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
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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
November 5, 2025 at 7:25 PM
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
There's another very revealing line a few pages earlier when the same character, aged eleven, describes swimming underwater and 'seeing' what's around her for the first time: "I didn't look through the water towards life, I looked directly into water-life, a vast patchwork supporting my body..."
There was no gap separating my body from the living world. I was pressed against a teeming immensity, every cubic millimetre of water densely filled with living stuff. These organisms were so small 1 couldn't see them, but somehow I felt their presence, their fraternity, all around me. I didn't look through the water towards life, 1 looked directly into water-life, a vast patchwork supporting my body, streaming into my nostrils, my ears, the small breaks and crevices in my skin, swirling through my hair and entering the same eyes that observed it. In what felt like minutes, but must have been only seconds, I saw a completely different world, a place of significance and complexity, an almost infinite number of independent organisms among which 1 floated like a net, scooping up untold creatures with every minor shift and undulation of my body.
November 4, 2025 at 7:23 AM
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
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
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
This arrived today @pbresnihan.bsky.social. Congrats. Very much looking forward to reading!
Photo of a physical copy of the book, From the Bog to the Cloud, by Patrick Bresnihan and Patrick Brodie.
October 28, 2025 at 6:25 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
From my personal archive (aka a box full of old stuff from the 90s): the programme for Ireland v Poland, Euro u21 championship qualifier, Oriel Park, Dundalk, 30 April 1991. My first time seeing an Irish team in the flesh - and also my first time seeing a certain R. Keane in person.
Cover of the programme for Ireland u21 v Poland u21 at Oriel Park, Dundalk, 30 April 1991. Features photo of a footballer in a Dundalk kit. Roy KEANE (Nottingham Forest) Having a great season with Forest, whom he joined from Cobh Ramblers. Roy has been a regular in midfield for Forest and scored in their recent FA Cup Semi-Final win over West Ham. A former Youth International, Roy played his Schoolboy football for Rockmount in Cork. He made an impressive Under 21 debut against Turkey at Dalymount Park in October and captained the team against England at Brentford last month. Under 21 Caps 3. Team line ups for Ireland v Poland.
October 27, 2025 at 7:26 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
Classic stereotyping here. The book is written by an American who was heavily involved in exploration of the Kinsale gas field in the 1970s.
Front cover of the book, Wildcats and Shamrocks by George B. Collins (1976) Back cover of the book, Wildcats and Shamrocks by George B. Collins (1976). About the Author George B. Collins, lawyer and petroleum law author-ity embarked on an un-chartered course in Ireland to fulfill a childhood resolve to one day do something for the land of his fathers. The setbacks and reverses met and eventually surmounted led to the Kinsale Head Gas strike off the Cork coast in the Celtic Sea.
October 11, 2025 at 7:44 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
The great temptations of Microsoft Teams.
Screenshot of two icons from MS Teams. One says 'Take control'; the other says 'Pop out'.
October 8, 2025 at 4:18 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
This resonates on so many levels.
I have been invited to present a seminar at the University of []. This is the invitation <file>. Draft an apologetic email that avoids any risk of a further invitation, and does not carry the implication that travelling to [] is an unbelievable schlep.
October 5, 2025 at 9:53 AM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
Coming up in Galway next week:
Poster for an event, which reads: DIE NUMMER AUF DEINEM UNTERARM IST BLAU WIE DEINE AUGEN' Reading and talk with Holocaust survivor Dr. Eva Umlauf Eva Umlauf mit Stefanie Oswalt Die Nummer auf deinem Unterarm ist blau wie deine Augen Erinnerungen »It is a story which will surprise even those who think they know everything about the Holocaust.« (Professor Michael Brenner, The Director of American University's Center for Israel Studies) *The number on your forearm is blue like your eyes Eva Umlauf Born in 1942 in the Nováky labour camp in Slovakia and later deported to Auschwitz as a toddler, Dr. Eva Umlauf is one of the youngest survivors of the Holocaust. Today, she speaks internationally as a witness to history - about trauma, survival, and the responsibility of remembrance. She will read in German from her acclaimed memoir "Die Nummer auf deinem Arm ist blau wie deine Augen. Erinnerungen" (The Number on Your Forearm Is Blue Like Your Eyes: A Memoir") English copies of the reading are provided; Q&A will be translated into English 7 Oct 2025 THB 1001 The Bridge room FUNDED BY THE DAAD LEKTOR PROGRAMME Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (Hardiman Building) DAAD German Academic Exchange Service 1 - 2:30 pm OLLSCOIL NA GAILLIMHE followed by light reception UNIVERSITY OF GALWAY
October 1, 2025 at 10:11 AM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
Since then, we've spent a long time living in different countries but the mixes have been a constant. Here's the latest playlist that Greg sent me from Scotland. It's exactly in the venn diagram of weird-and-obscure-but-good that we've honed over the last quarter century. Love it. 2/2
Screenshot of a music playlist. The list of songs is as follows: WHAT DO YOU SAY RÓIS plague dogs Oklou Streetlights Dropkick Murphys Amber Decay Kangding Ray Machine Noise A Quiet Day.. Barry Can't Swim, Séamus Knot Richard Dawson Cathexis Circuit Des Yeux Good- Alive Rodolphe Burger The Breaks SUUNS Birds, Pt. I Chassol
September 24, 2025 at 7:52 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
Solidarity. Arts Building, University of Galway. Friday, 19 Sept 2025.
Photo of a small Palestinian flag sticking out of a metal locker.
September 19, 2025 at 4:51 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
A home office bookshelf, today.
Photograph of a stressed looking set of bookshelves.
September 12, 2025 at 3:12 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
I think the AI in Windows 11 settings is playing with euphemisms...
Screenshot of a search box, in which the suggested text is 'Try "My mouse pointer is too small"'.
September 8, 2025 at 4:35 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
One hell of an international "friendly" has just finished in Doha.
Screenshot from the Guardian. The text reads: International friendlies FT Qatar 1-4 Russia
September 7, 2025 at 7:34 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
Perfect albums are like hen's teeth, and even rarer to find more than one from a single decade, but I'm putting my Sunday afternoon to good use by cheating at this game... Here's four for the #Perfect90sAlbum list.
The cover of Endtroducing by DJ Shadow, which features two men browsing vinyl records in a music shop. Front cover of U2's Achtung Baby, with sixteen smaller images in a 4x4 grid. Front cover of Talk Talk's album Laughing Stock, which features an illustration of birds on a leafless tree. Front cover of the Cranberries, Everybody Else is Doing It, So Why Can't We? which features three people seated on a couch with a fourth person sitting on the floor in front of them.
September 7, 2025 at 5:00 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
New academic year, new role.
Research Management Office Vice-Dean for Research and Innovation The Vice-Dean for Research and Innovation leads the strategic development of those areas within the College, working in collaboration with the College Executive and the College Research Committee. The Vice- Dean also represents the College on the University Research Committee. Kevin O'Sullivan Vice-Dean for Research and Innovation Email: kevin.k.osullivan@ universityofgalway.ie Rm: 413, Tower 1, Arts/Science Concourse
September 5, 2025 at 7:40 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
Saturday listening. Say what you like about U2 (I happen to like them quite a bit), Achtung Baby remains one of the most ambitious artistic about-turns in the history of popular culture. What's most astounding, however, is not just that they tore up the template, but that they made something better.
Photograph of a vinyl record sitting in top of a stereo system. The record is U2 - Achtung Baby, which was released in 1991.
August 30, 2025 at 3:49 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
Sunday listening. Odd to think this record is nearly 25 years old. I vividly remember the furore over its experimental sound - including a conversation I had with a friend, who argued that Radiohead had betrayed their fans. I still think that argument completely misunderstands the creative process.
August 24, 2025 at 4:23 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
Goodbye Uppsala. And a good way to end my #eseh2025 : a workshop on seaweed and what we can make with it, with Julia Lohmann.
Photo of a wooden-framed sculpture, in which seaweed is stretched between the different sections of the frame.
August 21, 2025 at 11:51 AM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
I've just read the New Yorker piece and found this such an odd argument. We know from plenty of crises post-1945 that debating how NGOs draw attention to extreme violence (in this case genocide) as part of their campaigning doesn't negate the fact that it's actually happening.
archive.md/4PI9T
The specific word people use to talk about significant crimes. You're acting like I'm splitting hairs over the word "genocide." The word "genocide" has been ricocheting around the internet and around social media. It is. I'm saying whether this is genocide or whether it's ethnic cleansing or whether it's daily war crimes, I would just think that the focus of a Holocaust historian would be these horrors. I would also just think when I brought up starving children that the first comment wouldn't have been something about a photo that was supposedly inaccurate. O.K., Isaac, listen closely. Nobody wants children to be casualties of war. Images of children suffering affect us all. I don't want you to misunderstand that, but what's very clear is that the children are being used as propaganda by the power that is governing Gaza. You simply can't deny that. Various N.G.O.s make the argument that Israel is deliberately targeting children as part of a genocidal strategy. The framing of the war matters for how we understand it. The way you fight a war is determined by the way your enemy fights. Do we call ita war and see it for what it isa brutal fight between two enemies, one of whom is going to destroy the other if it's not destroyed first, or do we see it as a genocide, which is the deliberate murder of an entire people in whole or in part? It simply isn't the latter. It's not a genocide.
August 21, 2025 at 11:47 AM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
The view from Uppsala and a great day of papers and conversations at #eseh2025. Really enjoyed my panel on capitalism, industrialisation and the environment, plus two fascinating panels on different facets of state/business relations and climate change policy and denial since the 1970s.
Photo of the Fyris River in Uppsala, with a cathedral steeple in the background to the right, and red-brick buildings on the bank of the river to the left. Photo of a bridge, with a sign in the foreground designating a shared pedestrian and cyclist space. Photo of the Fyris River in Uppsala, with trees on the river bank to the right, and red-brick buildings on the bank of the river to the left. Photograph of a large cathedral made of red brick. There is a lamp post in the foreground with a directional sign pointing to the right, which reads "Centrum 0,4".
August 19, 2025 at 5:06 PM
kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
Front cover of Kevin Barry's novel, The Heart in Winter.
August 9, 2025 at 7:46 PM