Dr Clare Marie

It's New Year, so time to look back and forward. These are 10 things I think we need to recognise in 2026. It’s a response to what I think are profoundly damaging mistaken assumptions I’ve heard and read from practitioners, journalists, and analysts in 2025. Warning: very long🧵

I politely suggest to the council that we have two Toy Shows moving forward, one for toys and one for books #LateLateToyShow

The entire country will now go to war for Keelan and Dylan #LateLateToyShow

Ok, now its Christmas. We've already had dinosaurs, Gen Alpha Billy Barry doing a non age appropriate song, and now a spy kid. Make sure you're donating #LateLateToyShow

How do the minimalist professional girlies do it with their tiny bags?
I was down for an overnight in Dublin for work and I didn't need my laptop. This meant I didn't need to bring my rucksack.
It nearly ruined the entire trip. As it transpires, I do not know how to function travelling without it.

1/6
On this day, 5 Oct 1968: a banned civil rights march on Duke Street, Derry, met violent RUC attacks – filmed and broadcast worldwide. It ignited a movement for change. #CivilRights68

In this house, we trust the clairvoyance of Queen Oyin #TheTraitorsIRL

Just to be blunt, if you want Wired and 404 and The Verge to employ reporters who understand the memes on bullet casings and can connect them to gaming culture while having the legal and support resources to deal with waves of harassment when we do it… you have to subscribe and pay for the work

Ireland won't contest Eurovision if Israel takes part RTÉ has announced that it will not take part in the 2026 Eurovision Song contest "if the participation of Israel goes ahead".

"Ireland will not participate in Eurovision if Israel takes part"

www.rte.ie/entertainmen...

I challenge some hero to make the sky scroll. I lack the technical chops.

No, YOU lost your copy of Thomas Bartlett's "Ireland: A History" and had to buy a replacement one.

Marisa Tomei taking the stand in My Cousin Vinnie is one of the greatest scenes in cinema history.

A lot of things happening on the news front this morning where "laughs in Northern Irish" is the only response. People are having a totally normal one.

A baby flamingo is called a flamingling.

It's truly abysmal

a woman is saying `` this is the bad place ! '' Alt: Eleanor from The Good Place saying `` this is the bad place ! '' Because Euston Station is one of the circles of hell.

At Euston Station. Most of London is actually fine, a lot of it is quite nice.
Not Euston. God really turned a blind eye when this was being built.

The London water + London weather combo is doing an absolute number on my hair. It has the texture and consistency of a used brillo pad. More power to the insta girlies because I truly don't know how they do it.

65% of people are lying.

I'd like to offer my personal apologies for the thunderstorms in London. I wore shorts, and brought a coat that wasn't fully fully waterproof. God was never letting that level of Irish hubris stand.

Yeah NYT, they just started a genocide instead.

I walked 9 miles yesterday for touristy reasons and now my app is trying to tell me its a good day for running.
Not in this life or the next, app.

Yeah its the MoCo Museum at Marble Arch (Modern Contemporary Museum). 3 floors, it isn't massive but it has a nice selected curation (and Robbie William's first solo exhibit). It's an independent musuem so its £27 to get in. There are lots of free museums to balance it out though!

In a contemporary art exhibition and the prams in London are so fancy I can't tell which ones are for actual babies and which ones are displays.

Out here fighting the good fight in 32°C, trying to be cute.
So far, I've had to clip my hair up to stop it from welding to my face, I've progressed from "shiny" to "sticky" (powder be damned) and I dropped a knife on my skirt so now its stained. Give me a chance here.

A number of Four Courts Press books can now be borrowed on archive.org. Four Courts is a key publisher of works on Irish history, and this means some out of print edited collections on early modern history are now more readily available. And you can read some of my articles there too! For example:

I know everyone disagrees over ranking lists, it's why they're so popular etc etc etc...
but this list is actually unhinged.

Devastated to say mine would also be wrestling booker.

I taught it once and will not be repeating the exercise.