Rónán Hession

Huge thanks to everyone who braved the rain and joined us last Friday in the beautiful surrounds of @molimuseum.bsky.social to launch Tolka Issue Ten 🖤
Lovely photos by Patrick Fleming 📸
Copies of Issue Ten are available via our website and all good bookshops ❤️
www.tolkajournal.org/shop

Sculpture of a hooded woman and child in black, sited in an interior with grey bricks

Käthe Kollwitz's pietà from the Neue Wache memorial to Victims of War and Dictatorship, Berlin #womensart

I think a lot of our saints (Brigid, Colmcille etc) were from before the canonisation process was introduced.

One of only four canonised Irish saints, the others being St Oliver Plunkett, St Malachy and St Charles of Mount Argus.

My Bluesky content has been unusually church-y this week after my earlier post about the immaculate conception/Virgin Birth confusion.

What a thoughtful tribute.

Do I ever get sick of being 100% right all the time?

Yes.

A joyless FFS late draw for Watford.

A miracle if my heart makes it to fifty in a couple of weeks time.

I absolutely believe it but wish Watford physics didn't apply to the world.

Watford should be doing better and should be at least level, but I'm not too worried. Wednesday look low on confidence, understandably.

Maamma might get subbed to avoid what looks like an inevitable second yellow.

Chakvetadze's touch not quite back yet.

Am stealing that pic for all my football posts.

Barry Bannon sealing his reputation as the Gary Gannon of Sheffield Wednesday.

Bailey Cadamarteri playing for Wednesday, son of former Everton-player-with-memorable-name Danny Cadamarteri.

Watford have now gone behind in nine million matches in a row.

Once again, my Bluesky posts dictating how Watford are playing.

Wednesday 1-0 up.

Hard to see Watford dropping points v Wednesday but if anyone can do it Watford can.

But I remain hopeful!

Oh no!

What a fantastic thread.

Yes.

Congratulations!

All the way from Rome, translated by Elvira Grassi.

I'm just kidding. It's a general observation.

💛

Hope you enjoy your books, Becky!

Every novel except your novel.

I reread some Richard Ford last year and it struck me that he's rare in being a Democrat who writes well about Republicans. He actually gets why they are Republican and not Democrat, instead of sneering.

I feel an anti-MAGA novel would be fish-in-a-barrel pointless.

Maybe the writer's real target needs to be the reader. As reader, I should feel a greater sense of resistance, but go away with plenty to think about.

Otherwise a high stakes issue translates into a low stakes novel.

I think this has been my problem with films on Mubi too.

Reflecting on what's missing in some issue-based novels I've read over the past couple of years.

I think it's that they don't confront/challenge the reader enough. Instead the writer and reader cosy up on the side of a blameless protagonist who is pitted against a straightforwardly nasty world.

A nativity scene with Henry Hoovers. The three wise men are hoovers with crowns on their head, and there is a miniature Henry Hoover as Jesus in the crib

I witnessed a miracle on my way to work this morning

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