Lovely review of Unruly History, our new podcast, in today’s Observer ❤️
Elva Johnston
@elvabjohnston.bsky.social
Historian at University College Dublin | late antique & early medieval Ireland: literacy, gender, saints | posting in a personal capacity | she/her
Thrilled that Dr Susanna Harris, Co-lead of the Unwrapping the Galloway Hoard project, has been made Professor at UofGlasgow! Inaugural Lecture: The Archaeology of Textiles: Value and Connection in Early Societies, FREE in person or online on 4 November www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/humanities...
eventbrite.co.uk
My heart is heavy. Walter Koenig, our Ensign Pavel Chekov, passed away early today. Walter and I met on the bridge of the Enterprise in the 1960s, and we stayed friends for nearly six decades. When Brad and I married in 2008, Walter stood beside us as our best man.
VRTI warmly welcomes today’s announcement by Taoiseach Micheál Martin and James Lawless, Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, supporting its development as Ireland’s National Platform for Digital History and Heritage from 2027. www.gov.ie/en/departmen...
The LEIGHEAS project Irish Medical Manuscript of the Month for October 2026 is TCD MS 1318 (‘The Yellow Book of Lecan’), containing 3 medical fragments, including the earliest dated copy of a commentary on the Hippocratic Aphorisms translated in 1403: leigheas.maynoothuniversity.ie/leigheas-man...
A chili to unzip 😀 - coming to the end of my Jalapeno harvest 🌱
(Shared from various people on FB) RIP Chris Wickham
Join us online for the Virtual Book Launch of Charlene M. Eska's "Listing the Law: The Legal Glossary of Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh"! Thursday October 29, 1:00pm EDT (5:00PM BST) Register here: trentu.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Will soom be reading early Irish & English law with my students -almost too nice a morning for the classroom 😊
Many years ago I interviewed a woman who had witnessed the execution of the man who had killed her son and daughter in an armed robbery. She said it gave her no comfort at all, and spent the rest of her life campaigning against the death penalty.
So awful to hear of the passing of Dr Rena Maguire today. A huge loss, and gone far too soon. She had a unique understanding of prehistory as intimately tethered to cultural history. I will miss that insight. Rest in peace.
Last fruits of the summer - cleared the remaining tomato plants this morning
www.theguardian.com/global-devel...
‘First there’s the gruelling task of trying to charge my laptop’: a day in the life of a university lecturer in Gaza
As the war in Gaza approaches its fourth year, the Guardian follows five ordinary Palestinians as they go about their lives. Each tells the story of their day, revealing the terrible toll of the confl...
theguardian.com
Lovely sketched Irish heraldry by #17c historian, Sir James Ware, incl. coat of arms of Ireland with an argent issuing from triple towered tower. However, the three antique crowns is Munster and the armed hand is Connacht. That featuring a (red) stag walking is actually that of the MacCarthy Mór
Thought I'd better call in some of the harvest today. Still waiting for a lot to ripen, but the nights are getting cool and the days are getting short. Maybe it's going to be a green sauce kind of year 🤷 🌶️🌱
Mars isn't always red. 💜 New images from Mars Express reveal striking purple swirls near the planet's south pole. 🔗 esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Purple_swirls_on_the_Red_Planet @science.esa.int
Today (16 September) is a feast day (he has four) of an Irish exorcist saint. 16 September commemorates Usaille (Auxilius), an early Irish saint-whose name survives in Killashee, Kildare: Cell Usaille, church of Usaille. And here’s a pic of the old church there.
A couple of 17th century limp vellum Spanish bindings. The title in large letters on the spine is typically Iberian. They cover Historica relación del Reyno de Chile, 1648 and Descripcion breve del monasterio de S. Lorenzo el Real del Escorial, 1657.
Really proud of this volume of Analecta Hibernica, periodical of the Irish Manuscripts Commission. As editor I have encouraged more Irish language texts and more women as editors - thinking about the sources for Irish history in their wonderful diversity
I finally managed to snap photos fast enough for the fab Hummingbird Hawk-Moth - look at that proboscis!
Harvest season - I grow half a dozen tomato plants from seed every year - worth it for the flavour & having fun with different varieties🌱
They are brilliant pollinators - I’ve worked to make my garden planting more friendly to them & was rewarded with multiple varieties this summer
Elva Johnston@elvabjohnston.bsky.social · 3mo agoIreland’s hoverfly, crucial to food production, faces significant threats www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026...
Ireland’s hoverfly, crucial to food production, faces significant threats www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026...
Ireland’s hoverfly, crucial to food production, faces significant threats
Queen’s University Belfast study underscores the role the insects play in supporting food security
irishtimes.com
Some of the richest people in the world want a racial caste system, and they want scholarly backing for that in the form of racist pseudoscience. And a lot of ostensibly non racist people quietly agree, and don’t like to see those who peddle that pseudoscience excluded from mainstream institutions.
Haunted by Arday story. In that state where you surprise yourself by how upset you are.