Pat McGovern

Ireland's history with Halloween and how it originated Several places across the island of Ireland lay claim to the birth of this globally celebrated event.

Ah the casual colonialism - looking down on those vulgar Americans while displaying ignorance of the origins of this tradition in another colony. Dare I ask if you burned effigies of Catholic bishops on the 5th?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Australia mine explosion: Irish man among two killed in NSW Ambrose McMullen, who was known as Ambie, from Cootehill, in County Cavan, is understood to have been killed at the Endeavor mine at Cobar.

This is shocking news. I played representative football with Ambie McMullen many years ago - a wonderful athlete and footballer who always led by example. It was a huge loss when he emigrated to Australia in late 1980s. #GAA www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

He is, instead, a 59-year-old Long Island wine importer named Bill DeBlasio, who merely responded to an email from a journalist seeking his views on Democrat Zohran Mamdani’s policies. “I’m Bill DeBlasio. I’ve always been Bill DeBlasio,” DeBlasio said in an interview conducted Wednesday evening through his Ring doorbell in Huntington Station, Long Island, from his current location in Florida. “I never once said I was the mayor. He never addressed me as the mayor,” DeBlasio told Semafor Wednesday evening. “So I just gave him my opinion.”

I’m crying

www.semafor.com/article/10/2...

quotes by Musk and Hannah Arendt

“In my work with the (Nuremberg Trial) defendants, I was searching for the nature of evil, and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy... a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”

- Captain G.M. Gilbert, US Army

Net migration to the UK is falling rapidly. But how far will it fall? A new, detailed estimate by @jamesbowes01.bsky.social projects net migration in 2026 will be 70K to 170K.

This will have significant consequences, both economic and political.

ukandeu.ac.uk/the-coming-c...

Brum Bin Strike has gone on far too long but there are signs that the council is running out of options.

Group of 40 economists & academics tell Chancellor ending two-child benefit cap will help grow economy | LBC With less than a month to go before the Budget, the group have written to Rachel Reeves to warn that more than half of larger families could fall into poverty as a direct result of the cap.

"We would all be better off if child poverty was reduced. And the most efficient, the quickest, the easiest, and the most politically, morally and socially justified way of doing that would be to lift the cap. We would all be better off as a consequence of that."

www.lbc.co.uk/article/grou...

This includes our pioneering MSC International Migration and Public Policy.

🧵 1/
🚨 New paper out in PLOS ONE! w/ @caropradier.bsky.social @benzpierre.bsky.social @natsush.bsky.social @ipoga.bsky.social @lariviev.bsky.social
We studied 43k authors and 264k citation links in U.S. economics to ask:
👉 Why do some papers cite others?
🔗 journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

The unelectable in pursuit of the unspeakable? 😜

Opinion | Left-Wing Bias Is Corrupting Sociology Other social scientists have reformed. Sociologists haven’t.

‘When scholarship is judged by its political usefulness as opposed to its empirical rigor, it is hardly surprising that practices demanding transparency and causal precision are treated as secondary’ - Ok but ‘viewpoint diversity’ is hardly the answer! www.chronicle.com/article/left...

Hundreds line the streets for anti-immigration and anti-racism protests Hundreds of people are protesting in Southampton today as anti-immigration groups and Stand Up to Racism groups face off

Angry about this tbh. My home town temporarily disfigured by ‘Tommy Robinson’ and his louts. Glad there were counter-protests. My parents have been living near the asylum hotel for years with no problems until the far right stuck their oar in. www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/2557253...

Poor take - there is no far right political party in Ireland (or even an electable grouping in Ireland). Her opponent and family were also the target of ethno-nationalist abuse on religious grounds. Spare us the typical uniformed Britsplaining.

Royal Economic Society statement on harassment of academic economist - Royal Economic Society Royal Economic Society warns UK faces crisis in economic statistics. RES warned about the problems with the quality of UK economic statistics

It’s just not on. Either we hold the line or we are no longer in a place of education. Yes, even for former members of the IDF. res.org.uk/royal-econom...

Carrick-on-Shannon named Ireland's tidiest town The overall winner of SuperValu Tidy Towns 2025 is Carrick-on-Shannon in Co Leitrim, which also won in the small town category.

Some good local news from the auld country. www.rte.ie/news/ireland...

Image of the mechanical ladder outside the Louvre Text below says WENN'S MAL WIEDER SCHNELL GEHEN MUSS (When you need to move fast) Underneath is more German text which translates as "The Böcker Agilo transports your treasures weighing up to 400kg at 42m/min - quiet as a whisper."

The German company that makes the mechanical ladder used in the Louvre heist has used the image to advertise, with the text 'When you need to move fast'

10/10 response, no notes

The Green Party's proposal for a wealth tax on 1% of assets above £10m and 2% on assets above £1bn comes top of our list of tax reforms that Britons would support, with 75% giving it their backing

yougov.co.uk/economy/arti...

And now NI has access to the EU market.

Politicising Commodification: book review of Erne et al In their major monograph Politicising Commodification: European Governance and Labour Politics from the Financial Crisis to the Covid Emerg...

Politicising Commodification: book review of Erne et al, see andreasbieler.blogspot.com/2025/07/poli...

Soldier F cleared of two murders on Bloody Sunday A former British paratrooper has been found not guilty at Belfast Crown Court of committing two murders and five attempted murders on Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972.

I somehow doubt that the search for justice over Bloody Sunday will end like this:

"The two witnesses are themselves, on the basis of the Crown case guilty of murder as, in essence, accomplices with a motivation to name F as a participant in their murderous activities.

www.rte.ie/news/ulster/...

'Fireside Republicanism' is running rampant these days i.e. those who want a United Ireland but either refuse to acknowledge that there is a price or refuse to pay that price.

The Fitzgerald and Morgenroth report concludes that 'funding the needs of the people of Northern Ireland in a united Ireland would put huge financial pressure on the people of Ireland, resulting in an immediate major reduction in their living standards.'

Nope, doesn't answer my questions. Where's the poll saying 'Yes with more tax'? Doyle assumes that UK Gov would absorb NI share of national debt while continuing to pay social insurance pensions. This is unrealistic.

Congratulations Alice. Very well deserved.

FT graph showing massive UK public support for the opinion that it was wrong to vote to leave the EU.

Ah! Good morning, reality. And welcome. We’ve been expecting you…

Remind us again why taxpayers in the Republic would take one of Europe’s economic basket cases (high welfare dependency, huge policing budget and chronic brain drain etc)? Show me a poll where voters in the north and south are willing to pay more tax and then we can have a serious discussion.

2nd para - How do you know? I could interpret it a different way - ‘economic disruption was priced in’ but ‘Brexiteers fleeing the field was not’.

Maccabi v Hapoel called off by police after 'violent riots' The derby between Maccabi and Hapoel is cancelled before kick-off after police say

Starmer is trying to give notorious football thugs banned in Israel itself a free ticket to inflame community tensions in Birmingham - what a mis-call for a responsible PM. www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...

#NoKings

It is!