Siobhan McAndrew

My husband's youngest daughter (7yo): 'Daddy, what is it like, the life of a boy?' (the precise phrasing)

His answer: 'it's like the life of a girl. But easier'

An unusually leaden Start the Week right now

Eamonn Mullally - Six in the City

I gather her husband was raised Catholic - it's not clear whether he's conformed or not. He seems to be a character: sixinthecity.co.uk/news/guide/e...

Seamus Heaney’s Ribbons: A beautiful poem about his sisters, published for the first time The reader is transported by Heaney’s illuminating memory: we’re in a school, a photographer is visiting and the girls are having their picture taken

www.irishtimes.com/life-style/p...

Reminded me of the perfect coincidence in Turkey this summer: a call for rain prayers after a long drought was made just as the Meteorology Service warned of three days of heavy rain across the country

www.nber.org/system/files...
h/t Arpit Gupta

It was a Corkman even who first debunked the Protocols of Zion

When half the population don't trust Reasonable People #77: A Brexit-era survey of who voters trust and what it means for our information environment

New newsletter. I couldn't get this survey result from 2016 out of my head, so I wrote about it https://tomstafford.substack.com/p/when-half-the-population-dont-trust

Want more friends? A better social life? Be like my 85-year-old buddy Gerry Friendship falters due to the belief it should just happen on its own. The solution: make a conscious effort to be social

Though I do grumble that the Guardian tends to write about men like we're farm animals, there is a lot of sense in this. I've learned a lot about being a friend from other friends who are good at making things happen.

www.theguardian.com/wellness/202...

Not just mine then! I'm looking for strategies.

Manchán Magan finds out if 25% of Irish people really do speak Gaelic Gaelic is the first official language of Ireland, with 25% of the population claiming to speak it. But can that true? To put it to the test, Manchán Magan set off round the country with one self-impos...

And here it was: www.theguardian.com/travel/2007/...

Very sad news. I first heard of him via a brilliant, hilarious piece for the Guardian years ago. A huge loss!

I love this museum - have taken my daughters

‘There was comedy at all times’: Andrew O’Hagan on 15 years of funny, frank and champagne-fuelled friendship with Edna O’Brien In the last decades of her life, the two novelists became close friends. He recalls their intense bond, their last trip to Ireland and her memories of being romanced by Richard Burton

‘There was comedy at all times’: Andrew O’Hagan on 15 years of funny, frank and champagne-fuelled friendship with Edna O’Brien

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/s...

😭

The persisting pay gap and the motherhood penalty - British Politics and Policy at LSE Policymakers are yet to understand the nuances and intricate mechanics of why women’s earnings take a hit after they become mothers.

Found this when searching for the SchoolsWeek piece on how it feels to pay the parenthood penalty - very useful!

blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...

I'm surprised this is exprssed as a question. How could the answer be anything other than that it's horrible?

And no, they're mostly not finding gratification elsewhere or enjoying greater work-life balance. It's just worse pay and worse work.

schoolsweek.co.uk/how-does-it-...

Another way we are failing an entire generation: we must teach young people to speak | Simon Jenkins The PM promised to prioritise oracy lessons, but has failed to do so. Set against tests and exams, it is seen as a luxury: in fact it is essential, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins

Remarkable piece for many reasons.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The sign-off on BBC R4 just now was 'good night and oíche mhaith' 😭 💔

Dodging the parent trap | The Observer As a young feminist, Helen Taylor vowed not to have kids. In Childless By Choice, she explains why it’s a decision she regrets

Interesting. I agree with the reviewer, I think. Being a parent doesn't mean I think about the future - I don't have time or bandwidth. I would prioritise differently - probably better and more morally - if I didn't have children

observer.co.uk/culture/book...

💚❤️

>> When something is just part of the landscape it's more likely to be taken for granted as just how things are

It was only last year that I thought that maybe it's remarkable that Garda barracks are called 'barracks' rather than something more civilian - perhaps down to the RIC/19th century legacy

That's fair. I think that would have been the nearest to us too - 75 miles away

I'm not an ethicist and couldn't say what our obligations are, though it was interesting that the photography wasn't seen as likely to attract interest when the photographer first did the project

>>

Derek Scally: Some people knew about the Magdalene Laundries, some didn’t - but the silent majority knew not to know In a fourth universe, those who knew insist no ordinary people had any agency to take on the Church and the State

This is very good on collective responsibility and collective shame:

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025...

Gorgeous Corpus!

How to recover from flooding

:-(

www.gov.uk/government/p...

The Zollman Effect I’m drafting a new social epistemology section for the SEP entry on formal epistemology. It’ll focus on a series of three papers that study epistemic networks using computer simulations. This post is ...

My advisor has an effect named after him. I want that too now. The problem is I'd have to achieve something and I don't wanna do that. Suggestions?

jonathanweisberg.org/post/zollman/

A clean run of BlueSkiers commenting on the hurling! The sad face from the UCC stats prof counts too...

Well played Tipp who were flying in the second half

Hard luck Cork

The Cathars Catharism was the most successful heresy of the Middle Ages. Flourishing principally in the Languedoc and Italy, the Cathars taught that the world is evil and must be transcended through a simple life...

I loved Sean Martin's The Cathars - a great sumer read www.google.co.uk/books/editio...

And reading Nancy Goldstone's Four Queens right now!

Lol. I've been to Aude a few times and drove down to Begur - I was surprised how Spanish, sorry Catalan, the French sounds in that part of France

Example - una baguetta!

He was being sincere, which I couldn't believe!