iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

That's it now. No more until after I'm dead.

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Library architecture at its most amusing.

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Can't catch a break in Ardstraw, Co. Tyrone. On the trail of more dead antiquarians in @nlireland.bsky.social ...

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Trash talk in 18th Ireland: "go you in you dirty creature".

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Leafleting, not canvassing. Since Pascal stepped down I've hopped up to every doorbell. I've spoken to Ó Ceannabháin, two Jehovah's Witnesses & a gas salesman. The 3 in hand were delivered tonight while I read in my front room. I saw Jack Chambers posing for a photo on my road but spoke to no one.

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Not too difficult to spot either!

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Very fun time on the Royal Canal meeting the local soprano pippistrelle bats!

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

Even while understanding library jargon, this is still a very funny note.

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

Finally got into St Mary's Abbey. The phrase "hidden gem" might actually have some meaning in this case. An underground monastery felt very apt for this weekend.

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

B̶o̶o̶k̶b̶u̶y̶e̶r̶ Librarian. Preach 🙌

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Very reassuring to hear library leader Niamh Tumelty say she thinks the "bookless library" is unlikely to come to fruition. I love a digital resource at much as the next person, but this humble piece of technology changed the world as much as AI ever will, and I still love them too!!! #asl2025

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Some big ol' hand coloured railway survey maps today.... one simply coloured by county and one coloured by staff at the Geological Survey in 1877.

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Luggala, good company and a thermos full of sausages: a happy St Patrick's Day!

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

"...bless the power of the sun, its conspiracy with the underground..." - The Seed, Paula Meehan.

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

The succession of the Roman Catholic bishops of Cloyne and Ross was not thrilling enough to take Miss Bourke off this dreamy annotator's mind... @nlireland.bsky.social is still as romantic as ever 🥰

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Bluesky debut for the most clever thing I ever thought of, and which I now share every year on #PancakeDay.

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Had a lovely evening at this launch of this book last night! Jacobites, prison escapes, and kidnapped princesses - what's not to love?

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 27/12/2025

Irish manuscripts and book conservators getting a two-page spread in @irishtimes.com 🙌 Up with that sort of thing!

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

A Christmas miracle! I have tracked down a copy of Battersby's auction catalogue for the Earl of Leitrim's library, which I will visit in @nlireland.bsky.social next year. Sometimes all you need for Christmas is to know if a particular dead guy once owned and annotated the book you are holding.

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

Not up to the standard of the famous mushroom guy, but these are pretty cool in my parents' garden in Carlow.

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

An unwilling part, I'd imagine, if you could ask the reindeer. But it's a very cool acquisition.

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

A last visit to @nmireland.bsky.social Words on the Wave to see the third opening of the St Gall gospels. Not my boy St John, but still, not too shabby. Also revisiting a relic label we studied in my palaeography class & one of the world's most famous library catalogues. 😍 Farewell, Swiss friends!

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

Having a cracking day with @annewelsh.bsky.social on this training! One of the many pleasures of being the secretary of the @laibluesky.bsky.social Rare Books Group...

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

Dublin, sure you're only gorgeous.

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

By consulting the English Short Title Catalogue, and assuming the mindset of a Victorian, scissor-wielding lunatic, I have at last figured out what imprint I am looking at... another win for pedantic cataloguers everywhere!

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

A very jolly time with the Earls of Ormond at Kilkenny Arts Festival a few weeks ago, which I kept forgetting to share!

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

Find someone who loves you like this snail loves the poppy seed head in my garden.

A snail climbing precariously up a dead poppy stalk and extending its head to stick its face into the seed head.

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Help! Anyone able to make out this former owner's name? Probably Irish language?

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

I reckon Sir Walter Elliot was a fan of the Morning Chronicle. #JaneAusten #Persuasion

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

Catching up on From That Small Island on RTÉ - fantastic! Just two nitpicks: the papyrus font for the document recreations (the Irish script is really famous) and the academic wandering into the stacks to retrieve an archival box herself is literally the most unrealistic thing I've ever seen on TV.

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

Insect pigments today at Montefiascone!

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Noticeable difference between the earth colours and synthetic colours (i.e. requiring a chemical process to create; heat application, addition of acids, etc). What a wonderful palette!

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

Day 2 in Montefiascone: metals! Including gold... 😍

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

On a busman's holiday at the Monte Project learning about medieval pigments! 😍🖌🪨💎

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

I'm giving this 15 min tour tomorrow, if you are Dublin city centre-based? I will make you excited about the Tudor Privy Council, or die trying... This is part of the 175,000 new documents on Irish history that was all over the news yesterday! www.ria.ie/events/libra...

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

The choir were discussing ways of quickly recognising the first page of this psalm. I said that the decorated capital surely made it obvious. That was not the winning answer...

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

My colleague Dr Joseph Flahive @ria.ie is next up!

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

Suppressing a small 'whoop' as Dáibhí Ó Cróinín gives the Cathach a shout-out while outlining the history of the contested term "Libri Scottice scripti".

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

Immo Warntjes masterfully explaining why St Gall is the most important repository in Europe for the study of history before the year 1000! I, too, raise my hands in worshipful respect for this list of records! 😉

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

Excited to attend some of the lectures about the St Gall mss at Trinity College today!

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

From amazing retrieval systems, to exhibitions, to digitisation suites to the loveliest of reading rooms and most stunning of books! Enormous thanks to the Special Collections team @ullibrary.bsky.social for hosting the @laibluesky.bsky.social Rare Books Group for our annual visit this year!

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Cataloguing a set of Cathal Ó Sándair kids books and the cover illustrations aren't credited. Some gas ones here. Anyone know anything about E.W., L Mac S or E.H.??

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

Jellett and Hone in @nationalgalleryirl.bsky.social on Saturday and Oyster Catchers on Ireland's Eye on Sunday. A dreamy weekend that seemed to happen out of time. If I didn't like my job so much, Monday would be very obnoxious.

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

Long afternoon in the garden. Can wait for the intense back pain at work tomorrow... can't wait to stare at it every morning with delight like a gibbering idiot.

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

You haven't lived until you've done a deep dive into Thomas Moore bibliography.

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

I have a serious job. RIA MS 23 P 10 (iii)

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Emma Rothwell @rothweeee.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

Very fun CPD at the Distiller's Press this afternoon!

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