Is this the first time an antiquarian bookshop has been the site of agrarian protest?

Nice to see the new issue of @thedublinreview.bsky.social arrive in the post today, with my essay about the time a pigeon decided to make a nest in my office at work

For our final week after a hiatus for football :-( we welcome @drdeefoley.bsky.social to @glasnevincemetery.bsky.social to discuss her work on an iconic #dublin #factory. Come for the #irishhistory stay for the biscuits! @historytcd.bsky.social @tlrhub.bsky.social please RT

Delighted to host @sallytuckett.bsky.social at @tlrhub.bsky.social Centre for Early Modern History seminar today for a paper on the Transatlantic Threads of the 18th Century Scottish Linen Trade. A fascinating paper to round off the seminar for this year.

This open letter to students at Georgetown university is extremely good medium.com/center-on-pr...

Another fascinating example of the colonial legacies embedded in the Irish landscape and Irish agriculture. Absentee capital extraction from marginal land has a long history and the figures for rent increases cited here are extraordinary.

Spain's renewables build-out has structurally decoupled its electricity prices from gas markets. Gas now sets the price in only 15% of hours, compared to 90% in Italy. Countries that invested early in clean power are far less exposed to fossil fuel price shocks. Those that didn't now pay the price.

Adding this to tomorrow’s class materials on Ireland and Newfoundland. I am intrigued by reference to Sheila who was also toasted in 18thC Jamaica as part of St Patrick’s day celebration. She seems less celebrated in domestic festivities I think.

Martha McTier encouraging William Drennan to publish in 1783: 'If you have equal talents ... make use of them - gain the honour and enjoy it. ... for politics now ceases to be local, and so great and open the foundation, every man may build upon it that has materials.'

Treat your eyeballs to an extract from Late Heaney by @dedalusdenaries.bsky.social is in @irishtimes.com today. 👇 Seamus Heaney: from ancient Greece to home turf, Northern shades and the Nobel Prize www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

90% Of Irish Towns Not As Well Planned Out As Play Mat Everyone Had As A Kid https://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2025/05/28/90-of-irish-towns-not-as-well-planned-out-as-play-mat-everyone-had-as-a-kid/

This was lots of fun, full house with @historytcd.bsky.social at @tlrhub.bsky.social and some great questions. Much still to think about as we continue to think about legacies of Trinity’s historic estates And their impact on Irish society, landscape and environment.

Delighted to see this student led campaign to remove chat gpt from College WiFi today on environmental and ethical grounds. Hope it succeeds

Looking forward to speaking tomorrow in the @tlrhub.bsky.social at the Contemporary and Modern Irish History seminar. My title is From Ballynascreena to Front Square: The Colonial Public Histories of the Trinity Estates and their Tenants www.tcd.ie/trinitylongr...

Ooh, Dr Morgan Wait @mwait13.bsky.social @ucddublin.bsky.social speaking @glasnevincemetery.bsky.social this Thursday! Please come along to hear her research about women, work and @rte.ie this week. Places free, but booking advised! @historytcd.bsky.social #dublin #irishhistory #history #rtehistory

This was excellent and a very good example of how to do to do a lot with limited sources.

🚨New Article🚨 VOICES PI @janeohlmeyer.bsky.social has published a fascinating article exploring the complicated and lasting colonial connections between Ireland and Jamaica. Find the article here: theconversation.com/what-irish-p...

Really important piece considering the further recent developments on AI as war weapon

Looking forward to Prof Jenny Shaw (Alabama) speaking at Centre for Early Modern History seminar @tlrhub.bsky.social with the paper title On Land and at Sea: The Enslaved Childhood of Julius Soubise, 1754–1764 www.tcd.ie/history/rese...

There is a long and bitter history here, that does not seem to be well-known despite a very substantial (and growing) historical scholarship. A short thread on scientific head hunting… www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

This FOl enquiry for the Guardian has taken up a great deal of my life for the past 2 years. (1/3)

#IWD2026 Individual acts of resistance. Anne Evett, Jervis Street, Dublin. condemns the 1841 census: 'may the devil scald the framers of this tyrannical inquisition...' 👉️ virtualtreasury.ie/item/VRTI-CE... See the story in ALT text 🧐 Many more women's names 👇️ virtualtreasury.ie/portals/popu...

Who was smuggling in 18th century Britain? My refreshed database for prosecutions for smuggling in England and Wales c. 1721-1732 is live with over 4,000 entries. From naval officers to farmers, smuggling was big business. #twitterstorians #earlymod #history www.davidchansmith.net/smugglingdat...

Used reading week to finally finish this excellent book: Colleen Taylor’s Irish Materialisms: The non-human and the making of colonial Ireland, 1690-1830. it uses coins, flax, spinning wheels, mud and pigs(!) to think about material lives of Irish peasants

A great piece in the @irishexaminer.bsky.social today from UL’s Prof Máiréad Moriarty on the increased value of the critical skills gained during an Arts degree in the age of AI - expertise in human complexity will always be required! www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/comm...

My colleagues Annie Tindley and @drhick.bsky.social have funding 📣 for a Collaborative Doctoral Award with Museums Northern Ireland for a PhD on "Reawakening the Living Landscape: Integrating Heritage and Sustainability at the Ulster Folk Museum" - www.ncl.ac.uk/hca/study/hi... Deadline 20 April.

An extra ordinary resource for historians of eighteenth century Ireland as well as economic and social historians more generally @eshsi.bsky.social

a job! in the 18thcentury! and in IRELAND 💚🍀💚@bsecs.bsky.social @asecsgradcaucus.bsky.social @asecsoffice.bsky.social

Happy 260th Birthday to Ireland's first census! 🎂 Amazing coverage back in 1766 🙂 A tragic loss in 1922 🔥😩 Now available - over 50,000 recovered names! 📜📚5️⃣0️⃣,0️⃣0️⃣0️⃣ 🥳 www.virtualtreasury.ie/gold-seams/1... 📢 More detailed Survivors map coming today! 🔎

Reminds me of Swift’s Modest Proposal.

My @historicaljnl.bsky.social article has been published open access alongside great articles by @adambforsyth.bsky.social, @davidandress.bsky.social, and others I couldn't locate here, in the most recent journal issue. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

1 week left to submit paper proposals! We welcome proposals examining the role of visual and material culture in challenging, reinforcing and subverting the notion of ‘British‘ from medieval to present day, exploring art from Britain, Ireland and former colonial territories. CFP closes 9 March

Partitionist history at its best (worst).

In a battle between hope and hate, hope won out. Why voters rejected the hateful politics of Reform and instead embraced the "Green Menace" in Gorton and Denton bylinetimes.com/2026/02/27/h...

VRTI will be posting some information about the 1766 religious census returns over the next few days (260th 🎂 approaching). Keep an 👁️out. We'll be revealing some hidden gems 💎 among the surviving returns.

Countdown to the 260th anniversary of Ireland's first census. 🕰️ 7️⃣ 5 March 1766 the Irish House of Lords orders a census of all householders noting 'which are protestants and which are Papists' (Catholics). They gave only 61 days to cover the whole country! virtualtreasury.ie/item/NAI-PRI... 👀 ALT

Fantastic blog by my former colleague @alanlester.bsky.social forensically refuting the disgraceful attacks on the University of Sussex by the disgracefully ignorant Nigel Biggar. If you’re interested in protecting academic freedom please do read and share

It’s an interesting time for those interested in seaweed, kelp and customary rights. Have a PhD student doing great stuff in this area so have become more than usually intrigued by current attempted corporate takeover of wrack rights. Part of a long story in Ireland and of course in Scotland.

Myself and Colin Breen have written in "Maritime Ireland" about seaweed harvesting on Ireland's coastline, in 19th century. These are local rights, well known and established through built features (e.g. wrack walls, kilns, etc). There is no way that such rights be taken over by foreign companies.

Brava to this student (a History major, nota bene) for spelling out to the higher-ed suits at her supposedly elite school just how damaging AI is for learning. www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2026...

In Donegal, Mayo, Galway, and Kerry corporations have applications in to harvest seaweed from the coast with absolutely no oversight. Corporatisation of seaweed harvest would be a significant negative step for the west

Just finished Adam Weymouth’s excellent: Lone Wolf: walking the fault lines of Europe. Fascinating on wolves, climate change, migration and rural life in Central Europe a thought provoking read

Today's Trinity College 22,000-strong student body is roughly comparable to, or could exceed, the entire population of Dublin City at the time Trinity opened in 1592. 🗺️ John Speed's map of Dublin City published in 1611. Trinity College (12 on the map). #Dublin #History

137. Aragorn’s tax policy and other weird shibboleths Yesterday I found myself diverted by people on Bluesky revisiting the issue of Aragorn's tax policy that George R.R. Martin so memorably quibbled over back in 2014. The vast majority of my writing here is free to read and will remain so, but if…

On Sun 8 March BBC Radio 4 will broadcast The Alpenpost: A Girl's Guide to Fighting Hitler and Stalin - a documentary based on my research! It traces how I uncovered the lost archive of an anti-Nazi resistance organiser in a wind-rattled villa on the Galician coast. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

"We have a challenge here in the face of appalling things happening around the world not to give in to a politics of despair because that's exactly what the people in power want us to do." Laura C. Forster, Julia Laite, Laura Schwartz, Anne Irfan and Jo Kelcey on doing history in turbulent times.

I mean a sentence like "Data centres use 22 per cent of all electricity in the Republic (compared with 18 per cent used by urban households in 2024) and that is forecast to exceed 30 per cent early next decade" is objectively insane