Tom McDonnell Kildare County Councillor addressed the “Unite The Kingdoms” rally. McDonnell’s incoherent, conspiracy addled historically illiterate claims and accusations include blatant anti Semitism, racism, and enthonationalism

Kathleen Turner from Body Heat (1981) to VI Warshawsky (1991), via Romancing The Stone, The Man With Two Brains, Crimes of Passion, Peggy Sue Got Married and the voice of Jessica Rabbit.

If my options are wasting time on website where everyone is arguing about a best novel list or a website where people are furious that Christopher Nolan and Lupita Nyong'o are “desecrating” the Odysseus? Well, I guess I’m going have to finally read “Middlemarch” aren’t I?

In her final years, Sinéad O'Connor donated her old clothes and unused makeup to Irish trans teens as she wanted them to enjoy expressing their gender identities. Sinéad never punched down, stood firm in her beliefs, and will always be loved by the people of Ireland. Ms Terphy is nothing of the sort

Today sadly seems a good day to remember that the Home Office's social media policy deliberately encourages people to use X/Twitter, and the government keeps on stalling when I suggest they might want to change that: lordseyeview.substack.com/p/the-home-o...

If the actor with British accent is evil then you’re watching Sci fi. If the actor with a British accent is good then it’s Fantasy. If the actor with a British accent knocks something over then it’s a Rom com.

james brolin doing a bond screen test with no accent wearing just a bath towel is the closest we will get to a live action sterling archer

Small thread on casting. Excellent.

I am here for the random fascinating stuff people know.

..is a scene from the 2nd ever Bond movie, "From Russia With Love" (1963). In this scene, Bond returns to his hotel and encounters Tatiana Romanov, a Russian agent, naked in his bed and sent to seduce him. But Bond, being the devilishly charming rogue that he is, within a few moments *seduces her*

Happy with this decision and hope many other European countries will follow. Obviously, there are many more problems to state surveillance than Palentir, but in most cases these problems of abuse… in the case of Palentir, the core is rotten!

One week to go until the Dublin Central and Galway West bye-elections. I’ve wrangled, merged, and analysed various datasets to describe what a century of bye-elections can tell us about Irish politics.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ @news.rte.ie ➡️ www.rte.ie/news/analysi...

This will be the first search for a new James Bond that won't involve the film's long-standing producers, the Broccoli family. Which is a shame, because they had an interesting way of screentesting all potential new Bonds with a really odd scene, for a really clever reason. Mini 🧵

"I need the most on the nose statement of populism you have"

Looks like some other countries might end up changing their minds? (Ireland) Probably read that eSafety report that showed the ban was not working and forsaw too much litigation in the works for a ban, decided better to spend it on better regs. Nice!

I think this maybe the most niché bit of trivia I’ve ever heard.

A thread of articles I have written covering Sinn Féin's drift to the right on social issues: I have been covering this in depth since 2023, and I have been consistently covering how Sinn Féin think they can take progressive voters for granted (a thread) #spéirghorm

They mistakenly believe there is a vas deferens between what the Constitution doesn’t authorize and what it expressly prohibits.

Not to be outdone by Ireland, The Netherlands has just picked TikTok, Meta and Uber's lawyer as the new head of the Dutch Privacy Authority. Well done everyone. For shame. nltimes.nl/2026/05/13/l...

Beautiful TL synergy

Watch to the end

New report from @whattofix.tech on employees of sanctioned Russian organisations, who continue to have monetised accounts on X, YouTube, Facebook & TikTok. By engaging in commerce with these individuals, the platforms are breaking EU law. The penalty for doing so can be up to 5 years in prison.

A strong contender for the most impactful joke I ever saw on normal TV as a kid. Short, perfect, and ingeniously stupid. A high watermark of the smart-dumb gag!

The Nazi bar analogy doesn’t work with Twitter. Twitter is like if a Nazi *bought* the bar, invited all the previously banned Nazis back in, then filled the jukebox with nothing but Skrewdriver. And he’s also selling child porn out of the back door. And you’re still drinking there like a smuck.

Watch: We need to talk about data centres An expert insight briefing webinar from An Taisce on how policy agenda for continued growth of data centres in Ireland is being set by Big Tech sector and not national interest More here: www.antaisce.org/news/we-need... YouTube: youtu.be/MT0RYHihTuo

That's the guy, folks. That's the one. www.404media.co/stripe-forbi...

This is a dark day for the environmental movement. In one of most regressive moves I've seen by this Government, they are effectively shutting down the majority of environmental public interest litigation. Over 1400 people told them not to do this. Did they listen? Of course not.

Linkedin now considering job cuts. 2,000+ staff in Dublin. Joins an an ever-expanding list of Dublin's larger tech employers who say they want to shed staff -- Coinbase, Meta, Amazon, Oracle, Covalen, PayPal, LinkedIn and a couple more www.independent.ie/business/tec...

let me repeat for the folks in the back A Member of Parliament, the leader of his own political party which is a limited company for some reason, part-owns the television news channel where said MP has HIS OWN FUCKING PROGRAMME And somehow ALL of this is legal.

Speaking of Sinn Féin I have been checking their policy webpage for YEARS waiting for a climate policy to be on there and it just…never is

We are releasing Verity a tool to minimise false LLM claims and sources. It can run on cheap, old hardware. Verity's code is now published for anyone to use, test, adapt, and improve. You can use it and build upon it for free. www.iccl.ie/digital-data...

If only there was a very recent and highly prescient example for Sinn Fein to draw on here. Like the story of a supposed left wing party imploding because it disenfranchised its core voter base in a futile effort to woo non existent right wing swing voters. But where would you even start to look?

For what it's worth, I've written about why the current legislation is incompatible with European human rights law and (arguably) the constitution. research.birmingham.ac.uk/en/publicati... and research.birmingham.ac.uk/en/publicati...

Ok, I'm actually a bit shook tbh. I was at the JOC committee meeting in January and back then the committee seemed virtually unanimously in favor of the social media ban at the time. In fact some members were pushing for even further measures, a ban on VPNs, and anonymous social media accounts.

The @iccl.bsky.social releases ‘Verity MCP’ - a tool to minimise LLM false claims www.iccl.ie/digital-data...

66% of voters (1.5 million people) voted to #repealthe8th eight years ago. Turnout was 65% turnout. We *overwhelmingly* voted in favour of free, safe, legal, reproductive healthcare for all. Nearly a decade later, women shouldn't have to be still begging in public for access to healthcare.

This is very welcome news today that the Oireachtas Media Committee has recommended that recommender algorithms be disabled for children and turned off by default for adults. ICCL has long highlighted the dangers of algorithms and campaigned for them to be switched off.

Instead of a social media ban, the committee urged meaningful regulation of recommender systems and feeds. I'm just genuinely surprised that a group of politicians actually looked at the evidence, and then collectively made an informed, sensible decision.

Ok, I'm actually a bit shook tbh. I was at the JOC committee meeting in January and back then the committee seemed virtually unanimously in favor of the social media ban at the time. In fact some members were pushing for even further measures, a ban on VPNs, and anonymous social media accounts.

Your regular reminder that one of the reasons Ireland has yet to develop a credible far-right political party is because FF and FG already cater so well to that class of racist, misogynistic voter. To wit(less): www.irishexaminer.com/news/politic...

What happens when you take a transparency law designed for Meta’s ad architecture and apply it to posters and canvass cards on the western edge of Ireland? We’re finding out in real time Plus: how much have parties spent so far? New Briefing in inboxes www.thebriefing.ie/parties-are-...

Ordinary People: What a brilliant policy proposal by Jesse Philips, and Keir Starmer blocked it. Techies: this is some terrifying state Orwellian shit. @heatherburnstech.bsky.social: have I mentioned the Prince Andrew angle? 😮

Fun fact: the magical child safety solution which Jess Philips cited in her resignation letter is a vendor-specific offering, which benefited from an intense PR and lobbying campaign, and was previously praised by ... Prince Andrew. I always keep the receipts. heatherburns.tech/2026/02/20/t...

Insightful Oped from Sarah Clancy on far right influence in the fuel protests: the danger is otherwise good people espousing evil politics clarechampion.ie/opinion-with... #speirgorm #farright

This will work out well…

No, Terry, you do not, under any circumstances, have to hand it to the bigots

Dusting off this meme in preparation for a new British Prime Minister

Must be the Latin education, but absolutely no one, literally, no one, does political assassinations like the British do