Pat Burke 🇺🇦
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patburke.bsky.social
Pat Burke 🇺🇦
@patburke.bsky.social
Music, theatre, movies, that sort of thing. I’ll try not to be intemperate. Really.
Back in the day, the most famous people to have been educated in my school were Sean Lemass and Colm Meaney. More recently it was Barry Keoghan. Pretty sure it’s Troy Parrott now.
November 16, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Dear God.
BREAKING: Five young people have died and three others have been injured in a road crash in Dundalk in Co. Louth.

Updates on #VMNews
November 16, 2025 at 12:20 PM
WTF?! Honestly, I thought that Season 2 was treading water for a few episodes, but the introduction of Patti Harrison’s character worked brilliantly and suggested a direction for third season. Disappointed we won’t get to see that now.
November 13, 2025 at 6:33 PM
Reposted by Pat Burke 🇺🇦
WEBSITE: Pweaaaaaase turn off your adblocker so that we can continue to be fweee!!!!!!
ME: Oh fine
WEBSITE: *attempts to load sixty ads at once and immediately crashes*
November 13, 2025 at 12:25 PM
Reposted by Pat Burke 🇺🇦
From the archive for John McGahern, #BornOnThisDay in 1934, my thoughts on AMONGST WOMEN.

A superb, beautifully observed character study of an ageing, tyrannical father whose wife and daughters both love and fear him. A highlight of my reading year. 💙📚

jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/09/14/a...
Amongst Women by John McGahern
Amongst Women, the fifth novel by the critically acclaimed Irish writer John McGahern, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1990, missing out to A. S. Byatt’s Possession in the final cut. Ostens…
jacquiwine.wordpress.com
November 12, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Reposted by Pat Burke 🇺🇦
Reading is not performative! Some of us simply enjoy books without any self-consciousness at all.

Now, let me outline for you the books that shaped my childhood. I must begin with Aristophanes, of course, but *which* Aristophanes?...
November 12, 2025 at 7:23 AM
Reposted by Pat Burke 🇺🇦
So proud of my father for all the passion, courage,care and vision he brought to the last 14 years as President of Ireland. Both my parents have always been driven by a deep wide love for Ireland & the world, for people, planet & possibilities. Looking forward to their next chapter! #Grá #spiergirm
November 11, 2025 at 6:34 AM
Pulp. Not that I dislike them (I think This Is Hardcore is a fine album), but my friends are fanatical about them. Every time a gig is announced, my WhatsApp lights up with excited planning. When @emmylounib.bsky.social and I saw them at Electric Picnic, we left after two songs.
What is your biggest musical blindspot for someone precisely your age?

For me - an elder millennial - it is that I have never knowingly listened to INCUBUS, nor could I name even one of their songs if you put a gun to my head.
November 10, 2025 at 11:30 AM
What’s Going On, with isolated vocals and bass. I could listen to James Jamerson’s playing forever. Just beautiful.
youtube.com/watch?v=y6-A...
marvin gaye - what's going on acapella & bass
YouTube video by OdinsVlog
youtube.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:34 PM
Am I misremembering, or did schools have the day off for Mary Robinson’s inauguration in 1990? I have a recollection of watching it at home on TV with my family.
November 8, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Great half hour of rugby for Sam Prendergast there.
November 8, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Annual viewing of The Godfather films. There’s a drinking game you could play every time oranges appear on screen.
November 7, 2025 at 11:12 PM
Today’s deliveries.
November 7, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Reposted by Pat Burke 🇺🇦
One analytical model shows that, as of November 5th, the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/jUzNSc
The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands
The short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” tells the story of what goes when aid goes.
newyorkermag.visitlink.me
November 6, 2025 at 9:00 PM
Is everyone listening to the Fear No Man podcast series about Fela Kuti? It’s one of the best things I’ve ever heard.
November 7, 2025 at 1:01 AM
Reposted by Pat Burke 🇺🇦
The greatest agents of change in Irish politics tend to be minority parties who take on the onerous responsibility of governing. The PDs, Labour, the Greens and now the Lowry Bunch. They usually pay an enormous penalty for so doing. Here is a lasting (we hope) legacy of one such party, the Greens.
I'm a bit of a nerd about this - but it's hard to quantify just how popular Local Link buses have been in 'rural Ireland' - new one will link villages from Cork to Kerry that haven't had a bus service since the 1960s... www.corkbeo.ie/news/local-n...
New Local Link rural bus link from North Cork to Kerry
Six buses a day - seven days a week
www.corkbeo.ie
November 6, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Reposted by Pat Burke 🇺🇦
I wrote a little book, pals. 'SOFIA COPPOLA: The Complete Unofficial Guide' is out today from @quercusbooks.bsky.social/ Greenfinch and in all good bookstores. I loved delving into Sofia's prettified & melancholy worlds. Link here: www.waterstones.com/book/sofia-c...
November 6, 2025 at 1:11 PM
Never mind a cup of coffee, it’s hard to beat the jolt of Joni Mitchell’s Car On A Hill coming on the radio in the morning.
November 6, 2025 at 9:50 AM
How did it pass me by that Rumsfeld died in 2021? I’m guessing pandemic and very early parenthood.
November 4, 2025 at 12:18 PM
Reposted by Pat Burke 🇺🇦
I reviewed two new books about Elizabethan theater for the Atlantic, discovering along the way how hard it is to shake the Romantic ideal of The Genius.

www.theatlantic.com/books/2025/1...
The Stubborn Myth of the Literary Genius
What two new books on the English Renaissance reveal about the appeal of speculative history
www.theatlantic.com
November 3, 2025 at 5:17 PM
Well I quite enjoyed Bugonia until it made the one narrative choice I was afraid it was going to make.
November 3, 2025 at 5:31 PM
My aunt, in the wake of an extremely distressing mugging in London, took to carrying pepper spray. She was detained with it in Heathrow Airport. This was pre-9/11, and she was treated relatively sympathetically, but it was a serious offence nonetheless.
Well-meaning Americans in my mentions: kindly do not recommend extremely illegal actions that could land people in the UK with a ten year prison sentence
November 2, 2025 at 10:39 PM
A reminder, folks, the first Sunday in Advent isn’t for another four weeks. Stand firm.
November 2, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Favourite sentence in the New Yorker interview with Jennifer Lawrence:
“I assured her that no whimsical activities were necessary for a story in a magazine that puts a diaeresis in the word “coöperate”…”
November 2, 2025 at 3:36 PM
I wonder what people in North Korea would make of K-pop, if they ever got to hear it?
November 2, 2025 at 10:47 AM