The logical jumps in this are really something. www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

Every night RTÉ is playing some classic movie in the middle of the night and each time I promise myself I'll just go to bed. They do it every Christmas

The footage RTÉ unearths to accompany reporting on the newly-released state documents is almost invariably more interesting than the files themselves.

Upping your spending growth target from 5% to 6% and calling it a fundamental change is impressively creative. The Rainbow govt targeted 2% real spending growth and got close. McCreevy set 4% nominal and got nowhere near it. We've been much more like the latter www.irishtimes.com/business/202...

Just appalled at the way the vote on this went. Three major parties without anything approximating a soul

Future civilisations will marvel at this image. Sages will debate its meaning

It's spectacular that he's survived scandal after scandal, breaking every rule of politics, but for his supporters inflation is the Rubicon.

Props to the sole boys to do music and Spanish for the Inter Cert in 1942 (both passed)

Dark forces are preventing us fighting the climate crisis – by taking knowledge hostage | George Monbiot

It shouldn't need reiteration but most of the kids who ended up in industrial schools were just guilty of being poor.

'The Irish political system is designed so that elected representatives are in constant contact with our communities' The crux of the problem. It doesn't take constant contact to identify what the problems are. Capturing the marginal votes makes for bad policy www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025...

Anti-vaxers in 1940s Ireland

Or, perish the thought, be young? Opinion: Our young people are the future – the next President of Ireland should empower them share.google/IYEIDTXsKnHc...

🗣️ "Are we going to have a conversation, on the level that you are about deportations here, about the crisis of male violence against women in this country?” - News Correspondent, The Journal Eimer McAuley #TonightVMTV

I have a question here

I'm going through the government reports for the past century and the introduction of the school medical service is one of the most interesting things. The public health problems were jaw-dropping, even after years of operation. Here's the results from the inspections in Dublin, 1936-7

This particular cold dish deserves a Michelin star. www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41...

‘Throwing more money at it won't solve the housing crisis. We need more workers.’ Ahead of Budget 2026, Dr Ciarán Casey shares how ‘the proper time to have built infrastructure and housing here was during the last crash’. Read on, in the Journal.ie: www.thejournal.ie/readme/housi... #StayCurious

Leaving this closed for four years is appallingly stupid. We're right beside it and it's magic. It's a cliff, you get rockfalls. Make it as safe as you can but just get on with it share.google/kke2Mb58IwyS...

In today’s Irish Examiner, Dr Ciarán Casey, Assistant Professor UL’s Kemmy Business School, argues that when it comes to inheritance tax, ‘capitalism just rewards those who already have capital’. Read on: www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/comm... #StayCurious #Budget2026

Who was the first Amazon guy who said 'yeah, I'd better put this in the bin for safe keeping'?

Very much the approach Jesus took with his own designer clothing and contempt for the left

My review of Frank Barry's recent book, Industry and Policy in Independent Ireland, in Irish Historical Studies www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Could a small amount be put aside in the Budget to paint the internal walls in university buildings please? I'll go round and do it all personally if necessary

In the Irish Examiner, Dr Ciarán Casey, Assistant Professor in Economics at UL’s Kemmy Business School, writes how a ‘lack of vision has wasted Ireland's unplanned tax windfall’. Read on: www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/comm... #StudyatUL #StayCurious

I've just submitted an newspaper article on the Budget and now see the usual inane nonsense about increasing inheritance tax thresholds as a moral imperative. Perish the thought that the most fortunate 3% of the population pays some tax on that good fortune. The forgotten minority

If Bob Geldof gets on the campaign trail he'll light it up. The ballot is desperately uninspiring and he's so eloquent he'll be dynamite if he gets a good run

Back when official reports were entitled using the I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)' format. Catchy stuff

Currently copying and pasting this gem into a lecture on inflation

From the first Hospitals Commission report in 1936:

This is fast becoming a compelling argument for a hereditary monarchy

Even allowing all benefit of the doubt the logic here is dizzying

From an inspector of boarded out (foster) children in 1932. Saying the quiet part loud

If aliens come there's a good chance it won't be to meet us

People aren't sufficiently concerned about grade inflation in the 1920s and 1930s. Those kids were wasters

Interesting! In 1930 there were about 20 million train journeys taken in Ireland, compared to 50 million last year.

Daily reports from the UK on the outrage of the BBC playing inappropriate chants from Glastonbury alongside daily reports of actual outrages committed at Gaza.

The marriage rate in 2024 was 3.8 per thousand population. Interestingly, it's not dramatically lower than a century ago

Births weren't officially registered in Ireland until 1864 and then the census returns were burnt in the Four Courts, making it really hard for people in the 1920s/30s to prove their ages to get a pension. The acceptable alternative documentation included dated birthday cards

Because our infrastructure projects to date have been excessively beautiful? Cost to take priority over ‘aesthetics’ in future State infrastructure projects – The Irish Times share.google/nZ0R23nt4Fen...

The absolute best time of year

A toddler that won't sleep and a bucket of cement rapidly setting as the sun goes down 😔

Oh good. How Ireland became the Saudi Arabia of siphoned-off global profits share.google/KTGeuahTzkBJ...

I was enjoying this until the claim at the end that the Act of Union enriched Dublin. I've read elsewhere that Mountjoy Square plummeted afterwards because the society set wanted to live near a parliament www.telegraph.co.uk/art/architec...

The memoirs are starting to pile up, with more on the way. If anyone has any recommendations for Ireland, 1922 to 1945, please send them on

Really shocked by this- in 1928 the infant mortality rate (under a year) in Ireland was five times higher for 'illegitimate' children than for the remainder, at over 30%.

Irish hospitals were still buying enough leeches in 1925 to make them a major expenses item

Some helpful suggestions to Primary Schools at the birth of the state.

This is very good www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025...