early thoughts on ‘Belfastmen: An Intimate History of Life before Gay Liberation’! 🥰 I am hearing that copies are starting to land stateside already… official publication date is April 15 www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

Come join us @oralhistoryie.bsky.social for #oralhistory training in Maynooth!

I’m chairing an online seminar by Sue Bishop (University of Leicester) tonight at 5.30pm. ‘Considering ‘mixed’ romantic relationships, female choices and everyday multiculturalism in Britain, 1960s-1980s: Love beyond boundaries’. All welcome. Please book in advance. www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Tiger Bay, 1950, Cardiff's oldest multi-ethnic community, photo by Bert Hardy for Picture Post.

Many thanks to @jcrangle.bsky.social for this generous appraisal.

Thanks so much @niamhcullen.bsky.social for the lovely review of my book ❤️

Review in IHS of Shane Lynn’s book about Irish nationalists and the South African War. Recommended read.

📣 We’re hiring! The History of Parliament are seeking a Research Fellow for our House of Lords 1660-1832 project. @georgianlords.bsky.social We’re looking for a historian with a PhD in 18thC British political or cultural history to join our expert team. 🔗 Details below: #AcademicJobs #HistoryJobs

Just released - the preliminary program for @deindustrialpol.bsky.social's June 18-20 conference in Montreal on "(Un)Just Transitions? Deindustrialization and the Environment." Check it out! deindustrialization.org/depot2025con...

Thank you Charlie - all the best for 2026!

We are delighted to announce that we'll be hosting the SSNCI conference in Maynooth next June. Call for papers attached. Please spread far and wide!

Looking forward to chairing this online event tomorrow. Lots of fascinating research in this book. All welcome.

Ahead of Tuesday’s shindig, here’s a video of me talking about MULTICULTURAL BRITAIN and what it means to be shortlisted for the @wolfsonhistory.bsky.social prize. A big thank you to Gordon, the videographer who somehow made me sitting in my tiny office look cinematic 🎬

All set for this evening’s seminar for @cont-brit-hist.bsky.social with Dr Katerina Papakonstantinou. Looking forward to hearing her fascinating paper, & thanks to our fab Chair Prof Pat Thane & Term programme organiser @helenglew.bsky.social

On Weds we welcome @katrinanavickas.bsky.social to IHR @cont-brit-hist.bsky.social seminar Katrina will talk abt "Public space + popular protest in 20thC England: enclosure, resistance + commoning" In-person/hybrid. All welcome, register here! www.history.ac.uk/news-events/... @ihr.bsky.social

QUB History Seminar tomorrow at 4pm BST

QUB History research seminars - Fridays at 4pm starting 26 September. All welcome!

Article by @brian-hanley.bsky.social Hanley on events across Ireland in the long hot summer of 1935. July 1935: ‘Remember Belfast – Boycott the Orangemen!’ www.theirishstory.com/2013/01/07/j...

A few tickets left for this talk next week for Belfast Pride 2025! Come hear about a ‘female husband’ dockworker (1880s), a scandalous Victorian male brothel, Jazz Age gay novels, a trans woman in mid 20th c. Ballycastle, & NI’s (sadly forgotten) 1st lesbian activist! linenhall.com/event/sex-lo...

I am signed up for a few events this autumn to talk about MULTICULTURAL BRITAIN. Come along if you’re in Sheffield, Cambridge or Dublin. Possibly more to come - keep an eye on my website for more info! www.kieranconnell.com/events

I am working on 'The Asian Mother and Baby Campaign' which ran from 1984-1986. I would love to interview any linkworkers who were employed by the campaign or any women who were supported by linkworkers. Please spread the word or get in touch if this is you! My email is [email protected]

Piece I wrote tracing the historical context of last month’s riots in Ballymena and elsewhere in NI. We have a long history of immigration in NI and also, sadly, a long history of racism. www.qub.ac.uk/Research/Our...

Funny, i can think of one that happens every year.

I spoke with Radio France Internationale about this month’s rioting in Ballymena, providing the historical context of Northern Irish immigration: www.rfi.fr/fr/podcasts/... piece starts around 9.25

Thanks to @markdoyle.bsky.social for a lovely review of my book in The American Historical Review. A very concise summary of the book’s key themes which will leave you (hopefully) wanting to pick up a copy! academic.oup.com/ahr/article-...

Call it what it is. Racist violence in Ballymena is the toxic legacy of 27 years of failure by DUP, Sinn Féin, SDLP, UUP, and Alliance. 1/4

Politicians need to call racism racism. LEAD They’re all well able to say when something is sectarian. Talking about real or imagined sectarianism keeps most of them elected. They need to find the courage of Anna Lo when she was basically a lone voice calling out racism even when it was v dangerous

My PhD student Monique Lerpiniere is looking for oral history participants for her @sgsah.bsky.social project on South Asian medical practitioners in Scotland. Please see the poster for info and share if you know anyone. Thank you! @rcpsgheritage.bsky.social @strathhumanities.bsky.social #histmed

📣Have you registered for OHNI's 2025 annual meeting taking place 13-14 June, Absolute Hotel, Limerick? 📣Early bird rates available until Friday 30 May. Looking forward to welcoming @stevenhigh.bsky.social to be our keynote speaker. 👉Register today! oralhistorynetworkireland.ie/2025-meeting

All of this is brilliant because, yes, we are racist at home as well as abroad #SpéirGhorm

New article! ‘“No race hate here”? Irish national identity and racism in the mid twentieth century’ just published online in Irish Historical Studies. Explores Irish attitudes to race and racism, including an ugly spate of racist attacks in Dublin during 1963-64. Open access: doi.org/10.1017/ihs....

The Prime Minister imitating Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech is sickening. That speech fuelled decades of racism and division. Echoing it today is a disgrace. It adds to anti-migrant rhetoric that puts lives at risk. Shame on you, Keir Starmer.

The epilogue from my book. Siva said it best - “what Powell says today, the Tories say tomorrow and Labour legislates on the day after”

Due to where Easter falls, our next USIHS event will be the J.C. Beckett Lecture which will be delivered by Prof. Laura Kelly @tortietabby.bsky.social on 22 May at PRONI. More information on the eventbrite www.eventbrite.ie/e/the-anti-a...

THE MO SIEWCHARRAN PRIZE 2025 An opportunity for young writers. That's why I agreed to be one of the Judges this year. Attending the zoom meeting on 30 April will help many.

I have a very personal essay in today’s Irish Times about the grandfather I never met, the historian KH Connell www.irishtimes.com/life-style/p...

It’s 40 years this month since access to contraception was liberalised in Ireland, but that was far from the end of the story! @rtebrainstorm.bsky.social article from myself and Jennifer Redmond - love Gaybo explaining how to use a condom (that was 1987!!) #speirgorm www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2...

My latest journal article is out now with @historywo.bsky.social This is the story of an Irish circle of activists, artists and intellectuals who set out to re-imagine what society and sexuality could look like, in Ireland and elsewhere. It is free to read here: academic.oup.com/hwj/advance-...

Never more appropriate, and important, than now

Belated shout out for this engaging, insightful and lyrical book from @kconnel.bsky.social

Happy publication week! Delighted (& slightly terrified) my first book is out in the wild for everyone to read 😂 Had so much fun going down the rabbit hole researching these families and hope that’s evident on the page #histfam

Returned to the UK today to find my copy of History Workshop Journal featuring my article on male rape (and several other very interesting articles)!

I have a piece in today’s Guardian based on my book in which I argue for an expanded, more inclusive definition of multiculturalism as a way out of the culture wars www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The important work of Sean O’Connell (QUB) and Leanne McCormick (UU) profiled here #IrishHistory

Come one and all tomorrow for the last seminar of the @qubhistory.bsky.social seminar series this semester. We are ending strong with a great paper being given by @echomikeromeo.bsky.social. Details below. All welcome!

Anyone with an interest in oral history and the Troubles should go to this talk by my former colleague, Professor Graham Dawson, on Tuesday! He will discuss some captivating interview testimony about everyday life in Troubles-era Belfast.

By way of introduction to new chums on this platform, here are some insights into the work I am doing. Please consider sharing this call .https://www.northernirelandworld.com/community/the-truth-of-mother-and-baby-homes-is-a-global-story-truth-recovery-independent-panel-appeals-for-testimony-4874315

Created a starter pack for #IrishHistory on Bluesky - apologies if I’ve left folks out - let me know go.bsky.app/TQ96Hoe

Great fun last night opening the Oughley Shed installation at the Ulster Museum, based on the 1930s gay diaries of Belfast linen merchant!