Tina O'Toole

The assumption is that you’ll wheel them in a trolley to your car, or at least so I always supposed - as I struggled along the pavement with arms wrapped around one - just hope it doesn’t rain!

A large (maybe 3 feet wide by 5 feet tall) sign on the end of a row of bookshelves that tells the “address” of books that have sensitive content.

Sometimes I think it’s going to be the librarians who will save us all.

If a sizeable number of people in Britain believe immigration harms the country the government’s job is to reeducate them not to use their prejudices as the policy making springboard. It’s a Labour government founded on the principles of socialism, compassion and solidarity not expedient cruelty

The new Pope has made an edict that time spent on the platform at Limerick Junction can be deducted from time in purgatory.

What Carrie says:

'It's a lost map!'
'Where did you find it?'
'In the Map Drawer, in the Map Room of the Map Library'.
OH is seriously thinking about doing a talk on data and discovery entitled 'why we keep biscuits in the biscuit tin'. Seems appropriate.

All the this ^^

Worth a read …

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

Reasons to visit your local haunted bookshop: Open Until Very Late (image: moonlit bookshop) Staff with nine hundred years experience (image: skeleton bookseller) Home delivery by Headless Hoseman or flying fiend (image: deliveries being made) Readings from famous authors (Image: Shakespeare zombie) Stay and browse forever (Image ghost in a bookshop)

Three @theguardian.com books cartoons from previous halloweens: 1. Haunted Bookshop

A White House with a dark roof behind several tall trees with bare branches silhouetted against a sunset of red and orange

Not yet Samhain, but soon…

#speirgorm #wildatlanticway #sunsetphoto

Saying that it's "too hard" to get on the Irish president ballot when an independent woman got the entire Irish left to back her, got the biggest vote ever and beat two historically dominant parties is not just wrong - it is breathtakingly offensive and outrageously dishonest.
#Aras25 #Speirgorm

Turns out voting for Catherine Connolly is a rural pursuit.

One of our most frequent #ruralPursuits #aras25 #rtept

We knew this would happen. Note how realistic the visuals and voices are.
This AI deepfake video of Catherine Connolly ‘withdrawing’ from presidential contest and that Friday’s poll is ‘cancelled’ is live and viral on Facebook tonight.
1000s watching, commenters believing it.

Cork marching for Palestine: Woman with placard reading I can't believe I have to protest genocide.

Cork and worldwide: I can't believe I have to protest genocide. #áras25

One candidate is winning the podcast war - the other has hardly been on the field As the electorate goes to the polls next week, one presidential candidate has been far more active on podcasts than the other.

As the electorate goes to the polls next week, one presidential candidate has been far more active on podcasts than the other.

PR and communications expert Eoghan Tomás McDermott explains to us why this matters.

jrnl.ie/6847584t

Useful 🧵 here:

All the this ^^

“The miracle that saves the world, the realm of human affairs, from its normal, ‘natural’ ruin is the fact of natality... in other words, the birth of new & the new beginning, the action [people] are capable of by virtue of being born.”

Happy Birthday Hannah Arendt, 14/10/1906 💙🚬

Good point, worth remembering this week

Totally, and if I hear one more reporter mention the “failure to land a killer blow” … The media seems to suggest we crave precisely the kind of set-piece engagement that’s brought global politics to the mess it’s in. Bring on some nuance and adult discussion!

same

Great article by our friend Sarah
Clancy, who was kidnapped by apartheid Israel in international waters trying to get aid into Gaza. Our governments' complicity in the genocide of Palestinians compels us to act in all the different ways we can. #FreePalestine
www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/comm...

Build Ramps Not Bombs, a disability activist badge, 1970s

doomscroll break

Margaret Ward Rebel Women. Cumann na mBan in Belfast and the Glens of Antrim, 1914-1924, Beyond the Pale Books, Belfast, 2024 Frances ‘Frank’ Brady is one of the few members of Cumann na mBan who went on hunger strike during the War of Independence, and more unusually, for whom a photograph exists of her in bed, in jail, …

Delighted to have had the opportunity to review Margaret Wards book on rebel women in Northern Ireland-it is a meticulously researched work - offers fascinating insights into the afterlives of northern revolutionary women #speirgorm womenshistoryassociation.com/book-reviews...

An déantóir clár faisnéise is ceannródaí teanga Manchán Magan imithe ar shlí na fírinne Bhain sé cáil amach as a leabhair is a chláir theilifíse a léirigh a thuiscint ar Ghaeilge, stair agus an saol ársa.

Tá an scríbhneoir agus an déantóir cláir fhaisnéise agus taistil, Manchán Magan, imithe ar shlí na fírinne.

jrnl.ie/6833855

At least 16 Irish held after Israel intercepts flotilla Israel has said it will deport pro-Palestinian activists on an aid flotilla intercepted at sea as they headed towards Gaza, adding that none of the vessels had breached its maritime blockade of the te...

16 Irish citizens have now been detained by Israeli authorities including poet Sarah Clancy @sarahmaintains.bsky.social

www.rte.ie/news/middle-...

Global Sumud Flotilla Statement - Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann 2 October August 2025 Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann is gravely concerned about the abduction of poet Sarah Clancy, one of several Irish citizens taking part in the Global Sumud Flotilla. The flotilla was ...

Please read and reshare our statement on the Global Sumud Flotilla. We at Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann offer solidarity in this time of crisis.

irishpen.com/2025/10/02/g...