I am honestly sick of being told — at a university FFS — that we need to ‘embrace’ this profoundly unethical and irresponsible technology.

A real privilege to be giving the citation for an hon DLitt for Rob Savage this evening. At Aviva University, now a constituent college of the National University of Ireland (it seems)

On 24 Nov. we welcome Dr Catriona Kennedy (York), to speak about her new book 'Women, politics, and the Irish public sphere'. All welcome (hybrid) www.qub.ac.uk/schools/Iris...

Vital piece of investigative reporting from Sky. They've uncovered the X algorithm which feeds users extremist right wing material from the moment they join the site. It is a far-right radicalisation engine, by design. news.sky.com/story/the-x-...

We are co-hosting on 3 Dec. a conference on 'From Boundary Commission to Border Poll? A Century of the Irish Border'. This is a free event, but registration is required (by 26 Nov.). Info at: www.ticketsource.co.uk/institute-of...

If you missed Elena Bergia's talk on 'In two stirrups: Identities in motion between Northern Ireland and Casalattico (Italy)', a recording is now available at youtu.be/R_ampLPzWyU

Provocative, big-picture essay from a major historian of capitalism

On 10 November we will be joined by Hiram Morgan (UCC), who will talk about '"Anatomies of death": forced famine in the Tudor conquest of Ireland'. All welcome, in-person or online: www.qub.ac.uk/schools/Iris...

In a change to our planned seminar series, our next seminar will be Sophie Cooper speaking on 'Building to feel ‘at home’: Embedding/embedded memory in the built environments of Belfast and the diaspora'. Thursday 13 Nov, *online* at 7pm. @sophcocooper.bsky.social www.eventbrite.ie/e/sophie-coo...

Exciting news! Filming will soon start on a Bad Bridgets film, inspired by Elaine Farrell & Leanne McCormick's great book. We're delighted to have both Elaine & Leanne on our USIHS Committee (for many reasons, this is just today's extra one) @badbridgetbook.bsky.social deadline.com/2025/10/dais...

“We are told that AI is inevitable, that we must adapt or be left behind. But universities are not tech companies. Our role is to foster critical thinking, not to follow industry trends uncritically.”

Visiting the great and good of Budapest past on All Souls Day

Ossian in Budapest - a spooktastic painting

Taking in Bartok, Brahms, Mozart and Dvorak at the sublime Liszt Academy Concert Hall in Budapest 😍

Memento Park in Budapest — as a historian of public commemoration this one has been on my bucket list

Budapest gothic and neo-gothic

Our next seminar is on Monday 3 Nov. When Elena Bergia will speak on ‘In two stirrups: Identities in motion between Northern Ireland and Casalattico (Italy)’. All welcome in person/online. www.qub.ac.uk/schools/Iris...

Beautiful Budapest in autumn

Cafe culture in fin de siècle Pest

Doing a thing tomorrow night for the Crossgar Historical Society

Spot the works by today's artist, Quentin Metsys, that hung in the home of the great collector Cornelis van der Geest in my own time. Had all the stars! I am here too, in person and in painting.

On Monday 17 November we'll be joined by Luca Bertolani Azeredo (Scuola Superiore Meridionale, Naples), who will speak on 'The Enniskillen Horse: illegality, legitimacy and the birth of Irish paramilitarism'. All welcome, in-person or online. Registration is at: www.qub.ac.uk/schools/Iris...

This is great news - delighted that Sunil will be our visiting Wiles Lecturer in History at QUB next May. The book is outstanding.

Really excellent and thorough review by @katyhayward.bsky.social of ‘For and Against a United Ireland’ this morn. Too often IT book reviews actually fail to review the book itself! This was an impressive critique informed by Katy’s own formidable expertise: www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

JD Vance has long claimed to be a “Scots-Irish hillbilly”, however experts have cast doubt on this.

Stephen Collins’ latest

If you missed Ian d'Alton's talk yesterday about '1932: Seeing the same world differently: Irish Catholics and Protestants a decade after independence', it's now available online at youtu.be/9oxWs0PTA1Y

New resource on BNA for people interested in 1890s Ireland - 'The Illustrograph' (1894-9) Dubbed 'The Graphic of Ireland,' it was a monthly paper edited by H. Easom Hudson, printing a range of photographs celebrating Irish personalities & places. www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/titles/illus...

As featured recently in Dom Bryan's talk on Irish pubs and 'banal nationalism' www.youtube.com/watch?v=50e-...

Each one of those 98/99% of failed applications represents dozens or hundreds of hours of work for the actual applicant; a vast stack of emails about budgeting, cost-centres, reviews, approvals, HR, Finance Office, Research Support... Pissed. Up. A. Wall. For the sake of only picking "winners".

Call for Papers – IHSA 2026 Conference at Maynooth University The Irish History Students’ Association, with the support of the Department of History at Maynooth University, is delighted to announce the 77th Annual IHSA Conference, taking place on Saturday, 28 February 2026.

A bit late to finding this but still interesting - a silhouette made c.1829 of Mabel Sharman Crawford, and the only image I’ve seen of WSC’s wife (1785-1844). Part of the 1947 Crawfordsburn House sale and now at the Crawford AG Cork

Seems like an opportune moment to re-up our paper about AWS seeking infrastructural dominance in education through a range of operations that include platforming the edtech industry on its cloud services codeactsineducation.wordpress.com/2022/07/12/h...

“When we realised these jewels were only stolen to inflate the share price of a company whose entire value relies on the wholesale theft of other people’s art, we had no choice but grant immunity,” Genius from @waterfordwhispers.bsky.social waterfordwhispersnews.com/2025/10/20/l...

#NOKINGS Dublin! Brilliant turnout at US Embassy 🇺🇸🇮🇪

An old woman reading St. Luke's Gospel Gerard Dou, ca. 1631 - ca. 1632 (Rijksmuseum) Today, 18 Oct is the Evangelist's Feast Day.

If you missed Shinjini Chattopadhyay's talk on Monday on critical cosmopolitanism and Irish identity in 'Finnegan's Wake', there's now a recording available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VJv...

Looking to complete a piece of original research, but the day-to-day is getting in the way? Apply for a Leverhulme Research Fellowship, just three weeks left before applications close. 👉 www.leverhulme.ac.uk/research-fel...

Our next vol contained some timely reflections Peter Gray (ed.), Victoria's Ireland? : Irishness and Britishness, 1837-1901 www.edepositireland.ie/collections/...

This will be a great seminar and start to the USIHS seminars for this semester from Seán Ó Hoireabhárd (Maynooth) this THURSDAY! All welcome! Details below, the event will be hybrid - registration to attend online is still open via the link below (in the original post).

Joel Mokyr of “Why Ireland Starved” fame!

A chapbook that no doubt flew out of the peddler’s knapsack in early 19th century Ulster

*FIFTEEN THOUSAND JOBS LOST*. If this were in a sector in which the PM could go and do a photoshoot looking like One Of The People, we’d have had a government intervention by now.

Famine’s Long Shadow Even if food is surged into Gaza today, the history of weaponized mass starvation shows that the social aftershocks will reverberate for generations. Alex de Waal jewishcurrents.org/famines-long...

As the History Representative for ACIS, I have the distinct privilege to chair the Donald Murphy Prize for Distinguished First Book. If you, or someone you know, has a book copyrighted in 2025 in Irish Studies please do consider submitting! Details here. 🗃️ #speirgorm

Due to circumstances outside our control (but not reflecting well on current US policy), next week's QUB Irish Studies seminar will now be online only. www.qub.ac.uk/schools/Iris...

Doing a WSC talk for ‘Reclaim the Enlightenment’ Belfast on Wednesday evening at 6pm if anyone’s interested reclaimtheenlightenment.net