Patrick walsh

Partitionist history at its best (worst).

Hope Beats Hate: Green Party Defeats Reform and Labour in Huge Gorton and Denton By-Election Victory A concerted political and media campaign to scare voters about a “Green Menace” winning this by-election failed, reports Adam Bienkov

In a battle between hope and hate, hope won out.

Why voters rejected the hateful politics of Reform and instead embraced the "Green Menace" in Gorton and Denton

bylinetimes.com/2026/02/27/h...

VRTI will be posting some information about the 1766 religious census returns over the next few days (260th 🎂 approaching). Keep an 👁️out. We'll be revealing some hidden gems 💎 among the surviving returns.

https://virtualtreasury.ie/item/NAI-PRIV-M-5036-A-9 Handwritten copy of the Irish House of Lords resolution on 5 march 1766 ordering the 1766 Religious Census to be taken. Source: National Archives, Ireland, PRIV/M/5036A, p. 13.

https://www.virtualtreasury.ie/gold-seams/1766-religious-census The homepage for the 1766 Religious Census on the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland. Every surviving copy census records from over a dozen archives are gathered together and fully searchable here.

Countdown to the 260th anniversary of Ireland's first census. 🕰️ 7️⃣
5 March 1766 the Irish House of Lords orders a census of all householders noting 'which are protestants and which are Papists' (Catholics).
They gave only 61 days to cover the whole country!
virtualtreasury.ie/item/NAI-PRI...
👀 ALT

Smearing Sussex (and Me): Responding to Nigel Biggar’s Latest Attack in The Spectator The University of Sussex, Feb 2026, taken by the author. Alan Lester The Spectator has published an article by Nigel Biggar smearing the University of Sussex as repressing students who ‘don&#…

Fantastic blog by my former colleague @alanlester.bsky.social forensically refuting the disgraceful attacks on the University of Sussex by the disgracefully ignorant Nigel Biggar.

If you’re interested in protecting academic freedom please do read and share

It’s utterly brilliant. Read it one sitting.

Novella Clear by Carys Davies

By coincidence read this excellent novel Clear over weekend. I’s about clearances on 19th century imagined Scottish island features kelp, wrack and brilliant understand of language and place.

It’s an interesting time for those interested in seaweed, kelp and customary rights. Have a PhD student doing great stuff in this area so have become more than usually intrigued by current attempted corporate takeover of wrack rights. Part of a long story in Ireland and of course in Scotland.

Communities fight 'corporate' bid for seaweed rights Communities on Ireland's west coast say they will fight to safeguard their traditional seaweed rights against what they describe as a "corporate takeover "of their livelihoods.

Myself and Colin Breen have written in "Maritime Ireland" about seaweed harvesting on Ireland's coastline, in 19th century. These are local rights, well known and established through built features (e.g. wrack walls, kilns, etc). There is no way that such rights be taken over by foreign companies.

To incoming University President Mnookin: Please don’t let artificial intelligence devalue the liberal arts Last month, University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin <a href="https://www.dailycardinal.com/article/2025/12/uw-receives-approval-to-move-l-ss-largest-majors-to-new-ai-focused-school...

Brava to this student (a History major, nota bene) for spelling out to the higher-ed suits at her supposedly elite school just how damaging AI is for learning.
www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2026...

In Donegal, Mayo, Galway, and Kerry corporations have applications in to harvest seaweed from the coast with absolutely no oversight.
Corporatisation of seaweed harvest would be a significant negative step for the west

Adam Weymouth book: Lone Wolf

Just finished Adam Weymouth’s excellent: Lone Wolf: walking the fault lines of Europe. Fascinating on wolves, climate change, migration and rural life in Central Europe a thought provoking read

Today's Trinity College 22,000-strong student body is roughly comparable to, or could exceed, the entire population of Dublin City at the time Trinity opened in 1592.
🗺️ John Speed's map of Dublin City published in 1611. Trinity College (12 on the map).
#Dublin #History

Jean-Philpope, sorry to see this. Was always great pleasure working with you on the VRTI. Best of luck in your futur endeavours

137. Aragorn’s tax policy and other weird shibboleths

Yesterday I found myself diverted by people on Bluesky revisiting the issue of Aragorn's tax policy that George R.R. Martin so memorably quibbled over back in 2014. The vast majority of my writing here is free to read and will remain so, but if…

Love this as both a historian of taxes and state capacity and a LoTR fan.

On Sun 8 March BBC Radio 4 will broadcast The Alpenpost: A Girl's Guide to Fighting Hitler and Stalin - a documentary based on my research!

It traces how I uncovered the lost archive of an anti-Nazi resistance organiser in a wind-rattled villa on the Galician coast.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

History Workshop in Turbulent Times How can history offer illumination and hope at a time of global upheaval and chaos?

"We have a challenge here in the face of appalling things happening around the world not to give in to a politics of despair because that's exactly what the people in power want us to do."

Laura C. Forster, Julia Laite, Laura Schwartz, Anne Irfan and Jo Kelcey on doing history in turbulent times.

Inside the Dublin data centres consuming an unknown amount of energy Software giant Microsoft’s electricity demands remain a source of contention, in particular when it comes to powering AI

I mean a sentence like "Data centres use 22 per cent of all electricity in the Republic (compared with 18 per cent used by urban households in 2024) and that is forecast to exceed 30 per cent early next decade" is objectively insane

We are delighted to announce the line up for the Spring/Summer Dublin City Heritage Talks 2026 @ the Wood Quay Venue, featuring talks from @drdeefoley.bsky.social, @aoifeb.bsky.social, Mícheál Ó hAodha and Anthony Delaney. All talks will be ISL interpreted.

www.eventbrite.com/cc/dublin-ci...

It’s from a farce entitled Exchange Alley or the Stock jobber turned gentleman (1720) off to teach bubble building on MPP days!

Bubbles promising voyages to the Moon not just from the Age of AI. See this satirical play from 1720! the more things change….

More than £5,500 in public money spent on JD Vance genealogy dossier – which failed to prove Ulster Scots heritage More than £5,500 of public money was spent by a Stormont department on a dossier tracing the genealogy of US Vice President JD Vance, it has emerged.

The continued traction of this heroic myth and its present uses is visible not just in Elon Musk’s white nationalism but also in the failed DUP sponsored attempt to find J.D. Vance’s Ulster-Scots heritage www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politic...

The history of Scots-Irish, Ulster Scots is one of migration, diaspora, settler colonialism and violent displacement of native peoples. They may have made America but that making was no heroic act, despite the mythology that has grown up on both sides of the Atlantic.

Book Hard neighbours by Colin Calloway

Started this excellent book on Friday ‘Hard Neighbours: the Scotch-Irish invasion of Native America and the Making of an American Identity’ by Colin Calloway. It seems an even more important read today. There is no celebratory Scots Irish history.

Tinsel to tidewall: discarded Christmas trees reused to protect Lancashire coastline The trees also morph into sand dunes to protect homes on the seafront against rising sea levels and serve as habitat for rare species

'Tens of thousands of discarded Christmas trees have been partially buried on beaches south of Blackpool as a frontier against rising sea levels.'

The drawings look wonderful. exploration module sounds great.

Looks absolutely fascinating!

The Godless Students of London University

Happy 200th birthday UCL. Nice piece by Georgina Brewis placing the 'Godless Students' into the history of London. www.historytoday.com/archive/feat...

Our research on Trinity’s colonial legacies and uncomfortable pasts has hopefully shown how history can inform conversations about how an institution can engage in reparative and progressive policies even in our current turbulent times