Mary O'Connell
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mary1010.bsky.social
Mary O'Connell
@mary1010.bsky.social
Lecturer in English at UCC. Mama to Dylan. Loves Victorian lit, the Romantics, crime fiction, football. Not necessarily in that order.
I am.
You’re all still thinking about Eze aren’t you?
November 25, 2025 at 8:22 AM
GET IN!!!
The power of Ian Wright
November 24, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Eze. My word.
November 23, 2025 at 6:05 PM
Reposted by Mary O'Connell
Cluedo inventor's daughter hands over archives to Birmingham museum
Cluedo inventor's daughter hands over archives to Birmingham museum
Anthony Pratt's daughter explains how evenings performing at country hotels inspired the murder-mystery game.
www.bbc.com
November 23, 2025 at 9:06 AM
It really is this. They did not need Isak. Also, hilarious.
Liverpool spending a billion pounds, paying no attention to midfield or defense, and then watching it repeatedly blow up in their face, is both hilarious and just.
November 22, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Got up early to try to get some marking done, and read an essay on Sherlock Holmes that was so good I went and read it twice. After a not very nice few weeks at work, it is lovely to be reminded that this is what it is all about. So proud of this student. 😊
November 22, 2025 at 7:51 AM
Reposted by Mary O'Connell
138 years ago #OTD November 21, 1887, the first story to feature Sherlock Holmes - A Study in Scarlet - was published in Beeton's Christmas Annual. Written in 1886, and rejected by a variety of publishers for being either too long or too short,
November 21, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Reposted by Mary O'Connell
To “my students and to anyone who might listen, I say: Don’t surrender to AI your ability to read, write and think when others once risked their lives and died for the freedom to do so.”

www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...
I Set A Trap To Catch My Students Cheating With AI. The Results Were Shocking.
"Students are not just undermining their ability to learn, but to someday lead."
www.huffpost.com
November 21, 2025 at 12:22 AM
Started Volume 1 last night. Enjoying so far.
My review of the third part of Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume - one of the most exciting things happening in fiction right now observer.co.uk/culture/book...
Paperback of the week: On the Calculation of Volume III by Solvej Balle | The Observer
observer.co.uk
November 20, 2025 at 10:20 AM
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November 19, 2025 at 10:02 PM
Reposted by Mary O'Connell
comrade JCO gets it completely

CHOP FROM THE TOP

(solemn vow never ever to screenshot badsite; solemn exception for this urgent story; rally against these anti-intellectuals detonating public goods for the working people of NJ!)
November 19, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Reposted by Mary O'Connell
It was the honour of my academic career to co-nominate and co-deliver (with the amazing Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh) the citation for Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin's Honorary Doctorate from @ucc.ie. ❤️

aosdana.artscouncil.ie/general/aosd...
Aosdána member and Saoi Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin awarded Honorary Doctorate of Literature by UCC - Aosdána
The trailblazing poet, scholar, editor, Saoi of Aosdána and former Ireland Professor of Poetry, Professor Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin was honoured the Honorary Doctorate by University College Cork (UCC) fo...
aosdana.artscouncil.ie
November 17, 2025 at 10:22 AM
Absolutely delighted for him.
You'd have to have a heart of stone not to love that for Kieran Tierney ❤️
November 18, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Reposted by Mary O'Connell
im beginning to think it was a mistake to stake our entire economy on chatbots and fake internet money
November 18, 2025 at 12:39 PM
Reposted by Mary O'Connell
I also saw this in an article in nymag.com - how fucking depressing is this?

Shopify run ads on the Arsecast, but I will be informing Acast to immediately cease any further campaigns with them.
November 18, 2025 at 7:42 AM
What's great about this is that one of them will absolutely nail it, and you're impressed, and then it refreshes after a minute and the same model will be laughably bad, and this is 100% my professional experience with LLMs.
Hahaha! Er. Someone has used AI to make analogue clocks with the live time.

Analogue clocks are really hard.

AI: spectacularly confident. Can be both subtly and spectacularly wrong. This is a lovely illustration of that.

clocks.brianmoore.com
November 17, 2025 at 10:02 PM
Reposted by Mary O'Connell
What's great about this is that one of them will absolutely nail it, and you're impressed, and then it refreshes after a minute and the same model will be laughably bad, and this is 100% my professional experience with LLMs.
Hahaha! Er. Someone has used AI to make analogue clocks with the live time.

Analogue clocks are really hard.

AI: spectacularly confident. Can be both subtly and spectacularly wrong. This is a lovely illustration of that.

clocks.brianmoore.com
AI World Clocks
The current time as rendered by 9 different AI models. By Brian Moore.
clocks.brianmoore.com
November 17, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Reposted by Mary O'Connell
Has masculinity not been central in literary fiction? Am I forgetting the great feminist focus of Cormac McCarthy?
November 16, 2025 at 6:26 PM
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Troy story 3

📸 Attila Kisbedenek
November 16, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Proud today!
Troy Parrott in tears on RTE - very emotional.
November 16, 2025 at 4:24 PM
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Jimmy Carter’s peanut farm says hi.
November 16, 2025 at 3:32 AM
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Hello media please stop framing the autism/gut microbiome discourse around autism being a bad thing. Being autistic can be extremely challenging, absolutely, but that's because because society at large doesn't understand and isn't built for autistic people.
November 14, 2025 at 10:01 PM
😍
First edition Chandler on this week’s rare list. See more here: mailchi.mp/mysteriousbo...
November 14, 2025 at 6:50 PM
Reposted by Mary O'Connell
If you have to get permission to teach in your area of expertise from people who are definitionally not qualified to adjudicate your expertise then you are no longer working at a university.

You’re working at a state propaganda factory.
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — Texas A&M adopts policy requiring professors to get OK from school president to discuss certain race and gender issues.
November 13, 2025 at 11:48 PM
Reposted by Mary O'Connell
“If you elect to have a machine do those things for you, you’re losing something. You’re losing a part of yourself.”
November 11, 2025 at 9:00 PM