Niamh Dowdall

St Brigid in stained glass. She is wearing rich blue robes and there is a stylised St Brigid’s cross behind her head. She carries a model of the monastery she founded. She appears to float above the landscape. The lead lines in the panel are disguised by the artist as leafy garlands and the edges are decorated with floral motifs.

Happy St Brigid’s Day!
This is a depiction of her from Harry Clarke’s Geneva Window.

Move to remove three-day wait for second abortion appointment gets green light in Dáil A bill to abolish the three-day waiting clause in abortion legislation has received the green light in the Dáil.

A bill to abolish the three-day waiting clause in abortion legislation has received the green light in the Dáil

Open Journals Collective Launches Global Investment Campaign to Provide #Libraries an “Exit Ramp” From Commercial Big Deals (via @ojcollective.bsky.social) drive.google.com/file/d/10Hgf... #oa #diamond #publishers #funding

Take a look at this post from @katievernon.bsky.social, one of our Graduate Engagement Leads 👇

"Open research and digital accessibility are both a means of making information available and understandable to a range of audiences, especially those who might face institutional and societal barriers."

Brooklyn Beckham and Prince Harry are the canaries in the coalmine. The children of Instagram will be next | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett A generation of overexposed children are being used by their parents for social media clout. What happens when they start to speak out, asks Guardian columnist Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

"Never before in the history of humanity have children seen their right to privacy so violated, & by the adults who are supposed to care for & protect them. And anyone who watches or engages with this kind of mass content is complicit."

#spéirghorm #Brooklyn

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Homeland Empire • EQUATOR From Venezuela to Minnesota, Trump is creating a borderless American power, collapsing the foreign and the domestic into a single domain of impunity

"The capture and warehousing of humans is now at the centre of an institutional transformation of federal police power"

- among many other insights here
www.equator.org/articles/hom...

Somehow the idea of people being nice and supportive to each other, and society being supportive in general, has been dismissed as fantasy politics for babies. Whereas making difficult decisions like driving children into poverty while swimming in record tax receipts is good realistic politics

Luis Buñuel & Salvador Dalí’s Un Chien Andalou: The Short Surrealist Film That Revolutionized Cinema (1929) Un Chien Andalou means 'an Andalusian dog,' though the much-studied 1929 short film of that title contains no dogs at all, from Andalusia or anywhere else. In fact, it alludes to a Spanish expression ...

Luis Buñuel & Salvador Dalí’s Un Chien Andalou: The Short Surrealist Film That Revolutionized Cinema (1929)

Coimisiún na Meán unlikely to seek Irish blocking of Grok Media watchdog Coimisiún na Meán is unlikely to seek the banning or blocking of AI app Grok in Ireland by itself, and will instead wait until further talks with the European Commission before deciding...

Our entire regulatory framework has proved to be no more than a painted balsa wood front.

The AG here confirms it is illegal to generate CSAM.

We also gave CnaM the power to act on any material which was not illegal, but was offensive.

Turns out they don’t wanna.

www.rte.ie/news/2026/01...

Hetan Shah, chief executive of the British Academy, said: "Whatever form it takes, whether foundational, mission-led or focused on innovation, research is vital to the UK's prosperity and international standing. The humanities and social sciences are central to this, helping us understand people, places and systems so new ideas can have real-world impact."

You can find me in the Times flying the flag for humanities and social sciences in this story about changes to funding at @ukri.org
www.thetimes.com/article/be92...

The Isolator: A 1925 Helmet Designed to Eliminate Distractions & Increase Productivity (Created by SciFi Pioneer Hugo Gernsback) The anti-distraction device is the modern mousetrap: build a better one, and the world will beat a path to your door.

The Isolator: A 1925 Helmet Designed to Eliminate Distractions & Increase Productivity (Created by SciFi Pioneer Hugo Gernsback)

ltalian-born fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli

Gold clawed gloves, 1938
#Schiaparelli #Fashion

Vogue cover from June, 1936 by Surrealist artist Pierre Roy.
#Vogue #Surrealism

Postage stamp for the New York Worlds Fair 1964-65. The Irish Pavilion was designed by Andrew Devane of Robinson, Keefe & Devane

www.archiseek.com/1964-irish-p...

100 Path to Open Books Now Open Access on JSTOR The first 100 Path to Open books have flipped to open access on JSTOR, expanding global access to peer-reviewed scholarship through a sustainable, library-supported model.

100 Path to Open Books Now Open Access on JSTOR https://about.jstor.org/news/first-100-path-to-open-books-now-available-open-access-worldwide-on-jstor/

I'm not sure that "ethics can't apply to powerful companies and very rich people" is a sustainable moral framework.

Opinion | Why Professors Fear the Future Academic life has barely changed in 40 years. Why? The faculty likes it that way.

Gotta say: it takes a white guy emeritus prof from Yale to proclaim that faculty life hasn't changed in 40 years — amidst adjunctification, platformization, public funding cuts, the substitution of tech for competent support staff, the disappearance of those jobs *my* senior advisors enjoyed...

First 100 Path to Open Books Now Available Open Access Worldwide on JSTOR Member News Release submitted by JSTOR (ITHAKA) on 01/13/2026.

First 100 Path to Open Books Now Available Open Access Worldwide on JSTOR

Ancient illustration of a mythical figure with intricate designs on a beige background. Bold text reads "WATCH THIS SPACE...".

Hello Bluesky!

Today is the Smithsonian's deadline to give thousands of documents to the White House The White House says the Smithsonian Institution must submit materials about current and upcoming exhibitions and events for a review that will determine whether they express "improper ideology."

The White House says the Smithsonian Institution must submit materials about current and upcoming exhibitions and events for a review that will determine whether they express "improper ideology." n.pr/4583d8f

Latest OASPA data shows dramatic growth in OA articles from past decades is plateauing - OASPA https://www.oaspa.org/news/latest-oaspa-data-shows-dramatic-growth-in-oa-articles-from-past-decades-is-plateauing/

The Gist: The Abuse Factory X, the child abuse imagery app, revealed our state has no red lines. This is the Gist.

"Consequence-free physical and sexual abuse of children was part of the deal the institutional Church offered the Irish state for to run schools, hospitals and other expensive-looking services.

This week the Taoiseach demonstrated the same mental habits."
www.thegist.ie/the-gist-the...

The stained and bloodied cloths of Ireland; a material culture view of Irish shame, oppression, morality and repression

Index of chapters

Look what was in my postbox-delighted to finally get my hands on this book, & to be among the amazing contributors. ‘The stained and bloodied cloths of Ireland; a material culture view of Irish shame, oppression, morality and repression’. I love the cover image #speirgorm #irishhistory #irishwomen

Illustration of a blue and white striped bowl filled with yellow custard. There is a bomb floating in the custard, its fuse lit. The illustration is from a Dublin restaurant's Facebook page. Details later in the thread

Ah, 7 January – or as it’s otherwise known, 88th anniversary of the time Samuel Beckett was stabbed by a pimp on the streets of Paris in the small hours, causing him to meet his soulmate and giving rise to the phrase (and recipe) ‘assassination custard’ 🧵

An intro to designing accessible data visualizations by Sarah L. Fossheim 10 dos and don'ts for designing accessible data visualizations, including real-life examples and resources

People often ask what accessibility considerations to keep in mind when creating data visualizations. For guidance and advice, check out Sarah L. Fossheim's list of 10 things to do (or not do) when designing accessible data visualizations.

fossheim.io/writing/post...

New Year’s Day haiku by Seamus Heaney — here in two versions: Seeing Things (Faber & Faber, 1991) and revised version (photo) from Bamboo Dreams .

1.1.87

Dangerous pavements.
But I face the ice this year
With my father’s stick.

nwl claiming work permit holders can access mainstream housing support

False. This is a conflation of Stamp 1 & Stamp 4. A person deriving their right to stay from a work permit holds a Stamp 1, which is not eligible for state-provided support. But they have a pathway to win a Stamp 4 (entitled to state support) at which point they're no longer a work permit holder

New Irish Folklore Commission Schools’ Project where kids have to preserve vanishing online culture by interviewing elder Millennials

Hyperlink text should make sense when read out of context. Screen reader users can navigate from link to link, and can listen to links in a list. When navigating this way, only the link is read. So "click here" or "read more" won't make sense.

10 years of self-ID for adults:

Still a non-issue for cis people, still a life-changer for trans people.