Eilís Ní Chaoimh they/them

Not to mention that FF brought in the Industrial Relations Act in 1990, which limited the definition of a trade dispute to exclude "political" actions, such as the action taken by the Dunnes workers.

Why is Black Friday now 12-13 days?? Did the stores get the date wrong thinking it was yesterday rather than next week, and then had to switch it up and make it work out some how?

YouTube video by Rocliffe Productions Testimony Trailer 2025

Harrowing, heartbreaking. An essential watch.

The pain and suffering these women and children went through is unfathomable.

The ways in which justice continues to be denied to them compound it.

youtu.be/HgEkKgFSlf0?...

Immense kudos to Andrew Jackson for the tenacity to thoroughly debunk Collison's ill-founded claims.

One would think the Government would do more in that regard, but it seems the claim that a flash of cash is enough to be seen as an authority was correct.

Scarlet indeed.

But, also, I feel they fail to account for the degree to which we can be a nation of awkward f**ckers when someone gets our back up. And I think Progress Ireland might just have done that.

On Environmental Democracy and the Collisons’ “Abundance-Verse” Andrew Jackson 21 November 2025 I. Introduction A clamour of praise greeted John Collison’s “how to get Ireland moving” Op-Ed following its publication in the Irish Times on 25th October: the Irish…

Excellent piece by Andrew Jackson, UCD Law School:

On Environmental Democracy and the Collisons’ “Abundance-Verse”

elajucd.com/2025/11/21/o...

My feelings around this are... Duh? But then again, some people think that small, dark apartments are apparently the solution to the housing crisis.

YouTube video by Off The Kerb Productions Rosie Jones - Pushers trailer

Pushers, written by and starring Rosie Jones, is some of the best TV I've watched in ages.

Genuine laugh-out-loud comedy with some really important messages about disabled community.

The crips help crips scene = perfection.

youtu.be/_pqKGw6xOD4?...

Signed Away | Sara Nović The hearing world continues to pillage and caricature the deaf community—most recently with the proprietary, sign-based system Makaton.

I will not fight with people on Threads about Makaton. I will not fight with people on Threads about Makaton. I will not thebaffler.com/outbursts/si...

When disabled activists say that our disability doesn't exist just in our bodyminds but in society's failure to accomodate them, we aren't just describing how we think disability works, we are making a demand for a world that treats people better.

Electroconvulsive therapy may have more adverse effects than thought Study calls for depression treatment to be suspended for more research after reports of heart problems and emotional blunting

"The research is so flawed and inconclusive that ECT would have absolutely no chance of obtaining MHRA approval in the UK, or FDA approval in the USA, if it were introduced today."

Users and survivors of psychiatry have been talking about their experiences of ECT for years. But we needed a study...

Couple with intellectual disabilities allowed to marry A couple with intellectual disabilities will be able to marry following a decision of a judge in the Circuit Civil Court.

The couple have been in a relationship for *two decades* but had to suffer this indignity. Glad the application was dismissed, but concerning to see the Court proposing a test that many of us would not be able to pass. Not sure I knew the ‘potential consequences’ of marriage when I headed into mine.

Really sad to hear that Alice Wong has died. A brilliant activist and writer who made the world a better place.

Opinion: Beware of the judicial review red herring Dr Orla Kelleher pushes back against the narrative that judicial reviews are to blame for the housing crisis.

Dr Orla Kelleher pushes back against the narrative that judicial reviews are to blame for the housing crisis.

“...people are being held three or even four to a cell, little bigger than a car parking space, with one sleeping on a mattress on the floor.

All of them confined in this space next to an open toilet... for up to 23 hours a day.

This is inhuman, degrading, and unworthy of Ireland in 2025.”

Dóchas go scaipfidh sampla an Chéad Saoránaigh i leith na Gaeilge ar fud na seirbhíse poiblí Meastar go bhféadfadh an tUachtarán nua dearcadh níos dearfaí i leith na teanga a spreagadh ar fud na seirbhíse poiblí

Dóchas go scaipfidh sampla an Chéad Saoránaigh i leith na Gaeilge ar fud na seirbhíse poiblí. Meastar go bhféadfadh an tUachtarán nua dearcadh níos dearfaí i leith na teanga a spreagadh ar fud na seirbhíse poiblí

tuairisc.ie/dochas-go-sc...

Inaugural Speech of President Catherine Connolly | President of Ireland A Thaoisigh, A Phríomhbhreithimh, Airí, Baill Chomhairle an Stáit, Baill an Oireachtais, Ambasadóirí, Ceannairí Eaglaise, agus dhaoine...

‘Given our history, the normalisation of war and genocide has never been and will never be acceptable to us.’
- From the inauguration speech of the tenth president of Ireland.

president.ie/en/media-lib...

Surrealing in the Years: Yates' Fianna Fáil dealings an open kimono moment for Irish politics Agh, my eyes. My eyes!

"The housing crisis will end when steps are taken to end it. It will end when entire streets’ worth of houses can’t be bought up by vulture funds, it will end when short-term rentals such as Airbnbs are banned or heavily restricted, .."

www.thejournal.ie/readme/surre...

"Like all the Syrian kids, she is very pretty: pale skinned & dark eyed with a sensitive mouth & a tiny, high-pitched voice." p263 "Izzat so small & square & Afghan with his big nose & premature moustache." p139 "Aadil always seems so grand: a tall Somali boy with a deep, African voice, & the almost aristocratically calm manner that sometimes goes with being extremely good-looking." p85 "Cumar is long & slender as many of the Somali kids are, with a thin nose, narrow skull, & very dark, almost black skin. Aadil is more muscular & square-set, with chocolate-coloured skin, a broad-based nose, & rounded head." p85 "Jonathon, six-foot five inches tall with a slow, resonant African accent." p78 & "Tall, strong, African Jonathon." p243 "The small round Priti & her taller, silent cousin, Priya." p93 "She would call out to me for words, urgently, her black, almond-shaped eyes snapping, slim fingers blossoming." p108 All so different from "my Nordic height & Celtic colouring".

Hijabs Clanchy thinks about hijabs - a lot. "I wonder again what Shakila does to her hijab, & why it seems to sit fuller & higher than the other girls' - a Mother Superior hijab, or one from Vermeer. It can't be starched. Maybe it's draped over twisted horns of hair like Carrie Fisher's in Star Wars. That would go with her furry eyebrows, her slanting, sparkling black eyes, her general, Mongolian ferocity." p78 "Her high-set, starched hijab - did she have extra ears under there?" p109 "It is possible to wear a flirty hijab, like Samira's leopard-patterned one. & that Farida's dress may be loose & floor-length, but it still manages to show the beautiful lines of her figure when she hitches it tight around her as she sits by the basketball courts." p117 "If I could put a burqa on Susie & Kristell tomorrow, I would. A year or two of being invisible to the male gaze, of going home quietly to study, could only be liberating, & enabling too, of the rest of their lives... It's important to say that nothing that Susie or Kristell ever wear, however brief, entitles them to any abuse, ever." p165

LGBTQI+ Clanchy is supportive of gay pupils, although she's hampered by stereotypes & sees camp as a "statement of otherness". Nevertheless, she takes an 18-year old to his first gay club, which she admits wouldn't be acceptable now. She sends him in with the words: ""Liam,' I said, 'I love you. You have to promise me to always use a condom & never get AIDS." p33 But she's more dismissive of trans pupils. Like much of what she writes, I understand the concern she's raising, but the tone is trivialising: "Are we all 'fluid' now? Perhaps. It is commonplace to proclaim oneself transsexual. & to actually be gay, especially if you are as pretty as Kristen Stewart is positively fashionable. A couple of kids have even changed gender, a decision so deliciously of the moment, so furiously defended by righteous students against non-existent opposition from staff that I worry only that they won't feel the freedom to change back if they feel the need." p34

Weight All the critical comments about weight are applied to girls, & most are in a section about health. Clanchy tries to include a compensatory compliment, but there are weird sexualising & classist undercurrents: "When Kristell arrived in Year 9, she had a bosomy, curvy figure, with a tiny waist & pretty ankles... She had a soft, breathy voice to match the Bambi lashes & fresh mouth." p237 Later "She has put on a great deal of weight, so that the pretty figure is blurred... The dark eyes gazing out of the fat pink cheeks are still so very lovely." p238-9 "Danielle really was special: she was exquisitely pretty in the dark & elfin, Audrey Hepburn mode. She knew it too; she was always finding occasion to take off her clothes & expose her pale, beautifully turned limbs." p233 Later "As if refusing middle-class food along with middle-class ambition, Danielle put on weight... her new bosom protruding ever more bulbously... I was surprised how hurt I was to see it. It wasn't the flesh so much as the loss of grace." p234 I know what she means with this next one, & there is a valid point. It's probably intended to be self-deprecating & tongue-in-cheek, but... "Lianne is stuffing fig rolls, my favourite, into her pretty fat face, & it is very hard indeed not to have one. I can manage it, I think, in the same way that I can manage to finish a poem, because I am middle class. Because, since I was a tiny child, I have been taught to wait for long-term goals." p235

I see the 2021 scandal around Kate Clanchy's book "Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me" is back in the news as Clanchy receives an apology from the publisher of that book. Here's a reminder of the racism, Islamophobia, anti-LGBT comments, and fat shaming from the book.

Remembering Rosalind Franklin.

Attribution matters and Watson and Crick weren't the only contributors to the discovery of DNA.

Interrogating the arguments for ‘small homes’ as a solution to the Irish housing crisis From 2015 onwards, successive Irish governments have promoted the proliferation of smaller homes through a range of measures including reductions in minimum floor size requirements and the removal ...

“Interrogating the arguments for small homes as a solution to the Irish housing crisis

“The paper critically interrogates main justifications & argues role of small homes as a potential solution to Irish housing crisis is overstated”

new research-Dr Mark Jordan www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The teeth are so impressive!

Absolutely devoured Midwinter of the Spirit, an ITV production now on Netflix.

I'm shook to learn there's a whole book series that was never adapted.

I want multiple series of Revs. Huw and Merrily trailing across Herefordshire using the bones of Tommy Canty (St.) to banish evildoers.

Agreed!

Look, Galway in the summer is, in theory, wonderful. But for me there are just too many people about.

Galway in the Autumn. That's my time of year.

YouTube video by FlorenceMachineVEVO Florence + The Machine - Sympathy Magic (Official Video)

"I do not find worthiness in virtue
I no longer try to be good
It didn't keep me safe
Like you told me that it would."

Sympathy Magic by Florence + The Machine is glorious.

youtu.be/wRfet_VLbzU?...

Also, I find the use of the word "seomraí" to describe granny flats illuminating.

Seomra being the Irish for room. Not a home.

Baile, teaghlach, dídean, teach. These are the Irish words for a home.

Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán féin. There's nowhere to call home under this plan.

Smaller homes with no daylight are not a solution to the lack of affordable housing.

Neither is excluding disabled people through an exemption on the requirement to have a lift in a four storey building.

Tells me all I need to know about this think tank.

progressireland.org/the-blueprin...

I've said thsi before but the normalisation of the concept of the "Nazi phase" is grim as fuck. Most people do not have a phase of their life where they are Nazis actually. Fascism is not a fucking developmental stage, it's an ideology that you choose to engage with.