I hate when dead animal are given a different name (eg. sheep/mutton) as though their lives and suffering are erased, their bodies reimagined as a simple product for human pleasure--But I think 'mairteoil' ('beef') gets a pass--It may come from latin mortuus ('dead'). dil.ie/search?searc...

Put these pictures side to side for an article pitch and the family resemblance between myself and Daniel Mendoza (in 1788) is actually *uncanny* .

If you could introduce any historical figures to one another and either join the conversation or just watch them interact, who would you pick?

I have GONE WILD on the 1926 Irish census and have made some fun discoveries: Trinidadian medical students, a Baháʼí couple in Donegal, the Irish widow of an emigré Cossack, and Egyptian sailors in Cork city - among many others.

Teaching a history course that covers British involvement in the slave trade and this is an interesting infographic of compensation payouts when Britain abolishes slavery throughout the empire in 1833. [Heblich, Redding and Voth, 'Slavery and the British industrial Revolution']

I do like how obvious it is that academics say "the ____ Turn" to avoid saying "the ____ trend"

Circa 1800, David Ochterlony of Boston MA used to promenade around Delhi each evening with his mistresses. Each mistress rode her very own elephant. So, babe, if he wanted to—he would. [source: Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire]

The proliferation of this quote is so interesting to me. It's often posted by right wing chuds who use it to defend conventional aesthetic ideas — such as the importance of having a lean, athletic body — but they don't really understand Owens's work. Let's talk about it. 🧵

If you’re texting after 1am you’d best be providing me with niche history facts

I have become aware of the 2025 Eurovision sing called 'Serving Kant'. Whilst the concept is undeniably clever, I was dismayed to discover this song is not, in fact, about Kantian dialectics :-(

Me: Of course I'll cut down on my footnotes. Also me: It is vital that I tell you about this salmon

Someone on this train just described a friend as ‘naturally avant garde’, which manages to be simultaneously damning and the highest praise

Chaucer famously asserts that what women want is sovereignty. However, I believe that what women want is to be asked *whether they have sufficient ponies* (and, when the answer is a woebegone negative, offered more ponies). In this essay, I will--

If you send me a photo of your pet, I will be unable to resist replying with what I infer to be your pet’s political opinions

How did it take 5 years of teaching medieval lit for me to finally receive an essay titled ‘Slay, Queen’ 😂

19th century pearl-clutching about terrorists become less classy is the funniest thing I’ve read today

Love that my friend sent me this as a vacation idea for us 😂 news.artnet.com/art-world/br...

Sadly unsuccessful in convincing any children that Santa Claus is short for ‘Santa Von Clausewitz’ and that he is not merely judging one’s naughtiness/niceness but one’s grand strategy for the year.

My dad just approvingly commented, 'Sometimes cvilisation advances at a jump, rather than a crawl'.

Christmas has me thinking about trends in the use of gold in Christian iconography

Well that’s the ‘whose historical dinner party’ question answered. Despite years of fangirling, I had no idea the famous bellydancer Tahiyya Carioca was so politically active!

I’ve been lifting to deal with the stress of the academic job market and now I’m fairly likely to represent GB in 2026 so I think that tells you all you need to know

This is just to say— I have fucked up some fadhas that were in the book manuscript and which Reviewer 2 was exasperated to see Forgive me they were coimpléasc so duaisiúil and so aimrhéateach

Note-to-self to use this Irish recolutionary handbill as an article title.

I think this is the same royal visit to Ireland in 1903 in which Maud Gonne hung half a black petticoat from a broomstick as a flag outside her home. When the police removed it, she replaced it with a new black flag made from the petticoat's other half.

I’m in rural Wales on a journey to a portal to the Otherworld (as you do). My friend has used half his luggage to bring a rice cooker because, even if we end up at an Otherworldly banquet, this man isn’t convinced there will be correctly-made rice.

'Late 20th c. machines have made thoroughly ambiguous the difference between natural and artifical...self-developing and externally designed...Our machines are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert.' -Donna Haraway, A Cyborg Manifesto

Genuinely delighted to download a PhD thesis from a university repository where the author has neglected to remove the words "BITCH THIS IS YOUR THESIS" from the filename.

Absolute burn from Richard the Lionheart [source is Hilary Rhodes, ‘Richard the Lionheart, Contested Queerness, and Crusading Memory’]

There's no way to quite get it across in English but I love the saint Colum Cille's description of a young warrior as 'eólach cech ernmaiss'. It's like, 'learned in all forms of death-by-iron'

One phrase in the English language stands out as for its exceptional versatility. In this essay I will--

Normal family whatsapp chat

Why is girls' night so hard to organise

It’s Walter Benjamin’s yahrzeit. He was a philosopher who chose to die whilst fleeing the Nazis in 1940. He is the only historical figure I *miss*, irrationally, as though he was a friend I suddenly lost.

Re: the Charlie Kirk murder in the USA: If you're not familiar with Horst Wessel, now would be a great time to look it up.

The documents are Napoleonic era, but I nonetheless hear this in Picard's voice and expect tha next word to be 'stardate'

Unexpected delight at the names for different classifications of gunship

Someone should start a vegan shop and call it Seitanic Panic

www.asymptotejournal.com/poetry/i-san... A poet I hadn't heard of before today

People don't talk nearly enough about how cute 16th Century Witch's Familiars were.

reverse heist movie where a single snake has to chase all the priests back into ireland

Best team shirt ever, such a vibe

Friends are doing a romantic weekend away to learn how to forge swords, and, may I just say, that is absolute GOALS ⚔️

The book manuscript is handed in to the publisher! And the research assistants have both received carrots as per their contract.

Omg is TikTok just a new version of tableaux performance, eg St Edna’s kids doing skits

This might be my favourite book of 2025, it’s such a fascinating and beautifully written read

Packing for a trip: 15 minutes of throwing clothes haphazardly into a bag followed by 1.5 hours agonising over how to limit myself to a max of one book per day 😭

Look at this long boi! [Seanchus Mór, TCD] www.isos.dias.ie/TCD/TCD_MS_1...

This was not the thing I was searching my old notebook for, but nonetheless—