Stan Ó hOireachtaigh 🍉

Minister pants-on-fire again?

'Free Palestine.' 'Somehow, those words have become more controversial than the suffering that made them necessary.' - Macklemore

Michael Hartnett on Eoghan Rua Uí Shúilleabháin 'In place of a shovel or spade/ each one shouldered a rose'

Is there anywhere on these islands that has banned leaf blowers? Because I'd move there.

This arrived, in it's original (1972) box and with connectors and instruction manual.

What’s so moving about the election results in Brazil & Serbia & global student protests is you think you’re alone wanting things to be different & then suddenly you realise the young generation has got this . They are outmanoeuvring unhinged wealth & power , we have so much to learn from them .

Throughout the entire Fare Hike saga, Government maintained this was a decision by the NTA We now know it was the Dept of Public Expenditure & it was decided 12 months ago Government lied to to the public, the did it repeatedly, & they did it intentionally

Sadly this is a "tell everyone you live in the UK without telling everyone you live in the UK" post

I look forward to hearing about the 10k+ Irish citizens who vote at the consulate in Manchester for the next Irish presidential elction.

Sometimes I feel I should retire in order to get some work done.

Incredible gender difference in voting intention in Brazil.

Lunny's grin at that magical leap from one tune to the next. www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyP4...

'The fond,caramel nostalgia of men' Some sentence. (Doireann Ní Ghríofa)

Second rate artists who have taken a stand: Shelley, Zola, George Eliot, Picasso, Beckett, Hemingway etc.

Ian Lynch from Lankum mispronouncing Welsh band names while playing them on @firedrawnear.bsky.social: delighted, made my week. English person tries this: "Hello, Human Resources?"

V. Interesting examination of Welsh nationhood in a world systems/ longue durée frame, in comparison with v different counterexamples of nations w/out states. Fun fact: Welsh speakers were the single most pro-remain set of voters in Britain.

They know his people.

Learning, from Iain Sinclair in the LRB, that JH Prynne and Bill Wyman were primary school classmates, and that only one of them passed the 11 plus, and it was not the poet.

Government by the lads for the lads.

#bohs The end

Time was they didn't need to explain to religious how to run schools either.

Like everyone else in Planxty, bar Liam, Lunny had a professional career behind him already. The way Emmet Spiceland, along with the Johnstons and Skara Brae, blended Irish folk with pop harmonies was as novel as what followed in the 70s. youtu.be/UWdx0oGPCvA?...

I wonder how comparable this is to the UK or Ireland? Wonder away, because there doesn't appear to be any data. In the US, those with PhDs are 25 times more likely than the mean to have a parent with a PhD. Or put another way 2/3 of faculty are at least 2nd Gen PhDs www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Sad to hear. A quiet giant. I wrote this a few years back about my first gig and one of my first albums beyondthespelloflabour.wordpress.com/2026/10/23/d...

Last week, an English person asked me if we 'have Halloween in Ireland' This is the most offensive thing that anyone has ever said.

I will never not be amused by the notion that this island is populated by 'Britons'.

If Jim ever becomes Taoiseach, his first year will be a megamix of all the worst bits of Liz Truss, Boris, and Starmer in one chaotically offensive and incompetent form. He won't last beyond that.

Change one letter in a song: Eleanor Rugby

This song was my introduction to John Anderson, via the Mekons. RIP www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYoT...

In one afternoon FF/FG ministers came down like a tonne of bricks on a rape crisis centre when they spent weeks hiding while Musk's Nazi website they use was producing CSAM. Like many of you, I really really hate these bastards.

'So why do you think women were so under-represented in punk and post-punk?' three male hands shoot up (in a majority female class)

"possible oblivion" talk about missed opportunities. See also FF 2011

Lovely evening with The Third Man on the big screen in the perfect big suburban cinema, Cottage Road in Far Headingley. One thing in common with Straight Time watched last night - the way the film lifts off halfway through when Stanton or Welles appear.

I would love to know if the number of Leap cards possessed by the current cabinet is greater than zero

Government for people who own houses and cars.

Probably not. No scope to demonise public servants, mock SF, or make money for landlords here.

Yes, by 1000.

#loi Three becomes two.

All I want for Christmas