iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Happy anniversary to me, I suppose

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No one will acknowledge or remember it, but five years ago today I was elected to the YES Presidium.

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Meanwhile, I still have nae clue as to what is happening with my enrolment on this course

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Leah R @misstwice.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I have read posts comparing the Cornell case with Drumcree on the basis of consent; if ye are suggesting that alleged gang rape including through coercion and forced intoxication are the same as Drumcree, then please log off

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It is therefore a wonderful privilege to be able to continue my studies of diplomacy and security, having been selected to join the brilliant UNU CRIS School of Modern Diplomacy 2026. This year’s School commenced this week, and I am looking forward to this new opportunity.

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Leah R @misstwice.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I graduated from the AYD programme with Honours, a distinction for the top nine students, and received my Diploma. It was an exceptional programme, with excellent speakers who guided my wonderful, talented classmates and I during the year. A programme we need more than ever.

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Leah R @misstwice.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

It has been two years since I attended the Warsaw Security Forum as a member of the EAD Academy of Young Diplomats Class of 2024! The discussions were excellent, timely, and pertinent. My interest in security studies, including human security, has grown in that time.

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Reposted by Leah R

Kai Arzheimer @kai-arzheimer.com · 02/10/2026

There's a new term starting soon? How did this happen? #AcademicChatter

A classical oil painting meme featuring a man holding his hand above his eyes as if peering into the distance, with overlaid white text that reads: "Well, well, well, if it isn't the bridge I said I'd cross when I came to it."

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Reposted by Leah R

Frances Ryan @francesryan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Disability doesn’t care how old you are. Specialist food is no cheaper if you’re 19. Employers don’t lose their prejudice if you’re 21. This is blatant intergenerational inequality from Labour. Younger disabled people of all severities deserve better. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

theguardian.com

Key disability benefit for young people may be axed under major welfare changes

Exclusive: Plan under discussion involves intensive support to help young people into employment

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This is made even more surreal in that I keep receiving emails with my middle name as the addressee, and I keep advising of my name as per my application form, and for confirmation my name has been recorded correctly, only for me to receive an email which again addresses me via my middle name

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I am now stuck in a bizarre loop with Stranmillis, in which a course I had been told I could apply to, latterly applied to and paid for, was notified I was accepted to with my payment processed, now appears to have had a deadline, and no one can confirm if my app - and my money - was processed.

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You may not think it is sectarian to not know what actually constitutes “Protestantism”. Maybe it isn’t. But to continuously label us, willingly and persistently misunderstand our denominations, and perceive us as bigots for being “Protestant”? That is ignorance, and that is sectarianism.

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If I have learned anything from life, it is this. Sectarianism is a subtle thing. It’s the rot that slowly settles in, festering like blight. It starts with ignorance. Ignorance of the Other, their ways of life and history.

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I think, in some way, he was releasing frustration at a political structure he disliked, a structure he felt had hurt him and his family. Perhaps. But expressing frustration of partition’s ills should not lie at the feet of a seventeen year old schoolgirl.

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It was 2011 and I was in Lower Sixth, with the eyes of my classmates on me as even they started to feel uncomfortable. He enjoyed it, I think, the drawing of scenarios based on stereotypes in a small classroom in a Belfast grammar school. I bore it then, and bore it after, not reporting the teacher.

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I once had a (male) teacher in secondary school, who, when finding out that my dad was a pastor, took great delight in asking me how my father would react if I “brought a Catholic boy home”. He asked me, what if the boy played GAA? If he spoke Irish? If he wrote Irish poetry? Voted Nationalist?

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So when you talk of, “decent Protestants”, what do you mean? Who do you mean? Do you even understand how we see ourselves, or how our belief system works? How we have our in-jokes about denominations? How, being Protestant, we do not “hate Catholics” as some online commentary would have you believe?

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I have heard the jokes about toasters, about the traybakes, about ABBA. I have also heard the comments about the 12th, Orange Order, sneaky barbs about “will ye go out and help build a bonfire”, the statements about how “in OUR community, OUR people”, knowing that that does not include me and mine.

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And to be very blunt: in recent years, I have spent much of my time in pol circles where I am a minority re: faith background. I have learned to just say “Protestant”, or better yet, not say anything at all, as you just do not know how it will change perceptions.

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“Protestant”, then, is a cultural description, a social-political label that is stuck to me and others in my (v broad church, pardon the pun) community and when ye say “the average Protestant”, it is an empty phrase many may not be able to connect to, or identify with.

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This is why the references to “the Protestant Ascendency” across social media over the last few days have been funny to me: it was the high Anglicans who were prioritised / upheld under this movement, presbys and other denominations were not

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I will tick “Protestant” for the purposes of the s75 equality monitoring forms, but in my family and wider community, we are Christian - and then specifically Pentecostal when we must chat with / feud with the Others (aka the Presbys, Methodists, and Baptists)

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I mean, I refer to myself as a Protestant if it comes up in conversation with someone from a different faith background; if chatting to someone from the same faith background, it’s “oh aye, raised Pentecostal” and then they say their denomination, and we swap church stories

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Leah R @misstwice.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The last few days have served as a reminder that it is actually unusual for the average Protestant to refer to themselves as a Protestant, because we usually refer to our religion by denomination or more generally, “Christian”

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We gave people a set of rich promises with a hastily-erected set of institutional scaffolds in 1998, and called it peace.

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Leah R @misstwice.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Organising mediation for Drumcree with an appointed external negotiator may help that particular situation. But it will not address, or fundamentally resolve, the fact that we live in a frozen conflict, with the pol and social binaries it feeds from.

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Reposted by Leah R

Daniel Gover @danielgover.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

A blast from the constitutional past, but a new piece from me reviewing the UK parliament's experiment with EVEL. 'The operation and abolition of ‘English Votes for English Laws’ in the UK parliament: differentiated voting rights and English ‘legislative consent’' doi.org/10.1080/1357...

doi.org

The operation and abolition of ‘English Votes for English Laws’ in the UK parliament: differentiated voting rights and English ‘legislative consent’

In 2021 the UK House of Commons rescinded its short-lived ‘English Votes for English Laws’ (EVEL) procedures, which had delivered differentiated voting rights to MPs to compensate for asymmetric te...

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Reposted by Leah R

Just Fair @justfairuk.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

👨‍⚖️ The Joint Committee on Human Rights has called for the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to be fully incorporated into domestic law. Incorporating human rights law into domestic law provides a framework to protect and enforce them.

committees.parliament.uk

Children’s social care system failing to support young adults starting life – JCHR report warns - Committees - UK Parliament

The Joint Committee on Human Rights has called for widespread reforms to the children’s social care system to improve the quality of support and life-long outcomes for people in care and care leavers.

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Quhan we dae taak o cultur, an atians-ties, an tha framewark o richts whilk daes coddin ilk ane on thir island, we maun mak siccar oor wirds bes fur aa.

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The’ daen seem tae misglim tha threids atween Airlans an Ullans, fur suith, wi Gàidhlig an Lallans, tha leids whilk daen cross tha mar lake thair taakers.

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In Norlin Airlin, in thir twalmond ahint - ah, hech ay, lang in rinnin - haes thare bin monie wirds o jamphin at Ullans, a seen, fur tha maist pairt, online. A daen hae sic ane gripe o disappintment quhan A saa thir jottins.

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Equal-aqual, thir Day bis anaa necessar an uncoly needit day fur tha confeerin o hoo kintries an Europe dae goam, bield, an forder thaim leids thon bes “minorities”, an anaa tha richts o thair taakers.

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