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John Connor

@lordloophole.bsky.social
998 followers 2K following 306 posts

Retired Irish Department of Finance, slow runner, awful climber, trying to play the guitar

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Reposted by John Connor
eolaí the artist @eolai.bsky.social · 9h
Another west of Ireland #painting "Kylemore Boats" came out of a day cycling in north Connemara where my bike and I were discussing how lucky we were. The sun was on its way down so before cycling on the length of the lake and on to Killary I resolved to paint this view later. #SpéirGhorm #ArtYear
Landscape format in acrylics on canvas. View of a lake that covers the complete width of the bottom edge of the painting and stretches long away from viewer, with mountain slopes of green on its right side, light green close to viewer and darker green for a slope further away behind it in shadow. At the far end of the lake is a jagged paler grey-ish green line of mountains with a peak by the right edge and a noticeable drop to a high gap in the middle. At the bottom of the far end of the lake, by the water's edge, is a low strip of land of 3 layers of greens suggesting trees and sun on a low hill. In the left foreground are a clump of trees, thick with mostly very dark green foliage with touches of dark blue, but a large section is clear showing a load of fat twisting trunks and/or branches which I have painted in mixes of purples and reds and browns and greens, with orange on the right and upper sides where the sun hits, and blues on the shadow sides. Moored beside and under the trees are two small rowing boats, pale blue or maybe white in shadow. The water is short rippling strokes of greens and teals and blues, radiating out from where the trees and boats are in the left foreground until far away the water is darker, except right at the far end of the lake where there is a single broad very pale blue almost white strip. The sky is a painterly very pale blue with a couple of whisked in slight hints of white clouds. Signed bottom right in dark blue, Liam Daly
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Benedict #FBPE 🇬🇧 🇪🇺FBR💙 #NAFO #FELLAS @cosmogalaxy.bsky.social · 5h
🤣🤣🤣
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TaraNicRóibín @tararoonies.bsky.social · 7h
I don't want tax cuts. I want services that work for all of us. What good is extra money in my pocket if I'm terrified to go out to my local hospital in an emegency. Or if a large proportion of people in my city are living in poverty or homelessness or with addiction.
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Robin Brooks @robin-j-brooks.bsky.social · 13h
The rise in US yields is one of those Occam's razor things. Of course it's true that growth is much stronger than many thought it would be and the AI thing is real. But the elephant in the room is the 7.5% of GDP deficit. My live stream on this from Sunday: robinjbrooks.substack.com/p/how-the-us...
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Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
This ancient Greek figure from the 2,500 year-old Douris Cup looks uncannily like someone working on a laptop! 😲 💻 He’s actually writing with a stylus on a hinged wax writing tablet! The technology has changed, the posture has not! 😂 Altes Museum, Berlin 📷 by me
My photo shows detail from an ancient Greek red-figure kylix (drinking cup) of a young man shown in profile seated on a stool facing right. He wears a knee length cloak (himation) over his left shoulder, which is shown in folds around his waist and upper legs. His right shoulder, chest, and arms are bare. His dark hair is short, and he wears a band around his head. He is looking down at an open rectangular wax writing tablet which he is supporting in his left hand above his lap. In his right hand he holds a metal stylus pen poised over the writing tablet. The wooden writing tablet is hinged like a book and, from this angle, resembles a modern laptop. The figure is part of a scene depicting school lessons in ancient Athens, painted by Douris around 480 BC. On display at the Altes Museum in Berlin.
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Tuatha @tuatha.ie · 05/10/2026
In today's edition of our free #MonumentMonday newsletter, we head back in time to the Bronze Age as we visit Kenmare Stone Circle in County Kerry. #Ireland #SpéirGhorm #DiscoverIreland #Travel
A circle of low stones surround a boulder on a grassy knoll, with thick conifer trees as a backdrop
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eolaí the artist @eolai.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
A west of Ireland #painting, "Connemara Waters" came out of an idyllic day cycling in south Connemara when I stopped for a while to look across the bogs to the mountains of north Connemara. And to watch a family of swans because how can you not? #SpéirGhorm #ArtYear #MountainMonday
Landscape format in acrylics on canvas. The bottom two-thirds of the scene below the horizon is a bog of grasses and vegetation of greens, oranges, yellows and blues. The bog is laced with horizontal strips of very pale lilac water, some with grey and dark rocks protruding from them.  Along the horizon is a low distant ridge of a green hill punctuated with dots of pale houses and dark green trees, that starts to rise up towards the right edge. Behind it is a long low purple hill on the left half, and further behind across the whole painting are 4 large pyramidal mountains of different blues, stacked behind each other getting paler as they recede in the distance. The sky is a very pale smoky teal. The water pool along the full width of the bottom edge is an even paler lilac, almost white, but with lots of short little horizontal rippling strokes of pale aqua blue and purple. Signed bottom right in dark blue, right where the pale water changes to purple, Liam Daly.
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Seán Keating @seanmk1.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
This police officer is doing an epic job of keeping a straight face 🤣
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Niall Ó Conghaile @nialloconghaile.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Chris Grey has a post I missed last week on the Burnham speech to the Labour conference. This is vital reading. Firstly, the significance is this confirms the political failure of Brexit, albeit not what comes next A 🧵 chrisgreybrexitblog....
That, in turn, means that, quite apart from any other ways in which Brexit has failed, it has failed politically. On this blog, I have several times quoted David Frost’s criterion for the success or failure of Brexit because it is perhaps the only time a leading Brexiter has actually articulated any meaningful test. He said that “one piece of evidence of failure [of Brexit] would be if we are still debating this in five- or six-years’ time in the same way. I think [if] it is to succeed it needs to settle in the British polity.” That was in June 2022, and although technically that means there are still six to eighteen months to go, it has been obvious for a while that Brexit would fail this test. With Burnham’s announcement, that is not just obvious: it is certain.
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Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This animated map by @AaronJBecker shows the average colour of Europe from September 2024 to September 2026 based on satellite images. It's fun to look at your region changing colour through the seasons.
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Pissedoffpundit @pissedoffpundant.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
No shit🤔💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯
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Bhim Adhikari 🇳🇵 @bhimabish.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Machhapuchhre Himal is a breathtaking symbol of Nepal’s natural beauty. Its snow-covered peak looks like a fish’s tail, rising majestically above the green hills. The golden sunlight, blue sky, and peaceful surroundings make this mountain truly magical and unforgettable. #nepal #pokhara
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eolaí the artist @eolai.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
A west of Ireland #painting, "Mayo Bog" I painted following a day where I had cycled north through Ballycroy and kept stopping just to enjoy the bog. There's not a lot else to say except I think we're quite lucky in Ireland to have the bogs that we do. #SpéirGhorm #ArtYear
Landscape format in painterly acrylics on canvas. In expressive brush marks are a yellow sky with orange under-painting breaking through, a peaked patchy dark hill of oranges and blues sitting on the horizon to the right with some lime green fields at its base, and the edge of a distant blue hill on the left edge. The rest of the painting, the bottom two-thirds, being the flatness of the yellow ochre bog running across the full width of the painting, and in the foreground cut away revealing the maroon cut turf, with grasses, some long, and bog plants in front of it along the bottom rendered in blues, oranges, yellows, and whites. Some white is on top of the flat stretch of the bog across the middle, perhaps flowers, and some dark lines suggestive of tracts or cuts. Signed top left in dark blue, Liam Daly
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Alan Lawlor @alanlawlor.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
#spéirGhorm
static.klipy.com
Fr Jack: Drink!
ALT: Fr Jack: Drink!
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Mani Isna La 🇨🇺 🇵🇸 🇬🇱🕊️ 🪶 #IndigenousLivesMatter @maniisnala.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
TAKE URGENT ACTION! Save Northern Ireland’s badgers protectthewild.substack.com/p/take-urgen...
protectthewild.substack.com
TAKE URGENT ACTION! Save Northern Ireland’s badgers
The badgers need your voice, and time is running out.
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David Booker @musicallday.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
A walk in the Ulster Folk Museum. A fine way to spend a morning. #ulsterfolkmuseum #cultra #countydown #northernireland #pentaxphotography
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eolaí the artist @eolai.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Back to an Irish landscape #painting "Muckish from Falcarragh" Once upon a time I regularly had a 12 km cycle to buy milk when I'd made a pot of tea and realised I was without milk - again. This was a view on the rush back to the waiting pot. I lived in a cottage beside the gap. #SpéirGhorm #ArtYear
Panorama format in painterly acrylics on canvas. A whale-shaped mountain of blue with purple sits against a painterly canary yellow sky. In front runs a brown-green lilac ridge, fading to the right edge with a pass a little left of the centre of the painting through to the left edge of the mountain. In front of the ridge is a strip of bog then a road left to right dotted with white cottages between the line of dark bushes and trees. From there about two dozen green fields run parallel down a slope towards the viewer, separated by small dark hedgerows, until they go out of sight behind a near hedgerow of dark blue and purple which runs across the full width of the painting and marks the edge of 2 warm green fields which run horizontally sloping up to the right a little and separated by smaller similarly coloured hedgerow. Signed bottom right in dark blue on the bright green field, Liam Daly
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Matthew Stewart @roguestrands.bsky.social · 27/09/2025
Poets, if they're lucky, end up having signature poems. But they don't choose them for themselves. Instead, certain poems take on lives of their own once they're published. The Last Carry is one such example. When I first posted it here, I didn't have a clue it would reach so many people...
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Ramin Nasibov @nasibov.me · 04/10/2026
Sherlock
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Joël Reland @jreland.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Big day in UK politics... The new divergence tracker is out! What is most striking in this edition is the large degree of EU-led divergence over tech/digital policy.
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Joël Reland @jreland.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
What's that Andy? You want to look at the different options for the UK's relationship with the EU? If only someone had set them out already... ukandeu.ac.uk/introducing-...
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John Springford @johnspringford.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Now that Andy Burnham has reopened the Europe question, free movement will be at the centre of debate. For @arguablymag.bsky.social I argue that it's a big benefit, not a price to be paid for a better trade relationship. www.arguably.uk/p/eu-free-mo...
arguably.uk
EU free movement is an opportunity, not a threat
Progressives need to rediscover the positive case for immigration
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Marsh's Library @marshslibrary.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
A doodle (possibly drawn from life?) in a 17th-century book of Virgil's poetry
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Simon Usherwood @simonusherwood.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
My blog on Burnham's "let's discuss the EU" move tl;dr might work, but needs more development www.open.ac.uk/blogs/EUatOU... @oupolitics.bsky.social @ou-gcsj.bsky.social @ukandeu.bsky.social
open.ac.uk
“And there are different options” | The European Union and the UK
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 01/10/2026
I recommend people read this to get a sense of the president's grave cognitive impairment. Trump is either unwilling or unable (or maybe both) to answer the questions he's actually asked, so he just rants and raves while the interviewers do their best to provide structure to his random brain firings
time.com
Read TIME’s ‘What Trump Has Built’ Interview Transcript
The U.S. President discussed the war in Iran, press freedom, AI, and more ahead of the midterm elections.
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Parody Nigel Farage @parodypm.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
On my daily propaganda show tonight I will be pretending that Brexit wasn't a complete and unmitigated disaster based on the lies of a handful of rich grifting twats who don't give a shit about ordinary people.
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Miaganga @miaganga.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
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garretpc.bsky.social @garretpc.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
What an amazing invention. Kudos to that young Irish woman, a very bright future lies ahead of her, I think! 👏🇮🇪
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Mr Natural @neilmatheson66.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Chris Wilson (b.1959, N. Ireland) In October Light. 1987. mixed media on board.
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FinTwitter @fintwitter.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
EU COMMISSION OFFICIAL: EU, UK, FRANCE, ITALY, IRELAND CURRENTLY HOLDING CALL ON DIESEL STOCK RELEASES
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Mental Health Ireland @mentalhealthirl.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Have you heard about our Dips for Health programme in Galway? It's celebrating 12 months of sea dips and connection. Perhaps you've been interested in taking part but unsure of what it involves? Book your place now! www.mentalhealthireland.ie/12-months-of...
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🆂🅷🅴🅴🅽🅰 @sheena-mck.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
It’s 1 October, I’m wearing a fleece, and paddling in the Atlantic 😂 #Ireland #beach
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Marsh's Library @marshslibrary.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Today is Michaelmas, a quarter day in the Irish calendar, and traditionally when rents were paid & contracts signed. It's also the last day to eat blackberries - after today, they belong to the Devil and will make you sick!
Detail of a page showing text in Spanish and a woodcut of blackberries. From Dioscorides' Materia Medica, 1555
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Marsh's Library @marshslibrary.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Happy #InternationalTranslationDay! To celebrate, we're sharing an image of Brian Walton's Polyglot Bible. The impressive six volume work presents the Old Testament in nine languages: Hebrew, Aramaic (Targum), Samaritan, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Ethiopic, Greek, and Latin.
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Newshound411 @newshound411.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Birds of a Feather 👇 👇 👇 👇
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Jonathan Slater @jonathanslater.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
How cool
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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 01/10/2026
Scott "The House" Bessent, bond vigilantes for you on line 1
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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Polling from June. Wonder if it shifts now the debate is more open. Also do respondents know what Schengen is or is it a proxy for freedom of movement? On the latter.... 1/2
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Chris Grey @chrisgrey.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Brexit revisited. New, unscheduled, post on my Brexit & Brexitism Blog on why Burnham's conference speech was a significant development in the Brexit saga, the questions and concerns it raises, and why it might come to be seen as a historic moment: chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2026/09/brex...
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David Henig @davidheniguk.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I'm less sure about Burnham's intentions and still think he hopes to find a way through the EU issue that isn't politically painful. But his team have heard the message that such a path isn't there, narrowing the choice to status quo (now ruled out), drop red lines, or rejoin.
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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
It’s a mark of the corruption of our whole way of thinking about the world that trying to meet a planetary emergency is routinely described as “ideological”, while continuing to accelerate it is presented as “pragmatic” and “economic”.
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David Henig @davidheniguk.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
A couple of really radical options - engage in Brussels with why the UK wants to talk and what the EU is actually prepared to offer - learn from what has mostly failed in the approach to the EU question for the last ten years Which would quickly narrow the path forward.
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Phillwatson FBPE 🇬🇧🇨🇭 🇪🇺🖖 🔶 @phillipwatson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
@editormattkelly.bsky.social I usually find myself agreeing with a lot of what you say about Britain and Europe, but I really struggled with your argument that freedom of movement has been shown to be fundamentally problematic and that the EU will eventually have to rethink it. 🧵
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Nicky Schwenzer @nickyschwenzer.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
”Well, there's this illusion, I think, in American politics that our institutions are this like literal brick wall that protects us from bad things. The institutions are only as strong as the people. Only as strong as the people.” Miles Taylor @milestaylor.bsky.social • I've Had It 🎧 Thread 1/5🧵
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John Springford @johnspringford.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
@alanbeattie.bsky.social on why a UK-EU customs union is a poorly targeted way to deal with the EU's China shock www.ft.com/content/6b21...
ft.com
Why the EU fears Britain becoming a back door for Chinese cars
Brussels is urging UK tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, but it might take more than that
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John Doyle @johndoyle.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Presenting raw public expenditure over time distorts the real picture. It ignores inflation & growth. Expenditure as a % of GNI is very stable in the Republic at 40% of GNI*. It was 53% in 2013 towards the end of the crisis. EU average is 49%. We can spend more www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...
irishtimes.com
Our tax take used to be reliant on three companies. Now it hinges on one weight-loss drug
Ten years ago our total spending was half what it is now. And still we proceed with increase after increase
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SPAM (from Daniel Gamboa) @danielgamboa820.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Trump Xi Jinping China State Visit
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whattheactualf.bsky.social @whattheactualf.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Vote this Congress out!
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Prospect Magazine @prospectmagazine.co.uk · 25/09/2026
“Peaceful pensioners with placards are criminalised as ‘terrorists’ while organised bullies in political uniforms disrupt infrastructure without obvious impediment,” writes The Empty City
prospectmagazine.co.uk
The difference between ‘Free Speech’ and free speech
The fundamental disconnections between political speech and substance, and why this matters
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John O'Connell @jdpoc.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Some days ... it really does feel like this ...
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