I have a personal essay on the Belfast Review blog page this month. This one was very special to me and I'm so happy it found a good home. @thebelfastreview.bsky.social
17.02.2026 22:08
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I have a personal essay on the Belfast Review blog page this month. This one was very special to me and I'm so happy it found a good home. @thebelfastreview.bsky.social
This article really broke my heart. Music and the arts are such fundamental parts of our human experience, allowing us moments of joy and respite from suffering. I pray for an end to this genocide and for the return of music and hope to the people of Gaza.
electronicintifada.net/content/what...
'These developments come as part of Israel’s deepening annexation of the eastern areas of Jerusalem, as well as the entire occupied West Bank, in a bid to prevent the establishment of any kind of Palestinian state.'
mondoweiss.net/2025/09/isra...
Blown away by this performance. Got a ticket last night last minute and rushed into town as I'd been hearing for ages how brilliant Oona Doherty's choreography is and what an exciting dancer she is. Specky Clark is just so insanely inventive and full of surprises.
I feel consumed with hatred this morning while also being overwhelmed with sadness. Evil incarnate.
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/...
Today, mothers and fathers in Gaza are mourning their children because governments across the world did not deem their lives worthy of protection.
A retreat from the world in hauntingly beautiful Malin Head. Long walks along the cliffs and by the sea shores and reading by a turf fire in the evenings. The batteries recharged and a submission sent off to Winter Papers. Here's hoping!
It really is. I hope all okay for you and your family. 🙏
Hit with incredible anxiety today as close family located just outside evacuation area for Eaton fire which has not been contained. Meanwhile, I work from home here in Dublin due to weather warnings for freezing temperatures. The world feels so precarious and I feel very unsettled.
Really interesting selection there. Will be popping a couple of those on my tbr pile for 2025.
Forgot to add these to my 2024 books. Septology is one of those books that I will carry with me for life, a beautiful, deeply spiritual and philosophical journey. Hollinghurst's newest novel, Our Evening's, an incredibly moving story of memory, nostalgia and the desire to belong.
Non-fiction I loved this year.
Top three pieces of fiction that I loved this year.
Less reading this year. I would normally have read double this amount in that space of time. This was also a year for more non-fiction. Of course, the genocide in Gaza was a huge focus of energy and attention this year, making reading and writing for pleasure feel like too much of a luxury.
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
#BookChallenge💙📚
#Day20
Gave myself an accidental tattoo after stabbing hand with a fine point roller ball pen while doing Christmas present tags. I fear I may be permanently marked.
It's only a snapshot but today there was no mention of Gaza on the online front pages of NYT, WSJ, WaPo, LATimes, USAToday, CNN & MSNBC. I wrote about the pivot from bad Gaza coverage to ignoring Gaza and how normalizing genocide is part of Israel's media strategy.
www.columnblog.com/p/as-genocid...
The horrors in Gaza continue and it feels like the world's attention has been diverted to events in Syria. Human Rights Watch report says Israel intentionally depriving Gazans of water and MSF report shows clear signs of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. We mustn't turn our attention away now.
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
#BookChallenge💙📚
#Day19
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
#BookChallenge💙📚
#Day18
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
#BookChallenge💙📚
#Day17
Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat is an incredible documentary about the assassination of Patrice Lumumba and the horrific violence and depravity of colonialism. Watching this, I felt depressed at how little has changed but also how rare it is now to find true revolutionary voices.
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
#BookChallenge💙📚
#Day16
Paying homage to the wonderful Shirley Jackson on her birthday. She'd be 108 today. She is a writer who I've learned a lot from, especially around how to haunt a text with a vague unease and weirdness, exposing the darkness lurking in the everyday. I've always felt a huge kinship to Shirley.
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
#BookChallenge💙📚
#Day15
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
#BookChallenge💙📚
#Day14
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
#BookChallenge💙📚
#Day13
On the day of the massacre, the Atlacatl Battalion maimed, shot, raped and dismembered hundreds of unarmed men, women, and children, nearly half of whom were under ten years of age. Some estimates of numbers killed on the day put it as high as 1000.
A United States military advisor, Sergeant Major Allen Bruce Hazelwood, was reported to have been present at the time of the massacre and the commander, Domingo Monterrosa, had been trained at the School of the Americas.