Journalism used to be the bread on which daily advertising jam was delivered. The Internet broke this old financial model for delivering ads to consumers via traditional media (newspapers, tv, radio) and digital delivery isn’t working as well. Now journalism AND fridges are in trouble. Is my theory.

Culture Night Ireland 2025. I’ll be in Kerry with Dorota Borowa at Grilse Gallery.

This book will now launch on 3rd Oct at Dunamaise Arts Centre 🤍

Journalism used to be the bread on which daily advertising jam was delivered. The Internet broke this old financial model for delivering ads to consumers via traditional media (newspapers, tv, radio) and digital delivery isn’t working as well. Now journalism AND fridges are in trouble. Is my theory.

This should say *were considerably worse. Arg.

Ireland’s Basic Income for the Arts pilot. Case Study: Satu Teppo, Paraic Mc Quaid. “…participants have invested almost half of the BIA funding back into their practice even though their levels of deprivation where considerably worse than the general population.” www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Ngā mihi nui Thank you! to the folks at I te Kokoru At the Bay. My short story On the Couch has been shortlisted for the 2025 Katherine Mansfield Sparkling Prose Competition in Aotearoa New Zealand 🤩 atthebay.org/sparkling-pr...

The essay I wrote is now available to read on RTÉ Culture. “During the rolling pandemic lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, Angie Shanahan and Bridget Flannery, friends since their 1980s Crawford Art College days, began what is best described as an immersive collaboration...” www.rte.ie/culture/2025...

"83.3% of LLM users were unable to quote even one sentence from the essay they had just written"

🎥Episode Two of Dublin, One City, Many Stories is out now! 🎥 This second video in the series Dublin, One City, Many Stories, was produced by the @irishwriterscentre.bsky.social to celebrate 15 years of Dublin as a City of Literature. youtu.be/3AlCWwM-09s?...

One last-minute space for this - starting next Thursday! ✨

It’s appalling that these companies are not pulling these dangerous products off the market until they can make them safe. It’s appalling that regulators aren’t intervening. It’s appalling that the makers/boosters of genAI products are trying to ensure there can be no regulation.

"The place where the edge of the water meets the start of the land is a departure point. It's an invitation to step from gravity-filled air into the buoyancy of liquid, from one form of wisdom towards a different kind of knowledge, maybe even from one version of yourself into another way of being.”

So lovely to receive a copy of this book marking the Seanchas; Lore exhibition by Bridget Flannery (1959-2024), Jen Donnery and Jackie Carter held at Damer House Gallery, Roscrea Co. Tipperary in April/May of last year. The show travelled to Atelier Enrico Ferrarini in Florence, Italy in Oct 2024.

The beautiful rare book display at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale. We stopped by this week and had to share with you all.

Aha! So now we can use computers to make art not look like what art looks like to other computers so other computers cannot mimic that art in order to make art that makes us think it looks like what it isn’t. In all seriousness, I like the concept of this tool.

So lovely to receive a copy of this book marking the Seanchas; Lore exhibition by Bridget Flannery (1959-2024), Jen Donnery and Jackie Carter held at Damer House Gallery, Roscrea Co. Tipperary in April/May of last year. The show travelled to Atelier Enrico Ferrarini in Florence, Italy in Oct 2024.

New edition of Irish Arts Review is out, with Ailbhe Ní Bhriain on the cover and my piece on Catherine Barron’s retrospective - now extended until 20 September at Waterford Gallery of Art - inside. #art #irishart #artwriting

The Irish Govt survey on a Basic Income for Artists is open until Sep 5. This world-leading scheme has been piloted & shown through ongoing research to have delivered transformative results for those receiving it. Short survey. Very quick to fill in. Have your say here: ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/run...

Ooo! Just found out my story is longlisted for the 2025 Katherine Mansfield Sparkling Prose competition 🤩 Stories still anonymous at this stage. It’s for fiction of up to 1888 words – a ref to Mansfield's birth year – with the theme “double life”. Shortlist in Sept. atthebay.org/sparkling-pr...

Had to double check this, but yes Catherine Barron show at Waterford Gallery of Art has been extended until 20 Sept.

Busy being blown away by this proof copy of Lily Dunn’s Into Being, The Radical Craft of Memoir and its Power to Transform. Due out in October. @manchesterup.bsky.social @lilydunn.bsky.social

I was so delighted to catch Catherine Barron’s exhibition today before it closed. Beautiful, beautiful work. Looking forward to reading @cristinleach.bsky.social’s essay in the exhibition catalogue

Joint statement on Gaza from AFP, AP, BBC News and Reuters

Final week to see Mary Fahy’s Brigid's Well paintings, Portumna Castle until 31 July. My essay on her work is in gallery and at www.rte.ie/culture/2025... A % of painting sales to Palestine Children's Relief Fund and The Sameer Project. Price list via Mary on Insta: www.instagram.com/reel/DMerLMZ...

“All these traumas are the reason why the Irish took almost 150 years before they could memorialise what they experienced in the 1840s. Those who inflict starvation are aware of this, they know that what they’re doing is actually dismantling a society.” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Seeing as what it feels like to be a married woman in the sudden wake of infidelity is a hot topic right now, here are some reviews of and places you can buy my book Negative Space. Scroll to the end for Irish, US, UK and European bookshop options… 📚 linktr.ee/negativespac...

Gaza is now single deadliest conflict for journalists in history. This is not only an attempt to extinguish a whole people, it is also an attempt to extinguish the story of their genocide. “One day, everyone will have always been against this.” - Egyptian-Canadian writer, Omar El Akkad. #Gaza

🚨BREAKING: The last journalists working for AFP in Gaza have said they can no longer work for the news agency. They are out of energy and they are starving to death. I have never seen a statement from a news organisation like it. 🧵

Coming soon #collaboration ✍🏻

Check out the full line-up here: www.stanchionzine.com/product-page...

gallery owner navigating through life and relationships. It's trenchant, it's slightly bitter, it's standing by your decisions even when you regret them. Written in collaboration with @cristinleach.bsky.social.

Day Two of dropping the first line of a story featured in An Honour and a Privilege, my collaborative anthology coming in December: "An old lover once told me it was better to squeeze the toothpaste directly into my mouth. " From 'A Hunter's Blind (2025)', this story follows an elderly & blind

My brother’s released a new hammered dulcimer album on Bandcamp - Dulcimer Dreams by Brian Leach. It’s beautiful #listen #dulcimer #brianleach briano.bandcamp.com/album/dulcim...

A real treat to interview Eimear McBride for @wcorklitfest.bsky.social A brilliant, direct and insightful communicator about her own practice and writing itself. AND she did two room-silencing readings from The City Changes Its Face. #irishwriter #bookfestival

I am mildly obsessed with nailing a good first line, and IMO to do so one must convey at least three or four details/pieces of information. As a reader, I want to know several things immediately: what's the MC doing? What time period/era is this? What's just happened to stir up conflict in the MC's

News! www.offaly.ie/occ_news/ann...

The Singularity is a beautiful book. So lucky to have had the opportunity to interview @balsamkaram.bsky.social together with her translator Saskia Vogel @wcorklitfest.bsky.social @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social

I might need to work on my rabbit in headlights face for next year @wcorklitfest.bsky.social 😆 🐰 Neil was great! It’s a memoir of childhood and (some) Hollywood, more subtle and curious than tell-all and boisterous, and very beautifully structured. Among the themes is the question of memoir itself.

The Singularity is a beautiful book. So lucky to have had the opportunity to interview @balsamkaram.bsky.social together with her translator Saskia Vogel @wcorklitfest.bsky.social @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social

Reading prep DONE for @wcorklitfest.bsky.social 📚 I’ll be talking to Neil Jordan about his brilliant memoir Amnesiac Mon 8.30pm, Eimear McBride about her stunning follow up to The Lesser Bohemians Wed 8.30pm, but first with Balsam Karam about her unforgettable second book The Singularity Mon 2.30pm.

Great interview with Neil Jordan on @seanmoncrieff.bsky.social @newstalkfm.bsky.social. Neil will be our special guest at WCLF on Monday night when he'll be in conversation with @cristinleach.bsky.social 🎟️ www.westcorkmusic.ie/events/2025/amnesiac-neil-jordan/ 📻 www.goloudplayer.com/episodes/nei...

Events I’m hosting for West Cork Literary Festival - tickets available now @wcorklitfest.bsky.social. Yes, that’s Eimear McBride, Neil Jordan, Will Sliney, Balsam Karam & Saskia Vogel 📚 #bookfestival www.westcorkmusic.ie/artists/2025...

Neil Jordan will be at WCLF Mon 14 July chatting to @cristinleach.bsky.social about his life, career & his memoir Amnesiac 🎟️ www.westcorkmusic.ie/events/2025/amnesiac-neil-jordan/ @irishexaminer.bsky.social @cormackinsella.bsky.social @headofzeus.bsky.social www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/ar...

Did you hear @willsliney.bsky.social, the marvellous Marvel comics artist from Cork, on The Hard Shoulder @newstalkfm.bsky.social? Join Will at WCLF Tues 15 July 10am for Coffee & Chat w/ @cristinleach.bsky.social 🎟️ www.westcorkmusic.ie/events/2025/will-sliney/ 📻 link.goloudplayer.com/s/pGcHBlP7YRxK

“Between 4pm on Saturday 14 June & 4pm on Sunday 15 June, Eileen Walsh spent 24 hours playing The Second Woman at Cork Opera House as part of Cork Midsummer Festival 2025. I watched her for sixteen of them.” Read on, for my review on RTÉ Culture, to find out how it went: www.rte.ie/culture/2025...

Really excited to be part of this. Pre-sales are open now. You know what to do! #craftofwriting #shortstory #collaboration @stanchion.bsky.social @lindzmcleod.bsky.social

Events I’m hosting for West Cork Literary Festival - tickets available now @wcorklitfest.bsky.social. Yes, that’s Eimear McBride, Neil Jordan, Will Sliney, Balsam Karam & Saskia Vogel 📚 #bookfestival www.westcorkmusic.ie/artists/2025...

a priceless insight into the minds of some truly incredible writers whom I very much admire. (And of course, I'm there too) Seriously, check it out.