Reflected in nature, Hugh De Lacey's Keep, right and left a survivor of last year's biggest storm Dundrum Castle and Woods).

#CountyDown
#ContaeAnDúin
#SpéirGhorm

Israel tells Germany how high to jump.

European Union decides to continue supporting Israel.

Lime kiln

Once a bustling harbour in the 18th century. Killough [Cill Locha 'church of the lough']: Grain merchants became prosperous exporting barley from Killough grown on the rich fertile land of Lecale. By 1886, 50 families were employed in the fishing trade.
#LeathCathail
#ContaeAnDúin
#SpéirGhorm

Views from Dundrum Castle.
L) looking over the village and the Inner Bay towards the #Mournes
R), over the village, over the Inner Bay, then to the Irish Sea.
Promontory left is Ballykinlar Military Camp, right, Murlough Nature Reserve

#CountyDown
#SpéirGhorm

Reflected in nature, Hugh De Lacey's Keep, right and left a survivor of last year's biggest storm Dundrum Castle and Woods).

#CountyDown
#ContaeAnDúin
#SpéirGhorm

The woods at Dundrum Castle

#CountyDown
#ContaeAnDúin
#SpéirGhorm

If you missed the IS seminar with Melissa Baird & Michael Kennedy of DIFP, on ‘"Agents from the South running around Northern Ireland": Backchannel talks between loyalists and the Department of Foreign Affairs in the aftermath of Sunningdale’s collapse', recording at www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKsk...

Entry in @dib.ie

www.dib.ie/index.php/bi...

Alice Perry in B&W head and shoulders photo #WomenInSTEM #WomenInEngineering

Alice Perry 1st woman in #Ireland to graduate w' engineering degree. Only woman to have been Irish County Surveyor (Engineer), but not allowed to do job permanently. Factory inspector, later published poet. Uni of Galway named building for her. d #OTD 21 Apr 1969 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_P...

BBC news breaking alert: Eight more arrests made after London arson attacks 21 Apr 2026, 13:39 BREAKING Eight more people have been arrested after a series of arson attacks in London. The Metropolitan Police said that seven of the arrests were over an alleged conspiracy to commit a further arson attack impacting the Jewish community, although the specific target is not yet known.

This is rightly headline news.
But it’s stark to me how dehumanised we are here.
Since East Belfast GAAs inception in 2020, there have been 3 confirmed bomb threats, with multiple additional threats and alerts reported over several years - and it’s a shrug/silence from the rest of Ireland & GB

To celebrate #EarthDay2026 we are highlighting Irish people who contributed to our understanding of the natural world, starting with Ellen Hutchins. She was Ireland’s first female botanist & an expert on mosses, bryophytes and lichens, several of which are named for her. www.dib.ie/biography/hu...

Sign Now: Introduce a moratorium on sand dredging in NI Sand dredging is killing Lough Neagh. I've signed this petition calling on Infrastructure Minister @lizkimminssf to introduce a moratorium on sand dredging in NI today - will you sign too?

Sand dredging is killing Lough Neagh. I've signed this petition calling on Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins to introduce a moratorium on sand dredging in NI today - will you sign too? my.actnowni.org/petitions/in...
#SpéirGhorm

Palantir manifesto described as ‘ramblings of a supervillain’ amid UK contract fears Alarm caused by posts of Alex Carp, tech firm’s CEO, championing US military dominance and of AI weapons

If you’d been wondering what all the fuss over Palantir was about….

Alt text on images is also presumably now being used to train AI, which obviously isn't a reason not to use it but IS really, really frustrating

Quds News

The Rapture Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas developed by the Anglican priest John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), drawn from his reading of scripture, in which Jesus would suddenly take His believers up into the air, and those left behind would suffer on Earth until He returned with His church to rule for a thousand years before Final Judgement. Some believers would look for signs that civilization was declining, such as wars and natural disasters, or for new Roman Empires that would harbour the Antichrist, and from these predict the time of the Rapture. Darby helped establish the Plymouth Brethren, and later his ideas were picked up in the Scofield Reference Bible (1909) and soon became influential, particularly in the USA.

I think JN Darby had a lot of time on his hands. And his ideas were rather changed by others - The Rapture.

BBC In Our Time... link..
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

What is the lights setting on modern cars which has the front lights on on the dark but NO rear lights on?

Islands in the sky

The Mourne, Cooley, and Gullion peaks peeping through the clouds this morning as Carlingford Lough vanished under a blanket of fog. A ‘Dawning of the Day’ to remember.

📍 Viewed from the Turf Road, Omeath

🗓️ 20th April 2026
🎶 Fáinne Geal an Lae

#carlingfordlough #ireland

It also means a whole swathe of the Irish population can't engage in the kind of tracing a lot of us have been doing over the weekend thanks to the great work of the NAI team. Once more stories from the North are marginalised in national narratives. We should be conscious of this.

We might be well used to statistical partition in maps like this but it's all the more striking given that there was a census conducted in 1926 in the North but it has been "lost". Simultaneous censuses underlines ofc how these were as much about constituting the state as representing its population

South Lebanon today. Reports soon @irishtimes.com

Police interviewed by NFs Tony Martin and UVF bank robber Mark Sinclair.

Under the Public Processions (NI) Act 1998, N. Ireland has the Parades Commission which regulates public processions and protests. This fascist rally was given the go ahead despite the town’s businesses saying they would have to send black & migrant workers home for their own safety. [1/n]

‘It was a lovely place’: Life in southern Lebanon under Israel’s ‘remote occupation’ One year after a ceasefire with Israel, some residents are returning to live under the hum of surveillance drones

Read my report from last November to learn about some of the areas of Lebanon that the Israeli military is now occupying. These villages are totally inaccessible now. www.irishtimes.com/world/middle...

Day 2227 #ArtKicksCovid19 "The Swan, No. 1" (1915) Hilma af Klint. Moderna Museet Stockholm. The black and white swans in this work symbolise the balance of opposites, such as male and female or spirit and physical matter. This reflects af Klint’s interest in spiritual and ancient ideas about how

This was published this morning by the IDF (AI translation). #lebanon

Campaigners gathered at several locations around Lough Neagh to 'Sing for the Lough'.

The community choirs wanted to use the "emotive power of song" to highlight the desperate need for a long-term recovery plan to combat pollution and ecological decline.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

#SpéirGhorm

Wonderful experience singing for the #LoughNeagh
Combined Choirs.
Led expertly by Una McCann
#SpéirGhorm

Impact of government's relief package on contractors Philip visits a farm with contractor Irvin Rothwell, who is spreading slurry near Ferrycarrig in Co Wexford to find out what impact the government's recently announced relief package will mean for him...

Oil companies are making $30m an hour in windfall profits. The Irish taxpayer is supporting oil exposed businesses with 3/4 of a billion € to avert disaster for just four months.

How do we avert future crises completely?
#RTECountrywide

Listen: 👉 www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...
1/5

🎯

The river, the elegance of the bridge, under a cloudy but also blue sky!

Samuel Beckett Bridge is a cable-stayed swingbridge in Dublin that joins Sir John Rogerson's Quay on the south side of the River Liffey to Guild Street and North Wall Quay in the Docklands area.

#SpéirGhorm