Reminder that Radio 4 Long Wave goes off air for ever on Saturday (not sure of the exact time, maybe after the also-doomed midnight news). My very-former employer the Radio Society of Great Britain has a rather nice article on it. rsgb.org/main/radio-s...

Hot day, hot book 🔥 It's here, in the flesh! my new book, The Disraeli Myth, in all its glory. Princeton have done such an amazing job on this.

‘Morès pioneered the methods later made famous by the Blackshirts in Italy and the Brownshirts in Germany.’ David Todd on Antoine de Vallombrosa, marquis de Morès, France’s ‘first fascist’. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Today is the birthday of the man who wrote, "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." That's George Orwell.

Step into the rural landscapes that inspired #SeamusHeaney's poetry. 🌾 Join us for Irish Country Life | Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again. 📅 Saturdays, 4 & 11 July, 11.30am 🎟️ https://www.nli.ie/exhibitions-events/irish-country-life-seamus-heaney-listen-now-again

🔗 Pick up a copy of Margaret Skinnider at www.ucdpress.ie or bookshops nationwide #PrideReads #IrishPride #QueerWomen #QueerRevolutionary

Discover Dublin after dark with the NLI as part of #DublinbyDusk. On the last Thursday of every month, step inside the historic Reading Room on Kildare Street, usually reserved for researchers, and experience one of Ireland’s great literary spaces after hours: https://ow.ly/Ttnh50Z35I9

ONE WEEK LEFT TO ENJOY OUR SUMMER READING OFFER🌞🌞🌞⛱️⛱️⛱️🌅🌅🌅📚📚📚 Our books & magazines are the perfect companion for a day at the beach or lounging by the pool🏖️ Get 20% off any book or magazine until Tuesday 30th June. Use the code Summer_Reading_2026 at checkout stingingfly.org/shop/

The latest episode of Transatlantic is live! We discuss General Stephen Moylan, one of the senior Irish participants in the American Revolution, and the man who penned the earliest known example of the phrase "United States of America": shows.acast.com/transatlanti...

COVER REVEAL! I'm delighted to be able to reveal the beautiful cover for the paperback edition of #Heiresses, out 3 September 2026…

This #RefugeeWeek, we’re sharing stories of displacement and resilience. The My Voice collection, created with The Fed, brings together 45 first-hand survivor testimonies. Their stories speak to the past and to ongoing experiences of refuge today. manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/series/my-vo...

A spotlight on Lily and Lolly! Looking forward to this #Yeats #art

Relevant to my interests! One all my #archives friends will very much appreciate.

Today we are looking at MURAL (Maynooth University Research Archive Library). This database allows you to search for and find dissertations and thesis from Ireland and UK. (This database largely supports Postgrad Research theses) #mulibrary #maynoothuniversity

Heaney’s Mythology at Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again Saturdays, 6 & 20 June at 11.30am: https://ow.ly/44Tu50Z5vW7 Drawing from the myths of ancient Greece & Rome, and Ireland’s own heroic cycles, Heaney found a rich tapestry of story and memory—a way to understand who we are & where we come from.

For the first time, Ireland’s five national collecting cultural institutions came together to explore their collective socio-economic impact. Read the report and learn more about the findings on our website: www.nli.ie/news-stories...

The Hockney show at Serpentine is wonderful. The story of a season, told through trees, in a wrap around, low-lit room. All the more poignant to see it after his death last week. It runs at Serpentine North until August 23rd and is free. www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/dav...

Delighted to receive one of @hayfestival.bsky.social AirBnB #RoomToWrite residencies. These are flexible writing residencies perfect for writers with busy schedules and life responsibilities. Time can be taken in small increments in different places across the year. Such a helpful residency model.

You can read all pieces by and about Carlo Ginzburg from the 𝘓𝘙𝘉 archive here: www.lrb.co.uk/contributors...

I preferred the old one. Sylvia was a lovely woman.

Grangegorman Histories are launching a new self-guided history tour of the Grangegorman site! Join us this Saturday 20 June at 11.30am in the East Quad to launch this new tour with talks from Dr Philip Cohen and Dr Damon Berry. #GrangegormanHistories #RevealingGrangegorman #StoneybatterFestival

We have an 18-month temporary lectureship in early modern British and European history just advertised at Newcastle - closing date 9th July www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DRW166/l... #skystorians

‘If we elect a woman,’ Gaxotte said, ‘we’ll end up electing a negro.’ This was in fact clairvoyant: the distinguished former Senegalese president Léopold Senghor, a poet and cultural theorist, joined the academy in 1983. 2/2

In 1980 Marguerite Yourcenar became the first woman to be admitted to the Académie française, 345 years after its foundation. Not everyone was pleased. Academician Pierre Gaxotte, a historian who had been active in extreme-right, antisemitic journalism in the 1930s, protested strongly. 1/2

David Hockney’s colorful, light-filled portraits were representational, legible, and filled with beauty. At the same time, his work offered substance and complexity beneath the often beguiling surface. www.newyorker.com/culture/post...

RIP Carlo Ginzburg. The Cheese and the Worms is a landmark in establishing the methodology of microhistory, and one of the few works assigned and read across geographical and chronological fields of the profession. #EverythingHasAHistory

Also in this issue: Andrew O’Hagan on Marilyn Monroe Zain Samir on the war in Lebanon J.S. Tennant on Cuba John Lahr on Sid Caesar Dinah Birch on Beryl Bainbridge Ruby Hamilton on screwball comedies Daisy Hay on the masquerade ...

... Hester van Hensbergen on pesticides Christopher Kelly on St Augustine David Todd on the Marquis de Morès Philippa Conlon on Sarah Hall’s 𝘏𝘦𝘭𝘮 @johnpaulstonard.com on Georg Baselitz and two poems by Stephanie Burt (@notquitehydepark.bsky.social). Read online now at www.lrb.co.uk

Paging @nushpowell.bsky.social : “It has of late been much the fashion with writers of celebrity to choose pirates for their heroes, insomuch that many of our youth, especially of the female sex, attach an idea of romantic grandeur to the very word pirate.” (Kaleidoscope, 1830)

Death of the great Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg, 'micro-historian', specialist in witchcraft trials and author of 'The Cheese and the Worms' among many pioneering works.

Today we are looking at Irish Newspaper Archive. This database consists of digitised Irish news publications from 1763 onwards. It includes: the Freeman's Journal, Irish Independent, Sunday Independent, Irish Farmers Journal and some regional newspapers. #mulibrary #maynoothuniversity

#bloomsday I will Yes

According to Alexandre Dumas, the chain of marriage was such a heavy burden that it took two to support it; sometimes three. Joyce's Leopold Bloom and Gabriel Conroy each had to deal with an intruder in their marriage, in Gabriel's case a dead one. drb.ie/blog/what-ha...

For the day that's in it ... well almost. Mike Gogan takes a side glance at another Joyce masterpiece, 'The Dead', the culminating short story in 'Dubliners'. drb.ie/blog/the-liv...

🎩 Happy Bloomsday from UCD Press 🧼🍋 16 June marks the day immortalised in James Joyce's Ulysses 📖 We’re offering 20% off all of our books about James Joyce through the end of June as part of our ‘Summer of Irish Literature’ special offer at www.ucdpress.ie #bloomsday #jamesjoyce #bloomsdayfestival

For anyone contemplating a history research degree, or finishing one and pondering what to do next, Becoming a Historian by Penelope Corfield and @timhitchcock.bsky.social, published by @ihr.bsky.social in 2022, is an invaluable guide. I wish I’d kept Hugh Trevor-Roper’s short guide for comparison.

Kavanagh believed Gogarty, who was libelled in 'The Green Fool' and won £100 in damages, was 'dictating' to the book trade. In Hanna’s on Nassau Street, he threatened to 'wreck the joint' if his book was not displayed in the window. He made similar threats in other bookshops. drb.ie/blog/what-bi...

Issue 161 (Summer 2026) of the Dublin Review of Books (www.drb.ie) is now available. Essays and reviews by Yvonne Galligan, Carla King, Julian Padraic Young, Patricia Thane, Charlie Lynch, Eamon Maher, Brian S Campbell and many others. All on free access, as is our archive, all 19 years of it.

Oh I know a wee spot / Tis a place of great fame ...

No one I ever met had a bad word to say about Patrick Kavanagh. Oliver St John Gogarty, who had problems with the poet, was a different matter. I have long thought of him as an antisemite who always managed to land with his arse in the butter. Maurice Earls blog from 2020: drb.ie/blog/what-bi...

Please, if you are able, support Independent Bookshop Week Indy bookshops pay their full taxes. And are integral parts of our high streets and communities. @bookcornerhx.bsky.social @trumanbooks.bsky.social @bksotsquare.bsky.social @booksaremybag.bsky.social

📢Introducing 1776: Views from the British World! Timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence that launched a revolution that created the USA, this series complicates traditional narratives of this event by situating it in a larger British world context.

Was für ein grandioses Buch @princetonupress.bsky.social @sophiarosenfeld.bsky.social

ICYMI: The Women’s Prize for Fiction 2026 has been awarded to Virginia Evans for The Correspondent (@michaeljbooks.bsky.social), and Lyse Doucet was awarded the Women’s Prize for Non-fiction 2026 with The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People’s History of Afghanistan (Hutchinson Heinemann). 👇

New #podcast! #HeatherCassWhite rejoins the show to talk about editing THE MAN WHO READ EVERYTHING: The Literary Letters of #HaroldBloom! Great talk, so GO LISTEN: chimeraobscura.com/vm/episode-6... (Conversation starts at 14:20; I talk about the #Knicks a bit in my intro.) @yalepress.bsky.social

Dalkey next weekend, West Cork July 10-17, Dublin November 4-8.

Richard Bourke sees contemporary culture, and especially the academy, as infected by ‘a posture of suspicion’ that dismisses reason as controlling hubris, freedom as domination, and liberal democracy as an ally of imperialism. Johnny Lyons on Bourke's Hegel in Issue 157: drb.ie/article/talk...

The MS of the Week is RIA MS D ii 3, the Stowe Missal, and it is on display in the Reading Room of the Library this week from 10.00-16.30, Monday - Friday. Come visit! Check @rialibrary.bsky.social to learn more about this Manuscript and explore highlights from the Library’s collections.

In June, the @nlireland.bsky.social was delighted to welcome @voicestcd.bsky.social from @tcddublin.bsky.social, who shared fascinating research on the NLI's Funeral Entry manuscripts. These remarkable early modern records document the lives and deaths of hundreds of women in Dublin and beyond.