iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

A novel of contemporary Irish Traveller life I couldn't put down. Pride shines through the pain, young women inspire their mothers to stand up to prejudice, a boxer and his spiritual link to Mohammed Ali's struggles... Thank you @paveebeoir.bsky.social!

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Looking for a beautifully written book about kind souls? Here you go.

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Read this review, and I guarantee you will want to read the book! www.culturematters.org.uk/hunger-queue...

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

I love this piece. A semester of political science/philosophy/history/economics in 3 minutes. m.youtube.com/watch?v=PS9B...

m.youtube.com

Joshua Idehen - Mum Does The Washing OFFICIAL VIDEO

YouTube video by Joshua Idehen

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

I went to this last year, it was a great week. Sean's insights are profound, his passion for writing unparalleled. www.cairdefestival.com/2026/writers...

cairdefestival.com

Cairde Writer's Workshop Open Call — Cairde Sligo Arts Festival

Applications are now open to Cairde's 2026 Writer's Workshop with Irish author Sean O'Reilly.

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

Love the disco sequence, where the 38 year old women are dancing, seeing their 17 year old selves dancing beside them. Don't we all!

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The New York Review of Books @nybooks.com · 31/01/2026

“If the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, a country that inflicts the ultimate punishment on those who dare to be vigilant can no longer be free.” —@fotoole.bsky.social

nybooks.com

The Crime of Witness | Fintan O’Toole

Renée Good and Alex Pretti were murdered for daring to interfere with the Trump administration’s efforts to normalize abductions and state violence.

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

Loving this second-hand bookshop find, 'Ireland of the Proverb' by Liam Mac Con Iomaire, photos by Bill Doyle.

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Niamh Mac Cabe @niamhmaccabe.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Who is that stunning lass

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Irish Literary Times @irishlittimes.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

Somewhere by Jessamine O’Connor is available for pre-order now! www.lilliputpress.ie/products/som...

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

The action we need in the White House

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

I shed a tear at the end of this one, something I wasn't sure I was capable of anymore. Yes, it's ok to live in memoryland, to bask in the joy of moments long past. And to now live the dreams you shared then.

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

Read this in one day - could not put it down. I try, on and off, to write about a sociopath I encountered, who, like Oliver, grew up in institutions. It's not easy to inspire a smidge of empathy for a killer, but @liznugent.bsky.social pulls it off beautifully here.

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Bushby said he has learned a lot over the past nearly three decades, but one thing stands out: “99.99 percent of the people I’ve met have been the very best in humanity,” he said. “The world is a much kinder, nicer place than it often seems.” www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/20...

washingtonpost.com

He set out to walk around the world. After 27 years, his quest is nearly over.

Karl Bushby is expected to finish his globe-walking expedition by September 2026.

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

Mentally ill husband plans family murder-suicide, partly succeeding. A journey through love, searing loss, and beyond. Compassionate and completely absorbing. @cmgleeson.bsky.social your Irish Book Award is richly deserved!

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

So the Hamptons and NYC night scene haven't changed in 40 years. Great read, TY Rob Franklin. This, along with much else, struck a chord: 'But exuberant expressions of rage seemed to him mere admissions of one's vulnerability, the power the other still held. He'd withhold them.'

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

www.independent.ie/entertainmen... BE to DM: People want to see dog shit on the road and step in it, so they can be annoyed or offended DM: ...People really, really wanting to say who they are by screaming at whatever shit they’ve stepped in and saying: ‘I’m not that.’

independent.ie

Dylan Moran: ‘You are coming to me, Barry, asking me for a chronology of my emotional history? Is that what you really want?’

Do people have a skewed idea of who Dylan Moran actually is?

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

Thank you @jackielynam.bsky.social for your excellent chat with @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social and Donal Ryan at Write By The Sea today. The perfect light but firm, well-informed touch!

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

The power of the novel... I'd read/heard plenty about Ireland's 'mother and baby home' genocides, but it took this book for me to really feel the enormity of it. 'The further the girl was from poverty, the closer her child was to living. Death wasn't random.' My aunt's child lived.

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

'We had more children ... so as not to have to spend so much time together. Had we liked each other less we'd have had four, five. There's nothing like love's dilution to keep things in proportion.'

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

I couldn't put this down... I first heard about American nurses in the Vietnam War from a really sweet lady (a volunteer at my local library) who served there. In awe that she lived through such horror and somehow regained her lovely disposition in the years since.

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

I feel like I know this pub... 'Brendan drank in McCrink's every night where the clientele were already dead to themselves, their elegies long written in the heartbreak of their wives and children and their own brokenness.'

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 03/08/2025

I had a theory on who Liadan might be... less certain after reading this, they come across as much more polite than the writer I had in mind. Great stories, the gut-wrenching devastation, quietly told, stays with you.

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. Unquestionably the most useful book for writers I’ve read in a long time.

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

Taking a little break from Wimbledon

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

'He took off his hat and hung it on a peg in her entrance-hall which was the shape and size of a small kitchen table, and from the ceiling of which hung a crystal chandelier.'

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Pulled this off my shelf a couple of nights ago. Lovely, sweet stories, set in Cumbria's becks and fells, perfect antidote to the daily news. Thank you Jane Gardam, may you rest in peace.

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

Delighted to have a piece in Issue 23 here, at p.43 www.thewellsstreetjournal.com/past-issues-1

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

'Cynics see social problems, but [no] solutions. [I]f you think our problems [are] who we are, why do anything about it? So cynics end up voting less often ... protesting less often ... people who benefit from a population that doesn't trust itself are often autocrats and authoritarians.' Ouch!

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

'the philosophers were wrong and the meaning of life is not that it ends but that your one job on earth is to make everyone as miserable as your own sad self.' - a piece on our current leadership?? No - it's from Aria Aber's lyrical novel, anyone who was a wild child will love this, set in Berlin:

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Before the amazing Belfast writers now on the scene, there was the brilliant Robert McLiam Wilson. Keep a dictionary handy when reading Ripley Bogle. The erudition is way beyond mine - but that doesn't stop it being a great read.

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

Picked this up with no expectations, and find I can't put it down! Pure serendipity that it centers on a topic of great interest to me: a life derailed by an out-of-character moment, particularly in our age of cyber-bullying

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

'These are sudden times' says a character. To which I can only reply, 'No kiddin'!'

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

Skelliging Day was still 'celebrated' in my hometown when I was a schoolgirl - it meant dodging posses of schoolboys looking for victims to tie to poles and throw eggs at. Never did buy that 'schooldays are the best days of your life' line... www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2...

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Fred Guttenberg @fredguttenberg.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

Today, in a meeting at the White House, the only person actually defending American interests was Zelenskyy. Let that sink in.

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

'there is assertion and even aggression in chess and in the act of writing' Peter Bradshaw, reviewing a 2012 documentary I want to see www.theguardian.com/film/2012/ma...

theguardian.com

Barbaric Genius – review

Paul Duane has created an enthralling documentary portrait of former criminal and tournament chess player John Healy, writes Peter Bradshaw

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Just a reminder, Ireland - tiocfaidh an samhradh - summer will come...

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Fay Weldon on husband-stealers: ‘The once-up-and-down look, the ‘Well, you’re no rival, you poor thing’ air, puts you on your guard: the cute leopard-print neck scarves, the little high heels, announce to everyone the would-be robber’s on her way.’ Oh dear, how my aunts loved those scarves!

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Sharon Keely @sharonkeely.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

Powerful poem of the poor, everywhere, from Tangier poet Rachida Madani, translated by Marilyn Hacker. ('Shahrayar', vengeful one...) wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

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Ann Cleeves @anncleeves.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

Any Vera fans out there? Brenda Blethyn, @stephmcgovern.bsky.social and I will be at Newcastle City Hall on March 13th to say goodbye to the show. Lots of special guests. And raise funds for the amazing Shiremoor Adventure Playground.

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