Sarah Sara Sarita whatever

This article is full of digs against horseshoe bats, planners & says “environmental goals have created stasis”. The @dublininquirer.com have already looked into the Collison backed Progress Ireland & identified links with US libertarian & Peter Thiel backed groups. We need independent journalism!

A 13-year-old Ukrainian used LEGO to introduce English-speaking audiences to poet and human rights hero Vasyl Stus.

🧵 1/6 ⬇️

If you want FF to get €200,000 of public money, vote 1 Gavin.

If you prefer FF to pay for their own mistakes, vote 1 Connolly or Humphreys.

#Aras25 #vótáil #spéirghorm

My son’s stories remind me of my own early literary works His creative writing leads me to retell the time I invented an entire fish festival

This week, I offer a SNEAK PEEK at my son's new novel, and remember a tale from my own time as a precocious child scribe.

On time travel, stone age tools, and Idelandic fish festivals.

observer.co.uk/news/columni...

An Post Irish Book Awards Public Vote 2025 Vote in the 2025 An Post Irish Book Awards Public Vote

We’re thrilled to announce the shortlists for the 2025 An Post Irish Book Awards! 📚✨

The very best of Irish literature – congratulations to all the shortlisted writers, illustrators & publishers!

🎉 Vote for your winners: scxo9qtv33a.typeform.com/apiba25-vote

#APIBA #StoriesMakeUs

As we await a verdict in the trial of Soldier F, another reminder that in 2010 the Bloody Sunday inquiry found

- the killings were unjustified
- none of the 14 dead (7 of whom were children) had guns
- no warnings were given
- no soldiers were under threat
- the troops were the first to open fire

“Fuck AI”

— Guillermo del Toro

🎥 Vanity Fair

I’d like to believe that, but what if apathy takes over? The louder and more prevalent this rhetoric gets, the more it digs in because people don’t know they need to resist. They shouldn’t have to. It’s stupid. I don’t think my IRL conversations confirm your point all the time.

WTF is this??? I don’t understand how anyone’s definition of woke is dangerous? What the hell is happening? I don’t recognize people anymore and it makes me so sad.

Hakate by Nikita Gill (read by the author). The subtitle is The Witch. A serene woman in grey holding a lit torch with a suggestion of two other identical women. There is also a dog and a couple of golden owls on a black background.

56. I really wanted to like this. Read the first half and listened to the second, which was more enjoyable. I felt that the VERY short “chapters”(?) only served to break the flow and the lyricism couldn’t take hold. I just couldn’t get into it. “Meh” #booksky

Which is why the man who greeted her inside the pub – polite, pleasant but oddly flat – felt like a stranger. Gone was the quickfire wit and playful rhythm she’d come to expect from their exchanges. Over pints he stumbled through small talk, checked his phone a little too often, and seemed to wilt under the pressure of her questions. “I felt like I was sitting opposite someone I’d never even spoken to,” she says. “I tried to have the same sort of conversation as we’d been having online, but it was like, ‘Knock, knock, is anyone home?’ – like he knew basically nothing about me. That’s when I suspected he’d been using AI.” Rachel gave her date the benefit of the doubt. “I thought maybe he was nervous,” she says. But she’d been “Chatfished” before, so when the gap between his real and digital selves failed to close on their second date, she called it off. “I’d already been ChatGPT-ed into bed at least once. I didn’t want it to happen again.”

you know that critique of ai that says it’s like taking a forklift to the gym and expecting to get stronger? well this bit of that guardian article about people using chatgpt in dating apps kinda proves it correct

Malachy Clerkin: The Jim Gavin fiasco was a long overdue humbling for GAA exceptionalism Micheál Martin had his head turned by Gavin’s football success, forgetting it’s just a sport, no better or worse than the rest

GAA exceptionalism has definitely been due a peg-lowering.

The phrase "centrist rugby Dad" speaks to a fantasy where GAA is this benignly egalitarian, progressive and welcoming space. This is not everyone's experience but good luck to them if they say so.

www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic...

You will find lots of helpful research here Alice bsky.app/profile/pari...

Dad’s books are full of empathy, common sense, and a healthy suspicion of the powerful. But at its heart his work is also about how systems keep people poor while pretending it’s their own fault. So I hope Kemi’s taking notes as well as reading the jokes.

Greta Thunberg speaks to the press after being released from illegal detainment in Israel: "I could talk for a very, very long time about our mistreatment and abuses in our imprisonment. Trust me, but that is not the story.”

Granny: Well it's no harm, the guy had the personality of a dial tone
Me: GRANNY

Of all Jim Gavin’s gaffes, it turns out it was his spare one that took him down.

I feckin told yis lads

It’s even worse than that - she promised before and didn’t do it

Have Leinster just given up on the lovely yellow shorts then?

Landlord Jim Gavin never refunded 6 months' rent to a former tenant who accidentally kept paying rent after he moved out. The tenancy was not registered with the RTB. Gavin really is the perfect Fianna Fáil candidate.
Archive link: archive.is/4ts0L #spéirgorm #presidentialelection

Can attest, missus’ll be some shocked 😉

I have never seen anything before that sounded both so brilliant and so awful as a Britney Spears metal tribute band

Our friend, poet and activist @sarahmaintains.bsky.social has been illegally detained by the IDF and is being held in an Israeli jail. There are reports of mistreatment and human rights violations. Please keep pressure on the Irish government and embassy to secure the release of Sarah and others. 🇵🇸🇮🇪

This morning, an attack carried out by Israeli forces killed Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff member, Omar Hayek, and seriously injured four others. The attack took place on a street where our teams were waiting to take a bus to the MSF field hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza. All staff were wearing MSF vests, clearly identifying them as medical humanitarian workers. We express deep sorrow and outrage over the killing, which occurs less than two weeks after another MSF colleague, Hussein Alnajjar, was killed by the Israeli forces, in Deir Al Balah. Our thoughts are with Omar’s family and colleagues at this tragic time. Omar, 42 years old, is the fourteenth MSF colleague to be killed in Gaza since 7 October 2023.

MSF staff are universally understood to be engaged in an essentially sacred form of work. For a state to nonetheless continuously murder them is a testament to a truly unthinkable degree of depravity.

msf.org/msf-denounce...

Governments won't take responsibility – someone had to Veronica O'Keane expects to be intercepted by Israeli forces soon – a near certainty she says she’s ready for.

Governments around the world are not taking responsibility – that’s why we’re doing this: Irish doctor on Gaza flotilla

'The Irish government knows how dear this is to Irish people. So they appease us. But they're not actually doing anything.'

www.ontheditch.com/governments-...

As a spoken language, Irish predates English by a millennium.

Its early writing system, Ogham, written vertically as a series of lines and strokes, has an alphabet based on trees.

A Reddit r/rugby post saying: Connacht v Scarlets off. The Scarlets team have been on a flight that was bound for Dublin since 13:30. Two failed landing attempts at Dublin due to storm Amy. Diverted to Manchester. Landed. After refuelling there was a medical emergency. Following that the crew hit their hour limit. So a new crew was sourced. Just as things were looking up a passenger tried to exit the flight by opening the back door. The police were called. The passenger has now been removed with their cohort. . . Now the Scarlets are requesting to leave the flight as "their game is off." Fair point, they can't be expected to play after being on a plane for 8 hours now. Issue is they have a lot of baggage. Anyway. Wait for confirmation from the league but that's the state of play on the ground. Source: Me, I'm on the flight."

#rugby #connacht

the EU parliament is looking for a native-level irish speaker for a press officer traineeship, starting next march

it's paid (€1660/month, no tax) and is a pretty sweet opportunity to see how the EU sausage is made, and a chance to try brussels (if you're not already here)

deadline end of october!

'For many of the victims of this miserable episode, the culprit is clear: the current Bishop of London, Sarah Mullally. While she may claim to have purged the diocese of its murkier elements, she was ultimately in charge during the disastrous denouement of Sargeant’s career. '