Kate Sheehan-Finn🇮🇪🇪🇺✍️📖🏛🏺

Thanks so much to the judges who have selected my novel in progress for the Historical Adventure category. #Manumission is set in the years following the global pandemic that ancient historians call the Antonine pandemic. #HNS2026 #AmWriting #HistoricalFiction

The legionary/legionnaire trap ruined an otherwise perfectly decent #HistFic novel set in #AncientRome that came highly recommended. I lost trust in the author, which is a shame. When we can get the detail right, we writers should get the detail right.

A legionary (Latin: legionarius) was a professional infantry soldier of the ancient Roman army. Legionnaire refers a soldier in the French Foreign Legion (French: Légion étrangère), a unique elite military wing of the French Army open to foreign recruits. #HistFic writers beware!

Meet the handkerchief tree, Davidia Involucrata, introduced to Britain from China in 1903, now happily at home at #Belsay in #Northumberland. The tree was first recorded at Belsay in 1923 The property, including gorgeous gardens, is now cared for by @EnglishHeritage. 📷 my own.

#Harlech was built by King Edward I during his invasion of #Wales (1282-89) at the modest cost of £8,190. The castle withstood the siege of Madog ap Llywelyn between 1294 and 1295, but falling to Prince Owain Glyndŵr in 1404 until 1409. #History 📸 my own.

I was looking for bees 🐝 on #WorldBeeDay but came across these gorgeous babies: Mama Duck with her ducklings at Wallington Hall this lunchtime - cuteness overload. @nationaltrust #Wildlife 📷 my own.

Well, this is a wonderful find from the ancient lake edge at #Skipsea - a 1.3m worked wooden pole. A digging stick, possibly Mesolithic, is our best on-site guess, but we’ll know more when it’s back at the labs and reviewed by our wood expert. #WoodenWednesday #Prehistory #Peat

@Jim_Leary Incredible find!

Marble relief fragment from a temple on the Vicus Iugarius, one of Rome’s most ancient roads. The route was already used before Republican rule. It runs btw the Forum valley, where it crosses the Via Sacra & the harbour on the left bank of the Tiber. #ReliefWednesday #Rome My 📷

Part of a large floor mosaic from the huge Baths Of Caracalla, #Rome. The black tesserae are basalt; the white are marble. Depicted is the body and tail of a sea monster ridden by Eros holding a whip in his right hand. 3rd C AD. #MosaicMonday #Archaeology 📷 my own.

For #EpigprahyTuesday, AD 2nd C stele in Latin & Palmyrene script, #Rome. To the spirits of the departed Habib, son of Annubat from Palmyra, who lived 32 years, 5 months, 21 days; (his) brother Heres set this up. Syrians settled in imperial Rome. #TombTuesday 📷 my own.

@for_fi I love how the Syrians who settled in the Roman west kept up the bilingual tradition in their monuments. In the East, Greek and their language, in Rome and further west (even in Britain), usually Latin and their script. They held onto their culture while embracing new ideas too.

Beautiful! That script…

@travelingflying Politely, this is bullshit 💩

RFK Jr: “People are going to jail for Twitter posts in England.” Joe Rogan: “12,000 people in the last year.” RFK Jr: “It’s a dictatorship.”

@BillieJeanKing @CalStateLA Love this post. And Congratulations 🥂

It is never, ever, too late to finish what you have started. #Classof2026

For #TombTuesday here's a map of Neolithic chambered tombs in Orkney. Ancient DNA analysis of individuals buried here found genetic connections to the Scottish mainland, suggesting prehistoric kinship extended across the sea. 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2…

My earliest story ideas first take shape in a notebook. It's there that I play with them, coaxing thoughts into a form that could become something much, much bigger. #WritingLife #AmWriting #WritingCommunity

@for_fi Haha! Yes he does.

@KatesfWriter He looks ever so slightly worried…

Sound on for something beautiful on #Friday. The Roman Forum is stunning at night. Even better when the buskers draw a crowd. One of my favourite memories of being at the heart of Ancient #Rome. #Archaeology #Travel

Northumberland’s Emily Wilding Davison, 1872-1913, was a #suffragette. Btw 1909 and 1912 Emily was arrested and imprisoned. She went on hunger strike and endured force feeding. She died at Epsom races trying to pin suffragette colours on the king’s race horse. 📷 my own, Morpeth