Kevin O'Sullivan
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kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
Kevin O'Sullivan
@kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
2.6K followers 1K following 1.2K posts
Author of The NGO Moment (http://cambridge.org/9781108708548). Associate Professor in History at University of Galway. Co-editor @difp-ria.bsky.social. Currently researching climate change and capitalism in c20th & early c21st Ireland
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Kevin O'Sullivan
elaineburke.bsky.social
The Irish Times published and lauded John Collison's op-ed, but did they fact-check it?

Andrew Jackson did. Thoroughly.

If you spent time reading the original, you'd want to give time to this counterpoint as well.
November 22, 2025 at 9:28 AM
Reposted by Kevin O'Sullivan
niamhcullen.bsky.social
Opportunity to work with other me on a funded PhD at Queens - may suit anyone interested in gender, history of the child and family in 20thC Ireland. Happy to chat to anyone thinking of it!
irishstudiesqub.bsky.social Irish Studies at QUB @irishstudiesqub.bsky.social · 1d
Funded PhD opportunities at QUB:
'Childcare provision in late twentieth-century Northern Ireland (1960s-1990s)'
www.qub.ac.uk/courses/post...
REF: DfEHIS - HIS-PHD | Courses | Queen's University Belfast
www.qub.ac.uk
November 21, 2025 at 1:42 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
On my way to Belfast this morning to talk about the pharmaceutical industry, bodies, ecosystems, and how we read the history of Ireland's economic transformation since the 1960s. Will include some chat about the smells of 1980s Ireland, as well as what topography tells us about Ireland's economy.
Photo of an older man standing in a rural setting, with factory facilities in the background. The caption under the photo reads, Paddy O'Meara: "All we want is clean air."
November 21, 2025 at 7:30 AM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
Love this: Michele Horrigan's activist art on Aughinish Alumina, which explores the impact of heavy industry on Irish ecosystems and the people that are part of them. To me the podcast episodes are the most striking element - highlighting the globalised nature of this issue. www.stigmadamages.com
Stigma Damages
www.stigmadamages.com
November 19, 2025 at 1:50 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
This Friday in Belfast, in case anyone is around. I'll be talking a lot about industrial chemicals, about the pharmaceutical industry, and about where we look for evidence of capitalism in late c20th Ireland.
conorbrockbank.bsky.social Conor Brockbank @conorbrockbank.bsky.social · 4d
Looking forward to this week’s @qubhistory.bsky.social seminar by @kevinkosullivan.bsky.social, chaired by @kieranconnell.bsky.social! Snacks and drinks will be provided as usual. For more information and to sign up to attend online, see the link below:
www.eventbrite.com/e/qub-histor...
November 18, 2025 at 4:32 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
"I'm really, really emotional right now". Us too, Troy, us too.

www.rte.ie/sport/soccer...
'It's a fairytale' - Parrott revels in the Troy show
Troy Parrott described his hat-trick against Hungary as a fairytale after the Republic of Ireland booked a play-off for the World Cup with a 3-2 victory.
www.rte.ie
November 16, 2025 at 5:00 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
Football. Bloody hell
November 16, 2025 at 4:03 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
This is a very good, well-balanced piece on AI and the tools we will need for the world it creates:
"Be drawn toward what interests you. Learn the old-fashioned skills. When it is time to apply technology to them you will be ahead."
naomialderman.substack.com/p/preparing-...
preparing for the working world in the age of AI
or: seven things to tell your kids when they ask what they should study now, or what the point of studying is
naomialderman.substack.com
November 16, 2025 at 12:03 PM
Reposted by Kevin O'Sullivan
orla-hegarty.bsky.social
👀 Irish data centres are now using 22% of all electricity generated in Ireland, more than all urban homes combined & drawing an unquantified amount (lots) of Ireland’s water capacity

Could AI demands be related to recent push to fast-track infrastructure, side-step safeguards & reduce court access?
wolvendamien.bsky.social Dr. Damien P. Williams! Look over here! … It's All For You! @wolvendamien.bsky.social · 8d
A new state-by-state evaluation of the projected energy and water use of "AI" data centers in the US. Looks… real bad. Like, "undoing tech sector climate gains" bad.

Strongly recommends immediately ensuring any & all new "AI" data centers to run on existing & expanded renewables grids. Which… yeah.
Environmental impact and net-zero pathways for sustainable artificial intelligence servers in the USA - Nature Sustainability
The rapid expansion of AI server installations in the United States poses sustainability challenges in terms of water usage and carbon emissions. A study now quantifies these potential impacts and out...
www.nature.com
November 14, 2025 at 10:12 AM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
Post-work listening this Friday evening: Fever Ray - Coconut
youtu.be/kTvroPUOq7w?...
Coconut
YouTube video by Fever Ray - Topic
youtu.be
November 14, 2025 at 7:40 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
Amazing. Ronaldo being sent off was the icing on the cake.
www.rte.ie/sport/soccer...
World Cup dream alive as brave Ireland shock Portugal
On a dramatic night in Dublin, Troy Parrott struck a first-half brace to secure a remarkable 2-0 World Cup qualifying victory for Ireland against Portugal at Aviva Stadium.
www.rte.ie
November 13, 2025 at 10:30 PM
Reposted by Kevin O'Sullivan
historyatgalway.bsky.social
Last week, our colleague @kevinkosullivan.bsky.social ran the second workshop of the 'Sites of Fracture' project, in collaboration with the this/OUR academic-artist collective. Over two days in east Cork, participants explored the village of Killeagh as a site of resistance against capitalism.
November 12, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Reposted by Kevin O'Sullivan
virginmedianews.bsky.social
President Catherine Connolly has called for action on war, genocide and climate change, saying the normalisation of war “has never been and will never be acceptable” to Ireland, a nation with a long tradition of neutrality and peacekeeping.

#VMNews
November 11, 2025 at 1:46 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
This is a great way of putting it. For anyone who'd like to see those ghosts, here's a Google Map I created for the first walk of our workshop. Sites of Fracture - Killeagh
goo.gl/maps/TH8v8o6...
November 11, 2025 at 8:16 AM
Reposted by Kevin O'Sullivan
momoulton.bsky.social
How can we see the ecology of what isn't there? A pharmaceutical plant that wasn't built - and the industrial agriculture that lives in its place. A lake that was built for fishing and drained for industry and is mourned to this day. The ghosts of the landscape are also the history of capitalism.
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social Kevin O'Sullivan @kevinkosullivan.bsky.social · 13d
This was a hugely energising two-and-a-half days. Big thanks to Greywood Arts Centre for hosting us, to this/OUR for the collaboration, and to everyone who came along to participate. It's the first workshop I've been to where we've managed to spend half of the time outdoors - as is only fitting.
November 11, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Reposted by Kevin O'Sullivan
tsasson.bsky.social
🚨We’re hiring a Junior Research Fellow in Economic History (Sept 2026–Aug 2029) at Wadham College, University of Oxford. It’s a genuinely supportive place to work. Happy to answer any questions. Spread the word!

www.wadham.ox.ac.uk/about/the-da...
The David Richards Junior Research Fellowship in Economic History
Wadham College invites applications for a fixed-term Junior Research Fellowship in Economic History, named the David Richards Fellowship, September 2026 – August 2029.
www.wadham.ox.ac.uk
October 29, 2025 at 11:43 AM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
This was a hugely energising two-and-a-half days. Big thanks to Greywood Arts Centre for hosting us, to this/OUR for the collaboration, and to everyone who came along to participate. It's the first workshop I've been to where we've managed to spend half of the time outdoors - as is only fitting.
Photo of a group of people standing in a woodland. Nineteenth century map of Killeagh Gardens, Co Cork. Signpost, which has details of two townlands, Ballymakeagh More and Finisk. Sign, detailing the history of the railway station at Killeagh, Co Cork.
November 9, 2025 at 5:05 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
Tell you what, I'm no fan of this Champions League format but Brugge 3-3 Barcelona is a hell of a game. Two goals disallowed for Brugge, a crazy high line from Barcelona, three times they've had to equaliser, and a wonderful Lamine Yamal goal too.
November 5, 2025 at 9:52 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
November 5, 2025 at 7:25 PM
Reposted by Kevin O'Sullivan
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
Very excited about the second workshop in our 'Sites of Fracture' project (funded by AHRC), starting tomorrow in east Cork. It's also our first site-specific workshop. The impetus for the project came from our desire to explore those spaces where challenges to totalising capitalism surfaced.
Sites of Fracture Twentieth Century Ireland at the Margins of Capitalism WORKSHOP 2 Greywood Arts Centre & Glenbower Wood Killeagh, Co. Cork 6-8 November 2025 [Photo of the River Dissour, running through Glenbower Wood] Workshop Overview In our present moment of extraordinary ecological and economic challenges, there is a global search for alternatives to models of extractive capitalism. While these alternatives offer critiques of the global reach and power of modern economic processes, they are often profoundly local in their application, such as housing collectives, agricultural cooperatives, or alternate forms of energy provision. These schemes, while seeking to create alternate spaces of cooperation and community, have resided alongside or in opposition to global capitalist formations, with particular local repercussions. We define these as ‘sites of fracture’, where messy, complex interactions between global capitalism and local alternative forms of organisation existed and produced particularly rich seams of memory and evidence. This workshop brings our research to one such site: Killeagh, east Cork. Our walk on Day 1 will challenge us to think about how engaging with physical landscapes makes us to reflect differently on how centuries of capitalist extraction have re-shaped the landscapes of rural Ireland. Our conversations on Day 2 will reflect on how collaborative and situated research can help us to understand and share the layers of global, local, and more-than-human experience of capitalism and its alternatives over the course of the twentieth century. What sources are available to scholars and communities interested in investigating Irish economic and environmental history? What expressive tools can we draw on to enable communities to engage with their histories of life at sites of fracture? What methods can we use to chart and assess the collisions of human and more-than- human aspirations in sites defined by globalised extraction?
November 5, 2025 at 10:50 AM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
Very excited about the second workshop in our 'Sites of Fracture' project (funded by AHRC), starting tomorrow in east Cork. It's also our first site-specific workshop. The impetus for the project came from our desire to explore those spaces where challenges to totalising capitalism surfaced.
Sites of Fracture Twentieth Century Ireland at the Margins of Capitalism WORKSHOP 2 Greywood Arts Centre & Glenbower Wood Killeagh, Co. Cork 6-8 November 2025 [Photo of the River Dissour, running through Glenbower Wood] Workshop Overview In our present moment of extraordinary ecological and economic challenges, there is a global search for alternatives to models of extractive capitalism. While these alternatives offer critiques of the global reach and power of modern economic processes, they are often profoundly local in their application, such as housing collectives, agricultural cooperatives, or alternate forms of energy provision. These schemes, while seeking to create alternate spaces of cooperation and community, have resided alongside or in opposition to global capitalist formations, with particular local repercussions. We define these as ‘sites of fracture’, where messy, complex interactions between global capitalism and local alternative forms of organisation existed and produced particularly rich seams of memory and evidence. This workshop brings our research to one such site: Killeagh, east Cork. Our walk on Day 1 will challenge us to think about how engaging with physical landscapes makes us to reflect differently on how centuries of capitalist extraction have re-shaped the landscapes of rural Ireland. Our conversations on Day 2 will reflect on how collaborative and situated research can help us to understand and share the layers of global, local, and more-than-human experience of capitalism and its alternatives over the course of the twentieth century. What sources are available to scholars and communities interested in investigating Irish economic and environmental history? What expressive tools can we draw on to enable communities to engage with their histories of life at sites of fracture? What methods can we use to chart and assess the collisions of human and more-than- human aspirations in sites defined by globalised extraction?
November 5, 2025 at 10:50 AM
Reposted by Kevin O'Sullivan
ria.ie
Thank you to everyone who took part in today’s event
'The Troubles and the European Community: Exploring DIFP XIV (1969–73)'.
November 4, 2025 at 3:08 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
I'm reading Martin MacInnes' novel, In Ascension, at the moment, and there are some wonderful passages about how we open our eyes to the natural world. Here's a particularly striking description of when the main character realises the blurred boundaries between her body and the world around her.
Ordinarily I couldn't see any of this. Only through careful and deliberate study could I witness what had been in front of me all along. And so I did this, at home and at school. I remember this as a great period of visibility, the world bursting into appearance. The air was thick with teeming life, just as the oceans and the rivers were. A spoonful of seawater or a pinch of soil between your fingers held billions
November 4, 2025 at 7:23 AM
Reposted by Kevin O'Sullivan
proton.me
Last chance to turn it off.

On Monday, November 3rd, Microsoft will start using your LinkedIn data for AI training. And remember, you're opted in by default.

To toggle it off 👉 Account - Settings & Privacy > Data privacy > Data for Generative AI Improvement.
October 31, 2025 at 1:37 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
Celebrating the Cailleach and Samhain this evening in Glenbower Wood, East Cork.
Photograph of people standing in a courtyard, holding lanterns. In the middle is a group of veiled women. People walking through trees in the dark. A group of people gathered in a woodland. There is large sculpture of a bird, lit from inside, being held aloft. A moon-shaped lantern hanging from a tree.
November 1, 2025 at 6:52 PM