A Christmas book haul.

This is Ireland 2025.

All I want for Christmas is for people to stop submitting articles before they're anywhere near ready, and, in the event that doesn't work, for editors to stop sending them out for peer review. (Yes, I'm aware this is a structural problem, but I still don't want to have to review these pieces...)

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...

Agree - this goes for everything from academic historians to software engineers. If you don't know how to recognise the errors, how will you know there are any errors in the first place? And, ergo, how will you ever know how to fix the issue?

"Seasonal lag" also sounds like a pretty useful description for those Netflix series you watch in winter that should be six episodes instead of eight.

In 2006, my wife and I won the lottery to be inside the chamber at Newgrange on 19 December. The morning then was foggy, so no light entered the chamber, but to be inside was one of the most incredible events I've ever experienced. www.youtube.com/live/lRgumO6...

To me, the crux of the made-up citations scandal is less the AI and more that higher ed structures incentivise people in many disciplines to write articles based on material they've never read. What a total waste, of energy and time. And what a sad reflection of the state of intellectual inquiry.

A great opportunity for researchers writing up a PhD thesis or recently completed in refugee history broadly defined - a friendly and supportive working environment and this year in … Vienna!

Listening to this to close out the working week. Thirty years old. I first heard it by loaning Mellon Collie from my friend Andrew. Poor fella. No one ever borrowed both tapes at the same time, and we just passed them on between us; I'm not sure he ever got them back. youtube.com/watch?v=4aeE...

International political theory - a second-year politics lecture module at TCD, which was so difficult it made us frightened to be in the class (it was turned into a third-year module directly afterwards), but which gave me such a fantastic grounding in the subject I've never forgotten it.

My new book — Humanitarianism: A Very Short Introduction — is now available as an e-book (paperback in March 2026)! The book offers a concise history of humanitarianism in an international perspective, from the 18th century to the present. More info here: global.oup.com/academic/pro...

They've been talking about this on Morning Ireland since 8.10. It strikes me this is a perfect example of a story that excites journalists but that most of the rest of the country (ie almost everyone) couldn't care less about. www.rte.ie/news/politic...

This is an incredible story, topped only by the use of the adjective "cocky" here: "The court heard that this man said that McKiernan came out of a bedroom and that he was naked, cocky and arrogant, offered him a crack pipe and told him that he was a senator." www.rte.ie/news/courts/...

One of this year's great thrills was getting to film a documentary on Gallaghers and the Gallagher surname (with a dollop of my own family history too) for TG4. Our episode of Sloinne is being broadcast again on Wednesday 17 December at 7.30pm (or streaming here): www.tg4.ie/en/player/on...

A glorious morning for the school drop off. These kinds of mid-December days are good for the soul.

Ireland just saw its all-time wind power record broken twice in the past 8 days 🥇🥈 Prior to December, we hadn't seen a new record for more than 18 months. Unusual to see it broken over the weekend when demand is lowest and has already started to tail off before Christmas. #SpeirGorm

The further we get from the high point of the landfill indie era, the clearer our perspective will become on the music that stands the test of time. Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion is the one that stands out for me. It still sounds boundary-pushing, sixteen years later.

Just finished reading this. A beautifully written book and a brilliant piece of historical fiction, but at its heart it's also a deep rumination on language, how it bends, and how we acquire it.

Sleigh Ride by the Ronettes is *the* perfect Christmas song. youtu.be/DkXIJe8CaIc?...

Friday morning listening, on the train to Dublin: Moroccan electronica artist Guedra Guedra, with spoken word from Egyptian filmmaker Jihan El Tahri. "Imagine yourself as an African archaeologist from the future..." www.youtube.com/watch?v=855E...

CFP: "Ireland’s role in an era of Conflict and Uncertainty: International Law, Human Rights, and Global Security" Next year's International Affairs Conference @ria.ie . CFP deadline = 20 Feb 2026 Full details are available here: www.ria.ie/2025/12/09/c... 🗃️

#CfP Call for Papers Organised by Global History and Culture Centre, University of Warwick: Between Thompson and the Global: Reflections on Labour History Today Workshop: 26-27 June 2026, University of Warwick Deadline for abstracts: 30 January 2026 Submit to [email protected]

If anyone argues with you that sport is not political, you should roll out this remarkable statistic, from Simon Kuper's piece about the 2010 World Cup in the latest issue of @theblizzard.bsky.social. The legacy of apartheid was still visible in the bodies of South African footballers decades later.

What I find more remarkable than the peace award is how little knowledge seems to exist about how FIFA has *always* operated. The first World Cup in 1930 was tied to Uruguayan nationalism (the final was in the newly-built Centenario stadium). 1934 was in Italy (no explanation needed). 1/3

Unwanted opinion: Baxter Dury's album, Allbarone, might just be the best thing I've heard this year. The title track is what I think the kids would call a "banger". And his dancing in the video is 👌 youtu.be/Q0JAy4Fa9HA?...

Well done @rte.ie! "Ireland will not participate in next year's Eurovision Song Contest, and it will not be broadcast by RTÉ, after the European Broadcasting Union confirmed today that Israel will be allowed to take part." www.rte.ie/entertainmen...

The big smoke, from the Ha'penny Bridge.

Great culture can save lives. Literally. Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

Some days as vice-dean I get to chair really cool conversations. We had two today. First up was the inaugural event in our "Research Dialogues" series, through which we're trying to bring together colleagues from a range of disciplines to talk about their research and to seek out connections. 1/3

"I want to know what it was like to live in those multicultural societies at different points in time." @kieranconnell.bsky.social on his approach to writing 'Multicultural Britain: A People’s History' #WolfsonHistoryPrize. @hurstpublishers.bsky.social

The Corrib by night.

One for the #speirgorm community.

If you're in ireland and have kids in primary school or soon to be, please fill out this survey on preferences re religious involvement in schools, and whether people prefer single-sex or co-ed. It takes < 1 minute and will inform future provision. #speirgorm www.gov.ie/en/departmen...

Sunday night listening is this fascinating album from Róis, which takes tradition keening, twists it around, and pushes it into the future. Caoine, in particular, is well worth a listen. roismusicroismusic.bandcamp.com/album/mo-l-an

🚨#History #envhist Job Alert: My Department is hiring an Assistant Professor in Environmental History. 🗃️ Come work with us at Warwick. You'll get both excellent colleagues and great students! See details below... And do not hesitate to spread the word... 👇👇👇 www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPK289/a...

"Went from St. Paul to Cicero in my Chevrolet that didn’t have any radio Had a boombox in the back seat that was running on batteries Played 1999 and Led Zeppelin III When the tape deck got all wobbly, she still sang the harmonies"

The Irish Times published and lauded John Collison's op-ed, but did they fact-check it? Andrew Jackson did. Thoroughly. If you spent time reading the original, you'd want to give time to this counterpoint as well.

Opportunity to work with other me on a funded PhD at Queens - may suit anyone interested in gender, history of the child and family in 20thC Ireland. Happy to chat to anyone thinking of it!

On my way to Belfast this morning to talk about the pharmaceutical industry, bodies, ecosystems, and how we read the history of Ireland's economic transformation since the 1960s. Will include some chat about the smells of 1980s Ireland, as well as what topography tells us about Ireland's economy.

Love this: Michele Horrigan's activist art on Aughinish Alumina, which explores the impact of heavy industry on Irish ecosystems and the people that are part of them. To me the podcast episodes are the most striking element - highlighting the globalised nature of this issue. www.stigmadamages.com

This Friday in Belfast, in case anyone is around. I'll be talking a lot about industrial chemicals, about the pharmaceutical industry, and about where we look for evidence of capitalism in late c20th Ireland.

"I'm really, really emotional right now". Us too, Troy, us too. www.rte.ie/sport/soccer...

Football. Bloody hell

This is a very good, well-balanced piece on AI and the tools we will need for the world it creates: "Be drawn toward what interests you. Learn the old-fashioned skills. When it is time to apply technology to them you will be ahead." naomialderman.substack.com/p/preparing-...

👀 Irish data centres are now using 22% of all electricity generated in Ireland, more than all urban homes combined & drawing an unquantified amount (lots) of Ireland’s water capacity Could AI demands be related to recent push to fast-track infrastructure, side-step safeguards & reduce court access?

Post-work listening this Friday evening: Fever Ray - Coconut youtu.be/kTvroPUOq7w?...

Amazing. Ronaldo being sent off was the icing on the cake. www.rte.ie/sport/soccer...

Last week, our colleague @kevinkosullivan.bsky.social ran the second workshop of the 'Sites of Fracture' project, in collaboration with the this/OUR academic-artist collective. Over two days in east Cork, participants explored the village of Killeagh as a site of resistance against capitalism.

President Catherine Connolly has called for action on war, genocide and climate change, saying the normalisation of war “has never been and will never be acceptable” to Ireland, a nation with a long tradition of neutrality and peacekeeping. #VMNews