this/OUR for the collaboration, and to everyone who came along to participate. It's the first workshop I've been to where we've managed to spend half of the time outdoors - as is only fitting.

If you're in the vicinity of @dculibrary.bsky.social, please pop in to see an exhibition selected from the archive material I've donated. It relates to my first book, The Destruction of Dublin (1985), and the Dublin Crisis Conference I helped to organise in February 1986. A blast from the past!

The nice (?) thing about writing a brilliant history book is that it takes SO LONG that even today in the midst of [rolls eyes, looks around, collapses in a faint], great new works are finally making their way into print. Including Rob Priest's Obberamergau book! global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Get down to the London Irish Centre for launch of 'Photo Album of the Irish', a new photo book & exhibition celebrating lives & stories of Irish families in England across generations, in partnership with Photo Museum Ireland https://londonirishcentre.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/1173668457

I’ve started writing about my cycling adventures with my son. It’s a blog/journal with essays on movement, writing, and the art of keeping upright, called “Precious Cargo: A dad and his cargo bike trying to keep their balance”. And here’s the first post. electricpunkah.substack.com/p/trying-to-...

I've been watching Numberblocks a bit lately with my kids as they learn their times tables, and I've noticed that they've given '32' an Irish accent, and a vaguely Northern one at that. Coincidence? Or someone in the production team sneaking a subliminal pro-United Ireland message onto CBeebies?