@begormanlowry @bergorman

Irish Whistleblower Reprisal Complaints Published on EU Portal @EP_Legal @EP_Petitions @CoeGreco @BrusselsMorning @GuardianSociety @timespolitics #SeeForYourself @jackfchambers @conwaywalsh @JMcGuinnessTD whistleblowingmonitor.eu/irish-whistleb…

The killing of Alexander Coughlan RIP has some added twists in court today. The two accused are 16- and 17-years old and not both 16 as originally reported, the minor difference isn't explained. Alex Coughlan postmortem indicates he died after the beating he suffered at the hand of his assailants. The accused are charged with assault, robbery and EXTORTION, but the charges may be amended or upgraded. "The court heard it was an arranged meeting but set up under false pretences for the purpose of committing robbery and extortion offences, and no other motive" The court has confirmed the words heard on the 5-second clip widely circulated last week "I will smash the fuck out of you, you fucking little bitch" It was previously reported the two accused are of a Muslim and immigrant background. No word on Alex Coughlan phone and watch. The items allegedly robbed comprised a golden ring, a wallet with two bankcards - AIB and Revolut. We have heard nothing that might justify the gratuitous violence and sadism on display in the video, and reported by witnesses. Bail has been refused for the two who remain in custody, presumably in Oberstown borstal.There is no plea from either yet.

“It’s a pain in the arse, when you’re a Dublin writer – you’re inevitably asked about Joyce, and it’s tedious. He doesn’t have copyright on the streets of Dublin.” theguardian.com/books/2026/may…

@RobLooseCannon @angiebeeb Well said.

There are almost a million people of Irish descent in Argentina. We're not entirely sure, because the Irish who arrived in the 19th century were routinely classified as "Ingleses" in official records, filed away under British. Most wouldn't correct this either, as being English got you further in Buenos Aires than being Irish. Argentina is, by some distance, the largest Irish community in any non-English speaking country on earth, and the fifth largest Irish diaspora population in the world. From 1803 to 1815, Irish farm labourers had been feeding British soldiers through the Napoleonic Wars. When peace came, grain prices collapsed and landlords switched to cattle, which required far fewer hands. Then the Famine came. And across the water, Argentina was advertising for lads who could handle livestock. Argentine government agents arrived in the Irish Midlands selling the pampas as "the finest region under the southern cross." The greatest wave of emigration ran from 1850 to 1870, pulling predominantly from the coastline of County Wexford and the townlands around the Westmeath-Longford border. Most were single Catholic men in their twenties, non-inheriting sons who knew they would never see a deed in their own name if they stayed. They arrived as shepherds and rural labourers, working the "halves" or "thirds" system. You received a portion of the wool clip and the new lambs in lieu of wages. Do it long enough without dying, and you could rent land. Do that long enough, and you could buy it. The sheep-farming boom of 1840 to 1890 gave the Irish social mobility on the pampas. Men who had arrived with nothing ended up owning estancias. Father Anthony Dominic Fahy, a Galway-born Dominican, became the central figure. The Pallotine and Passionist orders followed, and the Sisters of Mercy established schools across the province. In remote areas where there was no state infrastructure worth mentioning, the Irish clergy were often the only institution that functioned. In 1875, a Galway priest called Patrick Joseph Dillon founded a newspaper in Buenos Aires called The Southern Cross, and it's still going today. Under the editorship of Father Federico Richards in the 1970s and 1980s, it was one of the few publications in Argentina willing to report on the junta's human rights abuses. One of the more interesting figures to pass through it was William Bulfin from Birr, County Offaly. He arrived in Argentina in the early 1880s, worked as a gaucho, married on a ranch owned by an Irish landowner, then ended up writing for the paper under the pen name "Che Buono" before buying it outright. A committed Irish nationalist, he established a branch of An Conradh na Gaeilge in Argentina before returning to Ireland. His son Eamonn, born in Buenos Aires, enrolled at Patrick Pearse's St. Enda's School and later fought in the 1916 Rising. One of Che Guevara's forebears, Patrick Lynch, was born in Galway in 1715. Three universities now have Irish Studies chairs: del Salvador, La Plata, and La Pampa. The Fahy Club runs Irish language classes for descendants. GAA clubs operate across the country, with two leagues playing Gaelic football and hurling. This community largely came to think of itself as Argentine through assimilation, particularly after the Falklands War of 1982, which drew a sharp line between British identity and Argentine identity and forced a choice. But the names remained. Duggan, Lobos, San Antonio de Areco. There are whole towns named for Irish families on the Buenos Aires pampas. Buy the Dublin Time Machine a pint and support the DTM Book ko-fi.com/buchanandublin…

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@jlpobrien @stellaomalley3 The Protestant Becketts had Catholic servants.

Dear Sharon, RTÉ was bailed out to the tune of €725M that's nearly a quarter-of-a billion also. You and your colleagues didn't have to protest for 6 days & nights to save your livelihood. You might remember that when discussing the government's €750M offered after people got pepper-sprayed by the Gardai to save the livelihoods of thousands of people. #FuelProtest ⛽️ #DifferentStrokes

Today is the birthday of two of this country’s literally giants. Samuel Beckett Born April 13 1906 & Seamus Heaney Born April 13 1939. Samuel Beckett – awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969 Recognised for his groundbreaking work in drama and prose, especially plays like Waiting for Godot, which reshaped modern theatre. Seamus Heaney – awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995 Honoured for poetry of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, including collections like Death of a Naturalist.

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It's Spy Wednesday, let's look at how Italian masterpiece "The Taking of Christ" by murderous hellraiser Caravaggio ended up hanging in a dining room in Leeson Street! The iconic scene depicts Judas Iscariot betraying Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, identifying him to the Roman soldiers with a kiss. The work was commissioned by Ciriaco Mattei, a Roman nobleman in 1602. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) had a life as full of shadows and violence as his paintings. The master of baroque was a notoriously violent criminal. His signature technique was manipulating shadow, utilising tenebrism and chiaroscuro. When he wasn't in exile or prison for assault or murder, he was one of the most famous and sought-after artists in Rome. Whether you are a Christian or not, the masterpiece has an astonishing power within it. The vividness of the moment, the chemistry of the interrelationships depicted, has a universal quality. And of course, that mesmerising play of light and shadow. Incidentally, the man on the right holding the lantern is believed to be Caravaggio himself! Perhaps it takes a sinner to truly capture the drama and betrayal of such a moment. The masterpiece was lost and presumed destroyed for centuries. In 1786, an 18th-century engraver and topographer called Giuseppe Vasi misattributed the painting, not merely as a Dutch copy, but to a specific artist: Gerrit van Honthorst, known in Italy as Gherardo delle Notti, one of Caravaggio's own followers. The label stuck, repeated in every successive inventory, including a Mattei family stock-taking in 1793. There was even a telling typo that would prove crucial centuries later: the label consistently misspelled Honthorst's nickname as "Gherardo della Notte" rather than the correct "Gherardo delle Notti." That small error, faithfully copied across generations of documents, would become one of the key clues in the eventual authentication. In 1802, Duke Giuseppe Mattei, needing to pay his debts, sold the painting along with others to William Hamilton Nisbet, a wealthy Scottish art collector then in Rome. The "Honthorst" hung in his Scottish home until 1921, when it was sold at auction in Edinburgh, passing through one more set of hands before ending up with a Dublin woman named Marie Ryan, better known by her married name, Marie Lea-Wilson. She had a heartbreaking reason to be in Scotland. Her husband, Captain Percival Lea-Wilson, had been a District Inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary, shot dead on a Gorey street in June 1920 by the IRA on the direct orders of Michael Collins. The killing was revenge for Lea-Wilson's treatment of republican prisoners after the Rising, when he famously ordered the elderly Proclamation signatory Tom Clarke to strip naked in public. Collins, who had witnessed the humiliation, waited four years to settle the account. In the aftermath of that devastating loss, Marie received spiritual support from the Jesuits, particularly Father Thomas Finlay SJ at the Leeson Street community house. When she had qualified as a doctor she gifted the religious painting to Fr Finlay as a token of her gratitude. It hung on the wall of the dining room at 35 Leeson Street, where it would sit quietly for the next six decades, admired as a fine old Honthorst by anyone who thought about it at all. In 1990, Father Noel Barber, then Superior of the Leeson Street community, contacted the National Gallery of Ireland about restoring some paintings. The Gallery's Assistant Director, Dr Brian Kennedy, came to it with senior conservator Sergio Benedetti. Benedetti took one look at the canvas and felt his pulse quicken. After 3 of painstaking analysis, it was confirmed an original. Much of the archival credit belongs to Francesca Cappelletti and Laura Testa, PhD students at the University of Rome. You can view it in National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin. Buy the Dublin Time Machine a pint and support the DTM Book ko-fi.com/buchanandublin…

St. Patrick’s Day greetings from His Majesty King Charles III @RoyalFamily to @PresidentIRL Catherine Connolly — a message celebrating friendship and shared ties.

Ireland takes the world record! Irish actors have won more Oscars (per capita) than those of any other nation 🇮🇪🎉 With Jessie Buckley's win, and claiming Daniel Day-Lewis as our own, the Irish are twice as successful at picking up the golden statue as American or British actors.

As way of a timeline cleanser

@RobLooseCannon One of the most tragic and shameful episodes in modern Irish history.

The @HSELive are before the Oireachtas health committee this morning. Looking forward to hearing them explain how physiologists without their own mandated qualifications are allowed work in Irish hospitals. extra.ie/2026/01/28/new…

When whistleblowers are treated as troublemakers, problems don’t disappear — they grow. @HSELive @HSEDubMidlands

@OCallaghanJim Justice delayed to this genuine whistleblower is justice denied. He lost his career ergo his income and now his home. DOJ is responsible for this. You are the minister. x.com/i/status/20175…

Noel McGree @NoelMcgree

4 months ago

More families destroyed by Delay. I refused to steal in 2013, multiple reports validated my concerns from 2017 onwards, lost career in 2020, lost home in 2025 and still waiting for my day in High Court. No protection when State decides to destroy you. irishexaminer.com/news/spotlight…

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@AnybodyButBerti @HSELive @HSEDubMidlands They even fester.

@NoelMcgree Justice delayed is Justice denied.

@TipperaryLive

Ban Blood Sports @banbloodsports

5 months ago

Please join the peaceful “Ban Hare Coursing” protest outside Powerstown Park racecourse, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary on Saturday 31 January 2026, from 12 midday to 2pm banbloodsports.wordpress.com/2026/01/09/joi… #Ireland #AnimalCruelty #BanHareCoursing

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The OECD has warned that the uncritical adoption of generative AI as a tool in education could inadvertently undermine the development of key human skills such as critical thinking and evaluative judgment in students rte.ie/news/education…