Dr Cathryn McWilliams
LightNews LightNews
banner
candlelitink.bsky.social
Dr Cathryn McWilliams
@candlelitink.bsky.social
400 followers 380 following 25 posts
Irish women’s history, letters, memoir, creativity & writing. Norn Iron cutty. Ready for the hills.

Associate Prof of English, University of South-Eastern Norway.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Dr Cathryn McWilliams
clareclarke.bsky.social
www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...
Bad Bridgets podcast about crime among Irish women in US inspires film
Margot Robbie’s company to make movie based on Northern Ireland academics’ stories of poverty and prison
www.theguardian.com
November 13, 2025 at 10:12 PM
Reposted by Dr Cathryn McWilliams
irishstudiesqub.bsky.social
November 8, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Reposted by Dr Cathryn McWilliams
colinmurray.bsky.social
More evidence that the UK Government not only forgets that NI exists, it also forgets that the Common Travel Area exists. This is just a remarkable story of benefits being withdrawn from hundreds of families for using the CTA amid a performative benefit crackdown:

share.google/NSWTG5JNYMrz...
NI parents caught in UK crackdown lose child benefit after travelling via Dublin
Exclusive: new anti-fraud system fails to account for fact many return to country via airport in Irish capital
share.google
October 26, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Reposted by Dr Cathryn McWilliams
ancestralenq.bsky.social
The life of Emily Langton Massingberd, a pioneering women's rights campaigner is being remembered at her home, Gunby Hall near Spilsby, Lincs. 👇
BBC News - The life of pioneering women's rights campaigner
www.bbc.com/news/article...
The life of Lincolnshire pioneering women's rights campaigner
Emily Langton Massingberd was one of the first ever woman in Britain to stand for election in 1889.
www.bbc.com
October 19, 2025 at 6:22 PM
candlelitink.bsky.social
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Kemi Badenoch wants to end ‘rip-off degrees’ – but I wouldn’t have created Horrid Henry without mine | Francesca Simon
I studied Old and Middle English. Although I didn’t know it, I couldn’t have chosen a better subject to train me to become a children’s author, says author Francesca Simon
www.theguardian.com
October 15, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Reposted by Dr Cathryn McWilliams
irishstudiesqub.bsky.social
CFP for Sofeir conference 'Irish Exceptionalism', Strasbourg, 26-27 March 2026
www.sofeir.fr/cfp-irish-ex...
CFP Irish Exceptionalism – SOFEIR conference – University of Strasbourg, 26-27 March 2026 – SOFEIR
www.sofeir.fr
October 6, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Reposted by Dr Cathryn McWilliams
ancestralenq.bsky.social
Letter written by poet & librarian Philip Larkin from 1985 up for auction. Larkin lived in Hull for more than 30 years. 👇
BBC News - 'Remarkable' Philip Larkin letter up for auction
www.bbc.com/news/article...
'Remarkable' Philip Larkin note to Hull colleague up for auction
The letter by the poet and librarian was sent to a colleague in Hull shortly before he died in 1985.
www.bbc.com
September 25, 2025 at 6:38 AM
Reposted by Dr Cathryn McWilliams
dlgenealogist.bsky.social
A Batch of Undelivered #WWII Letters Intended for Japanese Soldiers Ended Up in an Oregon Museum Decades Later. Now, Experts Are Returning the Lost Correspondence to Their Families share.google/xDgDAyDfAo9B...
A Batch of Undelivered WWII Letters Intended for Japanese Soldiers Ended Up in an Oregon Museum Decades Later. Now, Experts Are Returning the Lost Correspondence to Their Families
An organization devoted to returning artifacts as a way to heal the emotional wounds left by the war is helping the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum send these deeply personal items to the writers' d...
share.google
September 3, 2025 at 7:23 PM
candlelitink.bsky.social
Happy #LeftHandersDay to all you lovely left handed folk out there! 💪
August 13, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Reposted by Dr Cathryn McWilliams
edlarrissy.bsky.social
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...
Samuel Taylor Coleridge wanted to ‘bid farewell’ to writing at 22, letter reveals
Young poet details low mood and disappointment in love in 1795 letter, written not long before he met Wordsworth
www.theguardian.com
August 10, 2025 at 7:34 AM
Reposted by Dr Cathryn McWilliams
lucyallengoss.bsky.social
Lovely to see Alice Thornton and @cordeliabeattie.bsky.social getting some love in the press. 'A female Samuel Pepys' Thornton is a bit less self-obsessed! www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...
Woman’s memoirs give fascinating insight into life in 17th-century northern England
Newly reunited manuscripts by Alice Thornton show how she navigated personal crises during tumultuous events such as the civil war
www.theguardian.com
August 4, 2025 at 8:27 AM
Reposted by Dr Cathryn McWilliams
workingclasshistory.com
#OtD 4 Aug 1765 French actor and revolutionary Claire Lacombe was born. She took part in the 1792 Paris insurrection and co-founded the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, an organisation so radical it led all women's organisations to be banned stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1040...
August 4, 2025 at 12:20 PM
candlelitink.bsky.social
www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
The killing code: strange symbols in a WA settler’s diaries lay bare frontier atrocities
Exclusive: Stories of murders passed down by Yamatji elders are confirmed by a cipher hidden in the 1850s journals of prominent pastoralist Major Logue. Now descendants on both sides want to break the...
www.theguardian.com
August 4, 2025 at 7:15 AM
Reposted by Dr Cathryn McWilliams
workingclasshistory.com
#OtD 1 Aug 1993 Joy Gardner, a 40-year-old Jamaican woman, died in north London, a few days after police tried to deport her. They held her down and wrapped 13ft of surgical tape round her head, suffocating her stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8055...
August 1, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Reposted by Dr Cathryn McWilliams
exeterunispeccoll.bsky.social
On International Day of Friendship, why not visit our online 'PenPals' exhibit!

It explores friendships & connections between writers in South-West England, incl. Daphne du Maurier & Agatha Christie.

➡️ specialcollectionsarchive.exeter.ac.uk/exhibits/sho...

#InternationalDayOfFriendship #Archives
Cropped image from an exhibition board showing a black and white photograph of Daphne and her sister Angela du Maurier standing on the far end of a balcony. The photograph has been designed to look like a stamp, as part of a exhibition board for the PenPals exhibition. Typed under the photograph is the reference number: EUL MS 462/3/10/24. Cropped image from an exhibition board. It shows a black and white photograph of Agatha Christie at her honorary graduation in 1961, standing with three other honorary graduates and the Chancellor of the University. The photograph has been fashioned into a stamp. Above the photograph is typed: 'Christie (far left) at her honourary graduation in 1961'. And below the photograph is typed 'Photographer: Dart & Bernard Ltd. EUL UA/P/5i(58)'.
July 30, 2025 at 8:46 AM
Reposted by Dr Cathryn McWilliams
newyorker.com
Umberto Eco’s enduringly popular manual “How to Write a Thesis” is more than a guide for undergraduates; the book is a celebration of the magical process of self-realization.
A Guide to Thesis Writing and a Guide to Life
Writing and research manuals like Umberto Eco’s “How to Write a Thesis” offer a vision of our best selves, Hua Hsu wrote, in 2015.
www.newyorker.com
July 5, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Reposted by Dr Cathryn McWilliams
newyorker.com
Pursued relentlessly by the government of Vladimir Putin, the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in prison. He left behind an account of his final years—and an admonition to his country and the world.
Alexei Navalny’s Prison Diaries
The Russian opposition leader’s account of his last years and his admonition to his country and the world.
www.newyorker.com
July 2, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Reposted by Dr Cathryn McWilliams
gregjenner.bsky.social
Harvard hired a researcher to look into its connection to slavery, and then allegedly fired the researcher for finding too many enslaved people www.theguardian.com/news/2025/ju...
Harvard hired a researcher to uncover its ties to slavery. He says the results cost him his job: ‘We found too many slaves’
When the extent of the university’s involvement with slavery was unearthed, a scholar tracking descendants of enslaved workers was suddenly fired
www.theguardian.com
June 21, 2025 at 1:13 PM
candlelitink.bsky.social
chng.it/Z7ZKK9r5yc
Sign the Petition
Ban Bottom Trawling in 41 English Marine Protected Areas: Pledge Your Support
chng.it
June 19, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Reposted by Dr Cathryn McWilliams
museumsassociation.org
News | @pittriversmuseum.bsky.social begins process to repatriate human remains – delegation of Naga representatives visit museum to discuss return and care of ancestral remains
Pitt Rivers begins process to repatriate human remains - Museums Association
Delegation of Naga representatives visit museum to discuss return and care of ancestral remains
www.museumsassociation.org
June 17, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Dr Cathryn McWilliams
theletterspage.bsky.social
Would you like to see your name on this page? Simply write us a letter at

The Letters Page
School of English
The University of Nottingham
Nottingham
NG7 2RD

and you will receive a personalised, hand-folded aerogramme in return!

More details at link in bio. 🔗
June 17, 2025 at 6:46 PM
candlelitink.bsky.social
British Library to reinstate Oscar Wilde’s reader card 130 years after it was revoked www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...
British Library to reinstate Oscar Wilde’s reader card 130 years after it was revoked
Exclusive: Pass to be presented to playwright’s grandson after original cancelled over conviction for gross indecency
www.theguardian.com
June 13, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Reposted by Dr Cathryn McWilliams
ies-sas.bsky.social
Call for Contributors!

@michaelwdurrant.bsky.social and Cynthia Johnson are co-editing a new Routledge Companion to Book Studies, and are seeking chapter proposals!

Deadline: 30 September 2025

More info here 👇
ies.sas.ac.uk/news/call-co...
Call for Contributors: Routledge Companion to Book Studies
Call for ContributorsThe Routledge Companion to Book StudiesEdited by Michael Durrant and Cynthia Johnston Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London
ies.sas.ac.uk
April 24, 2025 at 9:42 AM
Reposted by Dr Cathryn McWilliams
whaireland.bsky.social
This will be of interest to many.
donalh.bsky.social Dónal Hassett @donalh.bsky.social · Jun 4
Check out the call for papers for this exciting conference in beautiful Boulogne-sur-Mer in March next year on 'Women in War in France, Britain and Ireland'. It should be a fascinating event. femmescombattantes.univ-littoral.fr/en/call-for-...
June 4, 2025 at 11:12 AM