This take on the Jim Gavin affair and the Irish Presidential Election from @tullmcadoo.bsky.social on www.irishpoliticsnewsletter.ie is absolutely on the ball and a brilliant read.

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Have I mentioned that this ebook is FREE for the next five days?

I know that the web is littered with free books, but this one normally costs money.

#PucaFestival #Halloween #Samhain #SpeirGorm #Octocon2025

This might be my favourite historical ad

Why on earth is Badenoch so confident even when she's totally wrong?
It's quite impressive.

The English pay no attention to Northern Ireland - Part 3094

Breaking News: Jane Goodall, one of the world’s most revered conservationists, died at 91. Her discoveries in the 1960s about how chimpanzees behaved in the wild broke new ground and represented what was called “one of the Western world’s great scientific achievements.” nyti.ms/42kpGxt

Are we great yet?

Been at Labour conference for the last couple of days. The phrase that keeps on reverberating around my mind is John Hume saying ‘you can’t eat a flag’

My brain floated off from my body like Homer at the cider mill when I read this

Trump just ordered the military into Portland, and he’s giving them the green light to use lethal force on American citizens.

Authoritarianism is an abstract concept but Trump is making its impacts real and tangible. Let’s be real about it: This is the beginning of dictatorship in America.

Grew up with UTV (or Ulster as it was known then). We lived so far north in Co. Donegal that Irish tv didn't reach us till about 1979. This was the only channel we had , no BBC either.

Is the country not officially called Czechia now?

Archives Released Too Much of Sherrill's Military Record politicalwire.com/2025/09/25/a...

Just 2 gun rights advocates sitting behind a wall of bulletproof glass while enjoying a memorial for a gun rights advocate who got murdered by a gun.

Well researched and well written article on Charlie Kirk, what he stood for and what it may mean for us all.

Sunday reading: On the awfulness of Charlie Kirk's murder, his opinions and the responses to his death - why the real crisis of political violence is our inability to tell ourselves the truth.
philipoconnor.com/the-crisis-o...

Some performance by the Irish women's rugby team - an incredible first-half performance, only to come unstuck in the second, but that was amazing.

America has officially entered its Dark Ages. God help us all—because there's no longer any reason to believe Congress or the courts or media will. We have lost our way to a degree I never thought possible, and I am not going to pretend to have any answers about how we find our way back. We may not.

During the Troubles in Ireland when families lost a loved one to violence, they'd normally use their moment with the media to plead for no retaliation.

Slightly odd cameo on BBC, but glad my comments about normalising post-truth populists are getting traction -

They must be able to criticise Tommy Robinson fascism or we're completely lost. This isn't even Farage we're talking about here. Goddamn them for even needing to hear that.

WB Yeats' words never sounded more apt and could equally apply to the US, the UK and France this week. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity... Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold". Editorial in today's Sunday Independent.

Ronald Brownstein compares Trump's response to the Kirk assassination to the reaction of previous presidents and it is not a good look - in The Irish Independent @independent.ie