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Peter Gray

@petergray47.bsky.social
2.4K followers 1.4K following 472 posts

Historian of 19thC Ireland, QUB. Last book: William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism (2023); working on politics of Irish land reform and the Tenant League(s). Chair of @Irishhistorians.bsky.social There may also be cats.

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Reposted by Peter Gray
History at Queen's University Belfast @qubhistory.bsky.social · 23h
We have heard the very sad news that Nini Rodgers died yesterday, after a period spent in a nursing home. Her former colleagues in the School remember her fondly, while others will have known Nini through her ground-breaking research on the history of slavery and Ireland.
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Peter Gray @petergray47.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Today at 5pm!
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Peter Gray @petergray47.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
What a wonderful room
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Irish Studies at Boston College @bc-irish-studies.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
We're now accepting applications for the Hachey Professorship of Irish & Irish-American History! This is a tenured position in the History Department and the Irish Studies Program. Apply here apply.interfolio.com/194167 by November 13.
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History at Queen's University Belfast @qubhistory.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The History Seminar Series continues this Friday, 2 October, with Becca Mowbray (QUB) delivering her paper ‘Schools at the Crossroads: secondary education for girls in Northern Ireland, 1965-1972’ For more information, and to register for this event, please follow ow.ly/ZNKO50ZPIeM
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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
My latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com
Title: Gentlemen! Are you in want of a wife? Allow our algorithm to assist!

Image: a series of yes/no questions for that lead to different outcomes. 

Questions include “are you rich?”, “are you dashing?”, “are you a rake” and “are you a vicar?”

Outcomes include “You win the most beautiful daughter of the richest man in the county!”, “You remain a bachelor”, “You marry a dowdy cousin” and “You rescue a 23-year-old from Spinsterhood”.
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Peter Gray @petergray47.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Crime scene, Dun Laoghaire style
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Peter Gray @petergray47.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
In Warwick for an excellent Chartism Day’.
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Higher Education risks irreversible damage, says British Academy president Prof Susan Smith, with humanities and social sciences disciplines disappearing in many cold spots. BA is tracking subject provision & calling for a comprehensive review www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/stateme...
thebritishacademy.ac.uk
British Academy President: UK higher education crisis risks irreversible damage
As course closures, shrinking provision and widening regional inequalities threaten the future of UK higher education and research, President of the British Academy, Susan J Smith calls for an immedia...
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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Literally *years* of research on AI in education - *reams* of it by now - just does not support such sweeping proposals for mass AI access for students or educator "AI trailblazers", and it's maddening to see such uninformed, industry-friendly, research-free ideas from key sector bodies
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Simon Peplow @simpep.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
History and AI – A Survey of History Students in UKHE Our preliminary project report explores anonymous responses from more than 600 history students across all regions and types of institutions in the UK. @callingdrjones.bsky.social www.history-uk.ac.uk/projects/his...
history-uk.ac.uk
History and AI – A Survey of History Students in UK Universities
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become impossible to ignore in higher education. For historians, working in a discipline which depends on interpretation, evidence, and critical thinking, the devel…
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Conor Brockbank @conorbrockbank.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Very excited to announce the @qubhistory.bsky.social seminars for the upcoming semester. Join us each Friday to hear about the great research being done at Queen’s & elsewhere. Online attendance by request via the email below. For updates on the seminars, sign up to mailing list: shorturl.at/igu1r
Seminar schedule for the Autumn 2026 QUB history seminar series. These seminars all take place at 4pm each Friday in 01/003, 27 University Square from 18 September to 4 December.
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
'The find has been described as a totally unique, with geologists and marine specialists trying to establish the fossil's story and the Natural History Museum in London helping to identify it.' 1/2
bbc.co.uk
Islandmagee: Bronze Age whale fossil found at Portmuck Harbour
A 10-year-old boy was out looking for fossils along the shore in Islandmagee when he spotted the back of the skull.
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Andy Brockman @andybrockman.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
The legwork, and the sting, which seems to have caught out James Orr, Nigel Farage and Reform-UK was carried out by Verbatim Investigations who have dropped their own take on the story.
verbatiminvestigations.com
Dirty Money: A Year Undercover in Reform UK
A yearlong investigation into Nigel Farage’s fundraising operation reveals a plot to break the law by bringing foreign money into British politics
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History at Queen's University Belfast @qubhistory.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Andrew Holmes speaking at UTC on Friday about Irish Presbyterians in the 1920s
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INDY-HIST @indy-hist.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Chartism Day 19 Sept 2026 Warwick Chartism Day was launched in 1995 by Chartist historian Dorothy Thompson (1923–2011) This year's event is at the Friends Meeting House, Warwick Tickets £12 inc. refreshments and buffet lunch: tinyurl.com/chartismday
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John Hughes @johnmelhughes.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Mental map of the substrate of Lough Neagh as perceived by local fishermen. Some great names.
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Jay Roszman @jayroszman.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
These are the pictures I wanted to use. 1) QCG graduate, Colman Macaulay, leading a delegation to open Tibet to trade with Britain 2) QCB graduate, William Hancock, who served in Hart’s Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service. He’s at the centre in the big hat.
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Irish Studies at QUB @irishstudiesqub.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Irish Studies Assistant Prof post available at @bc-irish-studies.bsky.social apply.interfolio.com/191724
apply.interfolio.com
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
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Peter Gray @petergray47.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Connemara day and night
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Peter Gray @petergray47.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Footsteps of St Feichin
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Peter Gray @petergray47.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
The wait is over - ‘Our Cats’ (1904) has finally joined the BNA www.britishnewspaperarchive.com/blog/cats-co...
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
'A Russell Group university will no longer use ubiquitous anti-cheating tools provided by Turnitin because of concerns that the company might use students’ work to train artificial intelligence.' Maybe time for UK universities to develop and commercialise their own tools?
timeshighereducation.com
Southampton dumps Turnitin over use of students’ work to train AI
Academic integrity giant denies accusations as university declines to renew contract in favour of ‘other options’
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Mr. Charlie @mrcharlie.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Potato vending machine - 24 hour potato access
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Peter Gray @petergray47.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Feeling the need to visit the Ulster Model Railway Expo to appreciate this fine piece of historical re-enactment
Railway diorama labelled ‘Huskisson’s End’
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Peter Gray @petergray47.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Looks like the marketing team need to go an an AI awareness course
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Cold War Steve @coldwarsteve.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
The Haywain 2026
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Cahir O'Kane @cahirokane.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Last week's Fleadh Cheoil in Belfast was a landmark in normalising the city. Spontaneous traditional music, dancing in the streets, feeling the centre belonged to all. Cross-community participation. 1.6M visitors, many from the South who'd rarely go North. A win all round. And it'll be back in 2027.
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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Turnitin has long used its end user licence agreement to use students' work for product devt. Now it's trying to update it to use essays for AI devt too! Prime example of academic content assetization - turning student IP into a source of value codeactsineducation.wordpress.com/2026/04/29/a...
codeactsineducation.wordpress.com
AI and the amplification of academic content assetization
Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash A new AI-driven digital learning platform launched by Arizona State University has set off alarm bells among academics for its exploitation of scholarly work. AS…
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Royal Irish Academy @ria.ie · 11/08/2026
The Royal Irish Academy extends our deepest sympathies to the family, friends and former colleagues of Dr James Quinn, a valued former member of staff who served as managing editor of the Dictionary of Irish Biography @dib.ie Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam. May he rest in peace.
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Stephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
[Comic ] From a couple of weeks back #comic #tech #sciencefiction #comedy #sketch
[scene is SATURDAY KITCHEN, with the normal set of Saturday Kitchen, except it’s in a cave, and the guest chef is a kind of semi-human creature called MORLOCK, and the host is H G Wells]
 
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H G WELLS:
Hello I’m HG Wells and welcome to Saturday Kitchen.

So with me today is Morlock!

MORLOCK
Helloo

H G WELLS:
Now tell me a bit about yourself, Morlock

MORLOCK:
Well I’m an future sub-branch of humanity that lives underground in the year 802,701.

HG WELLS:
Wonderful!

[Close up on what Morlock is cooking - a pale, veal-like steak in the frying pan]

MORLOCK:
And today I'm cooking Eloi, which is the my rival species of human, from above the ground.

[Wells makes a frozen face of realisation] 

MORLOCK 
Eloi are beautifully soft and easy to hunt

Because they’ve gone weak with over-reliance on technology!

HG WELLS:
Oh god. Did - did you -

MORLOCK:
It’s super local meat too - I bagged this one last night, just outside my lair.

[Cut to a scene above ground at night - Morlock emerges from his hole in the ground]

[He approaches an Eloi - a pale, weak-looking human - sat at a desk with a computer on it]

ELOI [talking to his computer]:

Hey Chat - 
Write me an email to Jess in accounts about -

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[Morlock grabs the Eloi]

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[Cut back to HG Wells and Morlock at the Saturday Kitchen tasting table, tucking into the Eloi meat]

HG WELLS:
It’s kind of like veal!

[ends]
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Peter Gray @petergray47.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Posing for International Cat Day (but sure, what day isn’t?)
Calico cat in very relaxed sprawl
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Leanne Calvert @leannecalvert.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Such a waste. Thinking of my friends & colleagues in History & across Hums. UH History is where I really learned *how* to teach & how to drive my teaching with my research. A dept that really cared about their students. So many brilliant & talented people in my old dept.
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Mark Crail @markcrail.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Tickets are now available for Chartism Day 2026. The £12 ticket price includes refreshments and a light buffet lunch (plus all the Chartism you can eat). All are welcome. #C19th #History #Chartism www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/chartism-d...
eventbrite.co.uk
Chartism Day 2026
Join us to discover the latest research on Chartism and get the chance to meet fellow Chartist scholars and enthusiasts. All welcome.
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Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
A deeply destructive and inexpert management consultancy class has emerged whose sole purpose is to shrink Anglosphere universities and to undermine their future - all the better to secure more work. democracyforsale.substack.com/p/inside-bri...
democracyforsale.substack.com
Inside Britain's university crisis
As teaching staff face job loss, their bosses have netted pay rises and bought advice from a “vampiric” management consultancy, writes Prof. John Heathershaw of the University of Exeter
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Peter Gray @petergray47.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
After 10 years at the helm of Irish Studies at QUB, with various ups and downs over the last decade, I’m handing over to our new leadership team from Monday. Many thanks to Peter and @siobhraaiken.bsky.social for stepping up to take forward Irish Studies in Belfast! www.qub.ac.uk/schools/Iris...
qub.ac.uk
New Irish Studies Leadership
After 10 years as Director of the Institute of Irish Studies, Prof Peter Gray is handing over to a new leadership team from the start of August 2026.
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LJMU History @ljmuhistory.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
We are very sad to learn of the passing of Don MacRaild. Don graduated from our predecessor institution Liverpool Polytechnic and went on to have a distinguished career as a historian and as a scholar supremely skilled in explaining theory and methodology. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...
theguardian.com
Don MacRaild obituary
Other lives: Historian who produced groundbreaking research on Irish Catholic and Protestant immigration, and labour history
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Emily Mark-FitzGerald @emilymfg.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
I'm calling on Jim O'Callaghan to approve visas for students from Gaza who have been granted scholarships to Irish universities. Will you add your name to the petition now? my.uplift.ie/petitions/vi... @uplift.ie
my.uplift.ie
Visa for Gaza students
I'm calling on Jim O'Callaghan to approve visas for students from Gaza who have been granted scholarships to Irish universities. Will you add your name to the petition now?
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Ciaran O'Neill @ciaranon.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
What happens when historic human remains are returned to a community of origin? In this new co-authored article we compare recent reburials at Inishbofin in Ireland and Pälkäne in Finland: both controversial processes for reasons that overlap in fascinating ways. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
Returning the dead: the experience of repatriation and the heritage of racial science in Finland and Ireland
This article examines the contemporary return and reburial of human remains in two European contexts – Inishbofin, Ireland, and Pälkäne, Finland – to analyse how communities of descent experience, ...
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Irish Studies at QUB @irishstudiesqub.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Each institution will take its turn in hosting an annual public lecture by a leading Irish Studies scholar, which will be available online as well as in person. The first lecture will be given by Malcolm Sen (UMass Amherst) on 30 September 2026. www.qub.ac.uk/schools/Iris...
qub.ac.uk
Seamus Deane Memorial Lecture - Malcolm Sen, ‘Irish Anthropocene'
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Irish Studies at QUB @irishstudiesqub.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
We are delighted to announce that we will be hosting, in collaboration with the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at Notre Dame University, and the WB Yeats Chair of Irish Studies at the University of Sao Paulo, the inaugural Seamus Deane Memorial Lecture Series in Irish Studies.
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Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · 21/07/2026
"To accountants, some courses or departments may be viewed as cost centres. But to lecturers and students, and the places in which they are based, they are cultural resources – repositories of knowledge built up over decades." bit.ly/4gOTZo2 #Skystorians
bit.ly
The Guardian view on humanities cuts in universities: academic departments are more than cost centres | Editorial
Editorial: Literature, the arts and social sciences must not be sacrificed as higher education funding is squeezed
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Graham Jeffery @grahamjeffery.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Nearly 4,000 academic posts in social sciences, humanities and the arts have been axed in one year alone. In the 12 months to December 2024, just under 3,000 social sciences, 820 humanities and 240 arts jobs went. www.theguardian.com/education/20...
theguardian.com
Humanities among degrees being ‘extinguished’ by hard-up universities
Exclusive: Experts fear rise in education ‘cold spots’ and social immobility as 4,000 academic posts lost in one year
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Emily Mark-FitzGerald @emilymfg.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
La Traviata at the Arena di Verona 😍 spoiler: it did not end well
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Emily Mark-FitzGerald @emilymfg.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Mantua did not disappoint #palazzoducale #mantegna #alberti #palazzote #giulioromano
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Peter Gray @petergray47.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Brixia-Brescia
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Josephine beckbook.com Riesman @josie.zone · 23/10/2025
Never forget that time Sam Neill gave a quote about murder that was so beautifully kabonkers, we all assumed it was a Clickhole bit initially

SAM NEILL

GENERAL JOHN MACARTHUR

If you were to commit a murder,

how would you do it?

It's got to be big! No slipping

something into someones drink, that's just

pathetic. I'd use a steamroller, just leave a

stain on the road. There's probably a couple

of people I'd put under a steamroller,

but I won't say who they are, otherwise

when they see a steamroller coming

their way they'll be on full alert. And

steamrollers don't go very fast...
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Peter Gray @petergray47.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Community Verdi with the Polpenazze Banda all’Opera
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Emily Mark-FitzGerald @emilymfg.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
Lake Garda loveliness
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Peter Gray @petergray47.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Paddling giants, footballing dragons, stabby lions and Roman hares, Sirmione
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