Just … wow 😯🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

Joints on street corners everywhere you turn these days …

And three whole packets of them too!

Possibly one of the most bizarre things I’ve come across on the streets of #Dublin …

Possibly one of the most bizarre things I’ve come across on the streets of #Dublin …

The Fallen by Louise Brangan review – an enraging account of Ireland’s Magdalene laundries The horrifying story of the Catholic-run institutions that incarcerated thousands of women and girls

Curiously, I've not seen anything about this important and horrifying book in an Irish newspaper:
www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...

The Fallen by Louise Brangan review – an enraging account of Ireland’s Magdalene laundries The horrifying story of the Catholic-run institutions that incarcerated thousands of women and girls

"Many readers, and surely most Irish readers, will finish this book in a state of white-knuckled rage, mingled with sorrow and at least a pang of guilt. It is a detailed, thoroughgoing and appalling account of the Magdalene laundries ..."

#Spéirghorm #SpeirGorm

www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...

The Fallen by Louise Brangan review – an enraging account of Ireland’s Magdalene laundries The horrifying story of the Catholic-run institutions that incarcerated thousands of women and girls

“In a regime distinguished by its excessive inhumanity, the Magdalene laundries were its deep end. […] These were not peripheral: they were Ireland’s main carceral institution.”
#History #Heritage #Ireland
www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...

“It would take seven years to rehome the collection if 2,500 objects were moved from the current location to a new facility every day.”

That’s a lot of planning right there!

Cartoon by Gábor Pápai, a well-known Hungarian political cartoonist.

Does anyone know if there is a history of Coyne and Bellier, the French infrastructure engineers (particularly dams)?

☀️ ☀️ ☀️

Ha! What are the chances!

Vance accuses EU of ‘foreign interference’ in upcoming Hungarian election while endorsing Orbán – as it happened US vice-president claims ‘the bureaucrats in Brussels have tried to destroy the economy of Hungary’

I’d say ‘irony is dead’, but in truth it died a long time ago … 🤦🏻‍♂️

www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...

Many less bejewelled copies - I do hope you enjoy it!

€7 - one of the first books looking at Irish painting distinctly. I have a copy already, but they’re rare enough and I have a friend who’ll enjoy it. He’ll get it on his birthday … in September.

I’ve paused that war. Given up the fight. I’ve realised I’m never going to win. But trying to lose by less … 😄

If you’ve an interest in eighteenth century architecture and society, I’d splash out and get the whole book. It has its flaws, but it’s a superb primer beautifully written.

Well, I cropped off the last paragraph for impact, but like I said it’s the one that’s always stuck with me. You open this book on Georgian Dublin + you start reading about the fall of Constantinople thinking “this is a bit odd” and then, wallop! “The Renaissance, in a word, had arrived in Ireland”.

Coming across this has made me think of the opening paragraph/page that has stuck with me. This, in Maurice Craig’s ‘Dublin: 1660-1860’ is the one that always comes to mind …

It made the shortlist, but as I have yet to construct bookshelves I’m trying to limit new acquisitions and so only bought one. This won out …

Oxfam books on Parliament St? I think I saw it there on Thursday 😅

🤣🤣🤣👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

I think you’re right on the inevitability of violence tho’. One of those interesting historical “what ifs” … if not on Easter Monday 1916, when, and between whom, and what would the outcome have looked like?

Not just the loss of the Aud, but after he’d realised he’d been lied to by the faking of the so-called ‘Castle Document’ that led him to believe the Volunteers were about to be disarmed.

I quite enjoyed that - many thanks!

And while I enjoyed the celebration of big, impressive trees, I thought it a bit odd that the interpretation was screwed directly *into* the tree, but then as I said, I’m not a plants person so maybe the tree doesn’t mind 🤷🏻‍♂️

And a few more …

Impressive view from the temple at Mount Congreve yesterday, looking out over the River Suir. I’m not much of a plants person, but the colours and shapes and variety of some of the plants were stunning!
#History #Heritage #Garden #Waterford #Ireland

‘Remains of the Day’ has just started on TG4 - that’s my evening sorted 👌🏻