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Emmet Ó Briain

@emmet.quiddity.ie

2.3K followers 530 following 1.9K posts

research. language. lay ethnomethodologist. broadstone based. mundane methods of pedestrianism + active travel also: D7 Play Streets, almost always (running) in the phoenix park worst taste in music: @yesboyicecream.bsky.social

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Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · Nov 18

Here's some very unstructured thoughts I wrote a few weeks ago about bringing children to weekend activities using public transport as a form of radical (if still generally impractical) sustainable transport advocacy! medium.com/p/f45389f4e1d8

On not being a “burden for others”: Bringing your children to weekend activities using public…

Dublin Inquirer’s recent launch of their NoShowBus.ie website, which allows people to report cancelled or disappearing buses, is very dear…

medium.com

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Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 2h

Almost all of the Icelandic Knattleikur sagas end like this 2014 picture by Tony Grehan of a Clare player wrapping his hurl around the head of a Limerick defender.

Clare’s Nickey O’Connell wrapping his hurl around the head of Limerick centre-back Cathal McNamara.

Picture by Tony Grehan

Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 4h

TIL: A study in 2009 randomly selecting people with beards, mustaches, and clean-shaven found that mustached individuals made 8.2% more money than the bearded and 4.3% more than cleanshaven. However, they spent 11% more money. The study was funded by the
American Mustache Institute.

Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 6h

just trying to figure out if it will be the NTA, TII or DCC who will man the turrets on the Greenway 🤔

Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 7h

(well, shooting manna from heaven)

Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 7h

manna from heaven

RTÉ News @news.rte.ie · 7h

Germany will grant police the power to shoot down rogue drones like those that have disrupted airports across Europe.

Germany to allow police to shoot down drones

Germany will grant police the power to shoot down rogue drones like those that have disrupted airports across Europe and that some European leaders have attributed to a hybrid war being waged by Russi...

www.rte.ie

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Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 7h

😂

Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 7h

Note to self - we can now add Richmond Road to list of viable play streets @richmondroadra.bsky.social!!

Karl Stanley @karlstanley.bsky.social · 8h

Out this morning with the folks from Richmond Road - we’re looking for a way to make the street safe for the residents who are hemmed in by dangerous, out-of-control vehicle traffic.

A group of people in hi viz vests standing behind a red barrier with signs saying “Road closed” and “people over traffic”

A selfie at the demonstration at Richmond Road to protest at dangerous traffic

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Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 8h

It's tangential to the current discussion but a good read! www.jstor.org/stable/2625955

Review: The Incredible Vagueness of Being British/English on JSTOR

Robin Cohen, The Incredible Vagueness of Being British/English, International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 76, No. 3, Europe: Where Does It Begin and End? (Jul., 2000...

www.jstor.org

Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 8h

That's true! The Robin Cohen article mentions it in passing in the context of a broader discussion around the conflation of "Britishness" with "Englishness" (which I think Conservatives have always struggled with) - e.g the cricket reference "long shadows on county grounds" is lost on Celts!!

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Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 8h

Part of Robin Cohen's 2000 review article “The Incredible Vagueness of Being British/English" discusses Major's speech in terms of his disappointment that his Cabinet colleagues followed Thatcher's rules rather than, like him, Thomas Arnold's romantic view of country - seems an even crueler lot now.

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Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 8h

Another for the problematisation of "mobility" list

"The Flaneur, the Sandwichman and the Whore: The Politics of Loitering"

Susan Buck-Morss
New German Critique, Autumn, 1986, No. 39,

www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4...

www.jstor.org

Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 8h

"For the flâneur, it was traffic that did him in...."

How automobility is inimical to flânerie

from "The Flaneur, the Sandwichman and the Whore: The Politics of Loitering" (1986) Susan Buck-Morss

h/t @laurenelkin.bsky.social

Today, it is clear to any pedestrian in Paris that within public space, automobiles are the dominant and predatory species. They penetrate
the city's aura so routinely that it disintegrates faster than it can coalesce. Flaneurs, like tigers or pre-industrial tribes, are cordoned off on reserva- tions, preserved within the artificially created environments of pedes- trian streets, parks, and underground passageways. In Victor Hugo's old age, viewing the city from the roof of a public omnibus still preserved for men) some of the panoramic pleasure of parapatetic lanerie (V, 545, 554-5), if not the freedom "to follow one's inspiration as if the mere turning right or left already constituted an essentially poetic act"

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Reposted by Emmet Ó Briain

Imbibe Coffee Roasters @imbibecoffee.bsky.social · 9h

We've never taken part in "Black Friday". It's one of those rare occasions where each year I write an Insta post spelling out why we don't. A website of "Resistance" for likeminded businesses might be a good resource as many do choose to resist this stuff. No judgement on those who do engage obvs.

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Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 1d

We're probably too tolerant of businesses privatising the public realm ...see below.

Motel One wants to close off the public colonnade on Liffey Street.

(i think many good faith objections to ostensibly positive development come from experience of this sort of bait-and-switch by developers)

Ciarán Cuffe @ciarancuffe.bsky.social · 1d

That new public colonnade on Liffey Street Upper? Motel One wants to close it off, a slap in the face for those who value public space. Here’s my Planning Observation, feel free to write your own: bit.ly/CufULS

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Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 1d

yes, its awfulness is also frustratingly incoherent - not shit in one specific way, but on many, many different levels. And yet still an interesting road and so close to being a great one (also frustrating)

Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 1d

(have a life-long and complicated relationship with Richmond Road so would love to see something/anything done with it)

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Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 1d

2007 Richmond Road Area Action Plan:
www.dublincity.ie/sites/defaul...

www.dublincity.ie

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Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 1d

It's a bit jarring to see how little has changed in terms of public realm and traffic for Richmond Road in the last 20 years (and longer).

In fact, the 2007 Richmond Road Area Action Plan has the following line "Richmond Road remains a 'rural' type road with little change since its inception".

The road is a heavily trafficked route, functioning as a link road between the N1 at Drumcondra Road and the Port/East
Link/N11. Richmond Road remains a 'rural' type road with little change
since its inception. The characteristics of the road are:
•
•
•
• The volume and speed of traffic has significant
adverse impacts on the local environment. Pavement widths are severely constricted in some
stretches, particularly so between Nos. 112 and 130. Vehicles mount the pavement in some stretches causing damage to kerbs and pavements, and a hazard for pedestrians. Between Convent Avenue and Grace Park Road, the carriageway is between 5
to 6 metres wide. Pavements at setback frontages are used for parking, for example, at Tolka Park Stadium, Richmond Builder's Providers and Leydon's Cash and Carry. The loading of heavy vehicles on these
pavements is extremely hazardous for pedestrians. There is just one signalised pedestrian crossing
near the Grace Park Road junction.

7.4 Traffic, Movement and Linkage Overall the aim is to achieve a better balance between
vehicular, pedestrian and cycle movements within the area.
The objectives are to:
(a) To provide additional linkages throughout the area by providing public access routes from the existing roads to the redevelopment and within the site to facilitate
the movement of pedestrians and cyclists.
(b)
(c) To improve/facilitate vehicular access to the institutional lands and development sites on and in the
vicinity of Richmond Road. To establish a coherent road and footpath alignment along Richmond Road between the junction with Grace Park Road and Philipsburgh Avenue, while having regard to the significance of the historical alignment of the road, by upgrading the road and, where feasible, to achieve a minimum width of a 7.5 metres carriageway with advisory cycle lanes an
pavements on either side.

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Reposted by Emmet Ó Briain

richmondroadra.bsky.social @richmondroadra.bsky.social · 1d

We'll be peacefully, joyfully taking to our street tomorrow morn 07:30- 08:15, to drive real engagement from @dubcitycouncil.bsky.social on a #filteredpermeability trial to create #safe space for people.

🪧 Please join us if you can!
@donnacooney1.bsky.social @karlstanley.bsky.social

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Reposted by Emmet Ó Briain

Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 1d

You can’t visit many sites on the web these days without being bombarded by ads, pop-ups, and paywalls.

We’re happy to report that there is absolutely nothing to interrupt you when you read an article on placesjournal.org. No ads, no pop-ups, no distractions. A rare luxury in online reading today.

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Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 1d

suburban light //

Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 2d

There’s about 10 different sagas involving the sport and almost every one of them is “Gísli lost the stick game and thought the other boys were laughing at him so he exacted disproportionately violent revenge” 🤷‍♂️

Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 2d

Egil's Saga

(from a Terry Gunnell Article on "The Relationship between Icelandic Knattleikur and Early Irish Hurling")

Egils saga (ch. 40), from the second quarter of the thirteenth
century, set in south-west Iceland: 12 Ball games were common in those days, and there were plenty of strong men in the district at this time. [...] A ball game was arranged early in winter on the plains by the river Hvítá, and crowds of people came to it from all over the district. Many of Skallagrimr's men attended, and Póror Granason was their leader. Egill asked Póror if he could go to the game with him; he was in his seventh year then. [...] When they reached the games meeting, the players divided up into teams. A lot of small boys were there as well and they formed teams to play their own games. Egill was paired against a boy called Grimr, the son of Heggr from Heggstafir. Grim was ten or eleven years old, and strong for his age. When they started playing the game, Egill proved to be weaker than Grimr who showed off his strength as much as he could. Egill lost his temper, wielded the stick and struck Grimr, who seized him and dashed him to the ground roughly, warning him that he would suffer for it if he did not learn how to behave. When Egill got back on his feet he left the game, and the boys jeered at him.
Egill went to see Póror Granason and told him what had happened.
Póror said: 'I'll go with you and we'll take our revenge.' Póror handed Egill an axe he had been holding, a common type of weapon in those days. They walked over to where the boys were playing their game. Grimr had caught the ball and was running with the other boys chasing him. Egill ran up to Grimr and drove the axe into his head, right through to the brain. '3

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Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 3d

That's it!

Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 3d

Adding it to my list!!