iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 16h

Your occasional reminder that without a 100% inheritance tax there can be no meritocracy, and no, you didn't get where you are on merit, but off the backs of thousands who loved you.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

"She spoke of ontogeny, of miracles and sounds - ag súitú." New work in A New Ulster #poetry #writing #writingcommunity #art #books #literature

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The fact that 10% of the population voluntarily roleplays as a demented sock (tracksuits), at all times of the day, never ceases to amaze me. Perhaps this is the true lesson of Mother Hubbard.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I love living in Scotland. The only "but" is that it's arts scent is being bludgeoned by a 2015 utterly woke type with no reason, who gets angry because I broadly sgree, but am not always wildly passionate about their niche outreach interests They're mad. Long live the left.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Had the immense pleasure to meet the President of Ireland, Catherine Connolly last week at an event honouring the toil of Gaels who fled genocide and famine between 1845 and 1852, but desperately sought to send money home, at all costs, to keep their families alive. @president.ie

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The @IrishTimes poem of the week! Absolutely delighted. Give the full thing a read. An Uncrowned King "Painted women sang, and squalor prove a harsh backdrop for sheriffs – judges and barristers too – careening through..." www.irishtimes.com/c... #poetry #art

irishtimes.com

Poem of the Week: An Uncrowned King

A new work by Oisín Breen

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Wedding suit: Sorted Next up (at the weekend): Wedding shoes.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

99.99% of 'confessional' poetry reads like a document concocted by a HR department titled, 'discussing our responsibility to empathy.' I think that's a big part of the reason I can't stand it, it's all so utterly beigecore corporate, but its pretense is revolution.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Picking crabapples at home to make jam.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

It was when "bluebells and daffodils, orchids and gorse, foxgloves and snowdrops all competed to see who would grow the tallest." Peigín de Dán, new work in a special edition of Candyman's Trumpet for Ireland. #writing #art #literature #poetry

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

It "blooms so modestly above tongueish leaves, its small yellow-white flowers reaching for the sun, before they turn to a base of red." The Afterlife, new work just published in the ever amazing Exacting Clam www.exactingclam.com #writing #poetry #art #literature

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Annnd relax. Edinburgh - Dublin 7 days - Holyhead - Chester one day - Holt/Farndon 2 days - Crewe (Railway museum, awesome signal box exhibition) - Edinburgh - Home.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

"What is left behind, when the heavy weft of a weeping strips [is] a salt rain, winnowing; the soft soot bark his father left for him." 'Bang, Bang!' One of two new pieces just published in a special edition of Candyman's Trumpet for Ireland. #writing #poetry #art #literature

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

"And so it is below ground - cairn of the dead - the dead speak in soil; and life is a foundation kindling to fight for." The Seeds of Fortingall New work in Flooded Pine Press' Anthology, Apothecary for the Future. floodedpinepress.com/ #writing #books #art #literature

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

"In the pressured heat, all things pause, leaving only the föhn, a downdraft of warmth in the long lee of mountains, where rainshadows kink scree sidelong in the gloaming of tallow on chalk hills." 'The Hills of Saratov,' just out in the anthology, Apothecary for the Future.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

I am learning that DHL, @dhlexpressuk have become just as incompetent as Evri. Two days in a row, they have sent drivers to my house. The drivers park outside my front door, stare at their phone, look confused, & drive away. If only they looked out the window.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

One day, Yankee app designers will realise there no matter how often they pester me, I fo not tip by default.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

You know what sucks? Bike lanes. You know why? The absolute quantity of speed demon tossers, who think they can go 50mph in a pedestrian area. Scumbags.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

English needs more words for to reduce by a factor of X... there's halve and nothing else.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

There's plenty of attractive people in the world, but those that look good are doing so in spite of their angry sock monster aesthetic. I have no idea why 95% of the global population have lately decided to say 'no, let's all dress like we're going to mug you outside Poundland.'

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

It is a sad thing how much bastions of good dress have collapsed these past ten years. Portugal, Spain, vast swaths of Italy... So many now dress like gardening child trolls. The world is making Dublin on a Friday a bastion of style, which is extraordinarily surprising.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

It's a full white suit and neckerchief kinda day.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Dressing anyone under 12 in anything other than Primark really makes no sense (bar formal events). Family just passed, three kids in Hugo boss tshirts, why?!?! Just buy them six t-shirts for a tenner.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Ola Vigo! First impression, you're kind of a higgeldy-piggeldy well loved old shoe.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

It's quite comforting being in a non Irish/Irish-settled Celtic country. It's like wearing an unusual but somewhat well known coat. I really should visit Brittany too at some point.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

You know, I think I genuinely dislike 90% of poems that have the word 'poems' in them.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Jesus, rest in peace Glen. You sound tracked a lot of my friends' youth, and though I wasn't a big Frames fan, your influence and presence in Dublin was huge. Bless you.

irishtimes.com

Oscar-winning musician and actor Glen Hansard dies in Dublin motorbike crash

Ballymun singer found fame after starring in The Commitments and with his band The Frames

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Galician mosquitoes are brutal! Never had to take antihistamines before, but aarh! Managed to get an hour of writing done but after that I could barely think, for the furious tingling itch! Thankfully, an hour and a bit later, the drugs are working. Oooh lordy

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Two Mayo lads, two Kerry lads, and two Yankee lads, all old boys, doing a blow by blow account beside me in the airport bar. Feels like the GAA could break the US before soccer.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

One day we will again live in a world where administration is totally subordinate to the people who do the work

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Could it... Could it really be Mayo for Sam?

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Cowper Powys really is an exceptional writer.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Visiting my mother, took a trip to the local park, & oddly a skate punk scene is thriving on Saturday afternoons, with burgers, felafel, a live punk band, skating contest, & parents chatting, pretending not to notice MaryJ, as local kids flirt. It's really really wholesome.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

So, I've begun actually to look forward to a Substack blog, Sinéad O'Sullivan's, and, for my money, she's one of the best writers around in terms of clear, well written analyses of the issues in the Irish state. substack.com/@sineados Tip-top work, chapeau @sineados1

substack.com

Sinéad O’Sullivan | Substack

Sinead is a space and defense economist and investor. Formerly at Harvard Business School and MIT Sloane School of Management.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

All private beaches should be made illegal.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Nothing beats a pint of the black stuff after a wee while away.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Ah just what I've always wanted from the world cup final, some weird shouty guy at the start, and some random bland US popstrel gyrating to autotune bilge, delaying the next half. Christ on a bike... No one else likes this shite.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Bookseller: some people have hot girl summer, you're having John Cowper Powys summer. Reader: I'll take it.

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Oisín Breen @oisinbreen.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Researching a few details around Thomas Dudley, 'Bang, Bang' of Dublin fame, for the next book, and I looked him up in the census. So interesting & sad. Had two siblings, one died very early, one at 11, 5.2km away from his orphanage, in an 'industrial school.'

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