The world’s first trillionaire initiated a move that has left more than half a million people dead, most of whom are children.

NEW: The End of the Line: the centrepiece of Saudi Arabia’s Neom gigaproject - a 500m tall, 170km long wall-like building intended ultimately to house 9 million people - can’t get out of the ground, say more than 20 former Neom architects, engineers and senior executives. ig.ft.com/saudi-neom-l...

Just had a lovely woman in our shop in Donegal, searching for her lost twin sister. Appreciate it if my Irish followers would retweet this. Thank you.

I see it's time for me to make the point again that the poppy is a fundraising campaign for the Royal British Legion, a specific, mundane entity that is not exempt from scrutiny and does not own the concept of remembrance. You can read its 2024 accounts here: storage.rblcdn.co.uk/sitefinity/d...

Absolutely shocking that the Chinese govt pressured a UK university to shut down research about forced labour in Xinjiang and the links to global supply chains. The work of Laura Murphy and her team had been instrumental in getting Chinese companies sanctioned. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

'The fort opposite the oakwood, Once it was Bruidge’s, it was Cathal’s It was Aed’s, it was Ailill’s, It was Conaing’s, it was Cuiline’s and it was Maeldúin’s The fort remains after each in his turn and the kings asleep in the ground'. c.8th century Irish poem describing this ringfort at Rathangan

Did not expect one of the best paragraphs I’d read about baseball would come from an Irish newspaper www.irishexaminer.com/sport-column...

Drogheda arson attack: ‘The house is on fire. Please answer’ Among those taken to hospital were a 20-day old baby and a 17 month old. www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025...

Scherp stuk in de Irish Times over Nederlandse verkiezingen en de normalisering van radicaal-rechts. 'Een van de verkiezingsbeloftes was het deporteren van de "kinderen en kleinkinderen" van migranten.'

De Ierse journalistiek weet het wel goed te duiden en te benoemen. Iets met afstand?

Klare taal!

Spot on

soms heb je een frisse blik van buiten nodig om je blik scherp te stellen... #HaatSmurf

The Dutch radical right maintained its vote share this election. One election pledge was to deport the “children and grandchildren” of migrants. No amount of integration will ever be enough for some, because their policies are just a thin veil for bigotry My piece www.irishtimes.com/world/europe...

A spooky Samhain single for the day that’s in it by my sister Molly May. Amazing what she’s achieved with a budget of zero. Check it out mollymayoleary.bandcamp.com/track/ghost?...

Listening to the *wonderful* podcast, The Irish Passport, as they talk about Guinness + Ireland, and I reflect on two things: I have been to ONE pub in Ireland, in a village somewhere in the north in 1997, and I have had ONE Guinness in my life (didn’t like it) AND — 1/2 @naomiohreally.bsky.social

“It is likely that thousands are being killed at the moment, and many thousands more are at risk if the RSF is not restrained.” Massacres under way in Darfur after militia captures besieged city, reports say: www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl... #KeepEyesOnSudan

@naomiohreally.bsky.social has a fine piece on malign Russian interference, published by the IT today. It would be good to see something on the serious attempts at interference with our latest election. @lizcarolan.com has put up some initial ideas. One SM owner is calling for violence in Britain.

Great service and really interesting. Those who spoiled their votes were young men in particular active on social media. “the largest groups who spoiled were people who had voted for Independents, Aontú and Sinn Féin at the 2024 election”

A fascinating long read by @naomiohreally.bsky.social www.irishtimes.com/world/europe...

Some kind of dart feckin catastrophe 🙄 every bus going to the northside won’t stop because it’s full

When Clare Daly launched her re-election bid last year, Catherine Connolly sat at her right hand. “I wish I could canvass every day for her on the streets,” Connolly said. Will Connolly use the presidential platform in a similar way to how Daly used hers? My piece: www.irishtimes.com/politics/202...

We will fight them on the quiches

A new episode is up over on Patreon. We discuss Catherine Connolly's victory in the presidential election and whether the united left strategy will be applicable to future general election campaigns. Also - the Soldier F verdict and the structural denial of justice. www.patreon.com/posts/halfpi...

Really interesting piece on the 26-year-old designer behind Catherine Connolly's distinctive visual branding. It was obviously a strength of the campaign that they were able to attract talented young people and trusted them to do what they did best www.thejournal.ie/designing-a-...

happy birthday Sylvia Plath 🎈

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

What’s next for Michael D Higgins? He’s off to Galway and has mentioned writing poetry, reading, advocating for food security, and time with his grandchildren. He won’t be short of a euro in any case, as he is entitled to at least €294,000 a year in pensions www.irishtimes.com/politics/202...

Great stuff in this

An extraordinary visual essay from a city drowning in garbage. www.vice.com/en/article/g...

"wars may now have a 'changing purpose', which is 'maintaining a balance' with other powers – constant disorder, instead of outright victory."

Quite brilliant when you think about it. None of your own spies get caught and some mugs will take the fall. 👇

Fascinating. Terrifying

The other side of these operations is the old Russian classic: inciting hatred. Excellent reporting by @naomiohreally.bsky.social on how some plots are targeting Jewish and Muslim communities across Europe bsky.app/profile/naom...

Reporting this story, the same details kept appearing in police investigations around Europe: the perpetrators turned out to have been recruited and offered cash over Telegram. European authorities are increasingly open in saying who is responsible: Russia. www.irishtimes.com/world/europe...

The home of the O'Donovan family is being used as a polling station in Coolmoyne, Co Tipperary. Around 250 people are eligible to vote at the house and after they cast their ballot, they will be treated to a cup of tea, a slice of apple or rhubarb tart, or a scone | More: rte.ie/b/1540324

Thank you to our readers & subscribers, & to the Irish Times, for continuing to support international reporting. www.irishtimes.com/media/2025/1...

An OpenAI executive said GPT-5 found solutions to 10 "previously unsolved" math problems when in reality all it did was find online references to places where people had already solved them techcrunch.com/2025/10/19/o...

This is probably your best reminder that Amazon Web Services is too big. So is Microsoft, and Google, and all of these companies that are gobbling up money, energy, and resources, only for things to go suddenly arse-up, like today, without being held accountable. There's no space for competition.

Honoured to have my article published in @irishtimes.com today. A piece of me and Gaza and Nour — on paper. ❤️ www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025...

Does anyone know the word for a unit of turf, the size you might take in a basket? Sounds something like a "rail" of turf?

We’ve met with Greta Thunberg and others in the flotilla. They describe hours-long scenes of torture and sexual harassment in Israeli captivity. Experts conclude that they have been subjected to serious crimes – Sweden’s foreign minister believes they have themselves to blame. tinyurl.se/crR

Someone in the crowd: “Go Cubs!” Pope Leo XIV: “Han perdido! They lost!”

Israel is responsible for 95% of journalist and media worker killings in the Middle East since October 7, 2023, according to CPJ data. More than three in every four journalists and media workers killed worldwide over the past two years were Palestinians in Gaza. cpj.org/issue/israel...

It was definitely a mistake for the Greens not to try to run their own presidential candidate imho. Their signature issue cross-cuts left and right. The right candidate, someone widely respected and known to be after the greater good, would appeal to voters unsure of either Connolly or Humphreys.

Really good piece by @naomiohreally.bsky.social in The Irish Times on Michael D Higgins’ presidency. The activist in the Áras: How Michael D Higgins shaped the presidency www.irishtimes.com/politics/202...

The activist in the Áras: How Michael D Higgins shaped the presidency My new piece (long read) www.irishtimes.com/politics/202...

👀

A reminder of how Mrs Thatcher's Conservative party in 1983, an era featuring much more widespread racial prejudice in the public, approached the issue of race and national identity:

Five Irish citizens have been detained by Israel on new Gaza-bound flotilla, including author Naoise Dolan and independent TD Barry Heneghan. The others named by organisers as Fionn Macarthur, Veronica O’Keane, and Mutaz Jadaan. www.irishtimes.com/world/middle...