In small lovely things, my granny is in long-term hospice care and last week her aide made sure that she could take part in a renaissance faire held in the wider retirement community. Not sure if Granny had even ever heard of a ren faire before, but that she gets to experience one makes me happy.

Re last repost about teaching women's history in UK schools, it's extra frustrating because there are resources out there to tell much more interesting stories within the curriculum. Full disclosure, I wrote this one: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/re...

'Even when women were mentioned, the report found they were more often victims than protagonists, with the women murdered by Jack the Ripper more likely to be taught in lessons than the female code breakers at Bletchley Park during the second world war 1/2

“Cataclysmically bad” This new series of ECR blog posts on the French History Network makes for grim reading, perhaps grimmer even than some in UK #FrenchHistory might have realised. 1st post, anon ECRs in French History on what it’s like right now out there: frenchhistorysociety.co.uk/6691/ 🗃️

Slightly diminish a book: The Cat, the Witch and the Cabinet

Anecdotally as an NT volunteer, it's been really lovely to see more people my age and younger visiting as members or using the various offers that have been going around.

Non-HP MG/YA series that are rich in magic & exploration & coming-of-age, & are actually really really good, to share with kids in your life: - Lioness Rampant, Pierce - Chrestomanci, Jones - Percy Jackson - A Wrinkle In Time!!!!! - URSULA LE GUIN’S EARTHSEA BOOKS - Akata Witch / Akata Warrior!!!!

Some doggo is trying to guilt me into taking the cone of shame off…

Gus is back in his happy place (the pub in Godalming where they make a huge fuss of him) as we’re picking Juno up from the orthopaedic vets this afternoon!

I found a cool Shakespeare thing. www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

Maybe this amazing Gus has got himself mixed up with my Gus? Although Gus the dog has shown no support animal instincts other than thinking everyone is his new best friend.

Folger Library offer free online-only subscription which gets you access to JSTOR and a load of other stuff!

Come join Team Ki! I can promise good books, brilliant writers, banter and baked goods in a supportive team - happy to answer any questions too!

#cfp for the 2026 Conference of the History of Women Religious of Britain and Ireland, ‘Women Religious: Patronage & Networks from Medieval to Modern’ taking place at Queen Mary University of London on 11/12 June. Please share widely #nuntastic historyofwomenreligious.org/call-for-pap...

#MedievalSky #EarlyModern If you're working on any aspect of the life-cycle (eg birth, marriage, baptism, leaving home, death, childbearing, etc) and want to present at the Life Cycles Seminar at IHR I'd be keen to hear from you! Echo chambers are never good, so it's always worth casting the net.

I stayed up too late last night to finish Emily Tesh’s “Incandescent” which is the novel I didn’t know I needed to read this summer. It has a thirty-something teacher at a magic boarding school, magical knights, and a complicated demon. But also lots to say about professional identity and teaching.

On my way for a beach adventure with @hagenilda.bsky.social and cats!!

Poor BL can’t catch a break- there’s a fire evacuation and sprinklers going off now 😢😢

With the @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social’s exhibition, I’ve now seen three of the six exhibitions from the @virtualtreasury.bsky.social’s Libraries Network. Obviously, I was thrilled to see the fifteenth century map! Just don’t try to get from Dublin to Holyhead using it…

Fun to be back in Oxford for the afternoon, floating around writing in coffee shops.

Im fine day to day cause i “pass” as white british but it still makes u feel alienated from uk society this establishment hate of immigrants

Lovely to be able to pop down from the reading room to see @spchendriks.bsky.social and @virtualtreasury.bsky.social’s new exhibition at @britishlibrary.bsky.social. Already pretty busy as part of the wider Treasures Gallery!

If you want an example of what a medieval chapel would have looked like all blinged out in gold and bright colours, the digital reconstruction of St Stephen's, Westminster has you covered: www.virtualststephens.org.uk/explore/sect...

This Thursday @nlireland.bsky.social: A Scandal at Mass The Eyewitnesses to a Fourteenth Century Controversy. Dr. @patrickmcdonagh98.bsky.social, Research Studentship, Dept of Manuscripts & Special Collections (& previous VRTI Researcher!) on political scandals of the late 14th century in Ireland!

It may be 30 degrees in London but the fluffies seem to want to cuddle up. Silly hot dogs. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Lovely to find evidence of family ties across the (porous) borders of English and Gaelic Ireland. Anne de la Roche fosters Cormac MacCarty, her grandson. Both his parents, Katherine and Dermot, are still alive and she may sent him back to them in Gaelic Ireland. virtualtreasury.ie/item/CIRCLE-...

Today’s cake efforts to celebrate officially hitting my mid-thirties.

Job Opportunity! Assistant Professor/Lecturer in Early Modern Irish History Maynooth University, National University of Ireland Maynooth - Department of History www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNT845/a...

You win parkrun by showing up and finishing the course. That’s it. Gender, age, speed, who cares? The results list is fun, but not the point. The point is that everyone can take part, absolutely including trans women.

Great virtual exhibition on collecting Irish history records here virtualtreasury.ie/collecting-h... #skystorians #history #ireland

@histparl.bsky.social @victoriancommons.bsky.social

@virtualtreasury.bsky.social is front page news! And with a nice quote about the medieval documents too.

Fun to be in the Irish Times this morning with my favourite find of the year, along with my brilliant VRTI colleagues. www.irishtimes.com/history/2025...

#VRTI2025Release Enter the world of the Anglo-Norman invaders of Ireland with our new Age of Conquest Portal — curated by Dr @elizabethbiggs.bsky.social, @petercrooks.bsky.social, Dr Paul Dryburgh, and Dr Lynn Kilgallon, with Dr Daryl Hendley Rooney, Dr Stuart Kinsella and Dr Theresa O’Byrne.

I'm super pleased to now have a way to bring together the medieval treasures, copies, originals, and translations on the Virtual Treasury of Ireland, inc. chancery, exchequer and the law-courts, treaties, bishop's registers and much much more for #MedievalSky virtualtreasury.ie/portals/age-...

Wow! Great crowds on the Virtual Treasury today — apologies if items are showing 404 error messages. We're working to make space for everyone to view our new releases. Hang tight!

'A pioneering project to fill gaps in Irish history is making 175,000 more records and millions more words of searchable content freely available to researchers and members of the public.' 1/2

Incredible work from an incredible project: if you don’t know about the virtual treasury, you should Worldwide interest expected as 19th-century Irish census records recovered and put online www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025...

Curious what it was like to work in the Public Record Office before it was destroyed? Take a look at our image gallery all about it: www.virtualtreasury.ie/image-galler...

Release day at the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland (@virtualtreasury.bsky.social) is fast approaching. Some amazing material coming your way on the 30 June. Stay tuned at virtualtreasury.ie.

Today’s exhibition is @spchendriks.bsky.social and the @virtualtreasury.bsky.social’s Collecting Ireland’s History at the Royal Irish Academy. It’s so much fun to see the documents in person! And yes, the fire of 1922 was a national calamity [and] like a nightmare (Walter Fitzgerald).

I may be very sleep-deprived but I’m thrilled to finally be able to see Words on the Wave at the National Museum of Ireland. Super to have the early medieval books and the surviving objects (metal, stone, wood) side by side.

I’m co-organising a medieval conference next year in Oxford! Please take a look at the CfP and consider submitting an abstract, by the 15th of September, to [email protected]. We hope to be able to provide funding to help cover expenses of attendance. #medievalsky #skystorians

In England is a deeply unserious country where nothing can cope with a hot day, the District line has fallen over so I’m walking home along the river. At least, it’s gorgeous?

www.rte.ie/news/newslen... The legacy of the Fuggers lives on. Amazing.

As part of TNA's collaboration with @virtualtreasury.bsky.social we are running an online event on Friday 20 June at 2pm, providing guidance on how to trace your Irish ancestors across TNA's, the VRTI's and any number of other collections. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/family-his...

And paying for cataloguing time across all archives- so so needed and so so hard to get funded.

🚨Applications are open for a month-long paid fellowship with Parliament’s magazine, The House. 🗞️ The scheme is open to anyone over the age of 18 🗞️You will be paid a London Living Wage & provided with accommodation 🗞️ Any questions, drop me a message! totalpoliticsgroup.bamboohr.com/careers/73?s...

Relatedly, if you haven't been in an archives you have no idea just how much historical material is not online, not even a digital record of it. An LLM cannot research data it doesn't have. It can't even extrapolate where to find that material.