Nuala Woulfe

As a reader I sometimes wonder are there any new Tudor stories left to be told. They exist, they’re exciting but they come from Ireland & impact on the English Tudor court …series about the Earl of Tyrone, Hugh O’Neill is being made starring Aidan Gillen irishmirror.ie/tv/tv-series-h…

@Killybegsgirl Never jumped two ropes, lived skipping as a child, we skipped in school too so did my kids, I taught them a few skipping songs from Dublin which they brought into school

I remember doing this as a teenager and pulling a muscle in my neck, which touched a disc and was very painful. But it didn’t stop me after. I don’t think my kids have ever done this.

@Balzacs_ballsak @histories_arch Wealth and class perhaps

@histories_arch why did the (comparatively) largely Catholic city of New Orleans consider Irish Catholics less than human? i would love to read some scholarship on this

In 1835, port of New Orleans, Irish families step off the gangway into swampland heat, carrying everything they own. Among them, a small girl named Margaret Gaffney clutches her father's hand. She is five years old. She does not yet know that within the year, both her parents will be dead. Yellow fever moves through the immigrant quarters like wildfire through dry grass. Margaret's mother dies first. Her father follows days later. At six years old, she becomes a ward of Welsh neighbors who need extra hands more than they need another mouth to feed. There is no school. No tenderness. Just work. By nine, she is scrubbing laundry. By eleven, she is entirely on her own. At twenty-one, she marries Charles Haughery. They have a daughter. For the first time since childhood, Margaret feels safe. Then yellow fever comes again. Her husband dies. Her baby dies. She is twenty-two, widowed, childless, illiterate, and alone in a city that considers Irish Catholics less than human. Most people would have broken. Margaret borrowed forty dollars, bought two cows, and started selling milk. She walked the French Quarter before sunrise, knocking on doors, undercutting prices, outworking everyone. People mocked her. A poor Irish widow with a milk cart was not supposed to become anything. Within a year, she paid back the loan. Within five, she owned the largest dairy in the city. Then she met the nuns at the orphanage. They were trying to feed children no one else wanted. Margaret saw herself in every face. She gave them all her milk, every day, and refused payment. She told them she remembered what hunger felt like. She remembered being six and abandoned. In 1858, she sold the dairy and bought a bakery she had no idea how to run. She could not read recipes. She learned by feel, by repetition, by refusing to fail. Within a year, her bread was everywhere. She standardized loaves, mechanized production, and fed a city that once looked through her like she was invisible. When yellow fever returned, she nursed the dying. During the Civil War, she fed Union soldiers and Confederate families without asking which side they supported. She became one of the wealthiest women in America and gave away over six hundred thousand dollars. She never learned to write her name. She signed every document with an X. When Margaret Haughery died in 1882, New Orleans erected the first statue ever dedicated to a woman in the city. At the base, they carved an X. The mark of someone who could not write, but who rewrote what mercy looked like. Margaret lived so simply that many people did not realize she was wealthy. She wore plain dresses, lived in modest rooms, and walked to work every day. Visitors to her bakery often mistook her for a cleaning woman. She preferred it that way. She believed attention should go to the work, not the person doing it. The statue erected in her honor still stands in Margaret Place in New Orleans. It depicts her sitting with a child on her lap and another at her side. The inscription reads simply, "Margaret." For decades, locals called her "the Bread Woman of New Orleans." Children she helped grew up, had children of their own, and told them about the woman who made sure no one went hungry. Margaret's bakery became so successful that during the Civil War, Union officers tried to seize it for military use. She reportedly walked into the commanding officer's tent and told him that if he took her bakery, the orphans would starve. He let her keep it. Another detail: she was known to test her bread by touch alone, never needing to read temperatures or measurements. Workers said she could tell if dough was ready just by pressing it with her thumb. 📷 : Portrait of Margaret Haughery, 1842, by Jacques Amans. © Daughters of Time #archaeohistories

@IT_HealthPlus This has been known for quite some time, you can no longer get a bank loan in this country to cover the expense of GEM fees, government has been ‘thinking about’ for some time providing loans to students who want to study medicine.

One in four of students on ‘diversity’ medicine course have family incomes of more than €150,000 irishtimes.com/health/2026/03…

@stone_lands The tallest dolmen in ireland isn’t too far away either . I need to see the one in the Burren too, the Burren is fantastic heritageireland.ie/unguided-sites…

@NWoulfeWriter I’ve never been there either - would love to see that capstone!

Happy spring equinox everyone! Love this moment of tipping into the light half of the year …

@RichardBowler1 I tell everyone that dandelions are the first food for insects, my garden this week, attracted butterflies too but wasn’t quick enough for them

World leaders may be hell bent in destroying the planet. But a simple thing like leaving Dandelions to flower can make a big difference to your local wildlife. We can only do what we can do to help our wildlife. Plus, living in a wildlife habitat is so good for mental health.

@Tree_Folklore I have heard that before. Tell that to @CarlowWeather 🥺

In many Irish traditions, the Spring Equinox passes quietly, standing in the shadow of Imbolc 🌱 Yet at Sliabh na Cailleach, the Mountain of the Hag, ancient magic still stirs. In County Meath, the rising sun on the morning of the Equinox reaches deep into the heart of the Hag’s Cairn, illuminating its hidden chamber with golden light ☀️ It is said that at this moment, the Cailleach, the great Hag of Winter, rises from her stone seat and turns to stone herself, her power waning as the land warms and softens 🪨🌿 Winter loosens its grip, and Spring is finally free to quietly unfurl across the hills and meadows 🌱🪄 📸 carrowkeel.com

@CarlowWeather No I’m sorry, I cannot accept. Go back & find some better weather please!

Colder next week with some wintry showers. Bad news for the heating bills🫣

Fairy abduction was once believed to be a common occurrence in Ireland...but things were not always straightforward and people could come and go as and when they were needed in the Celtic Otherworld 🪄 In one tale a young girl would on quite a regular occasion become sullen, ill mannered and even sickly...refusing to help with household tasks or to even eat. But on each occasion she would always revert to her normal helpful and joyous self. Her mother grew tired of her behaviour and took to shouting and even hitting her when she refused to help with the family workload until a time came that she said: "Mama on the times when I am gone please treat whoever they leave in my place well because when you don't they can be very unkind to me but when you do they are lovely" ✨

@rootoftheproblm Didn’t like Barry in it, felt he tried to do the quiet brooding like Tommy but it doesn’t work, Cillian uses it brilliantly to convey trauma, disassociation & thinking

ppl complain abt Barry Keoghan being in The Immortal Man and that "he ruined the film" by being in it but i honestly think he was a better casting for Duke,i see some resemblance betwen him and Cillian and this might be controversial to a lot of ppl but i liked him in the movie🤷‍♀️

@rtwoshetwo Hated it

ugh the more i think about it the more the immortal man makes me SICK

@ladymindful I hated it too, I knew he would have to die but could’ve been better & perhaps I’m the only one, but didn’t like Barry Keoghan in the role

I started watching Peaky Blinders Immortal Man and I don’t think I can finish. It is depressing and dreary and Tommy is not my Tommy Shelby. So disappointing.

@paiawon What happened to Finn?

@StackScreen7878 Loved the series, hated the movie and where did Finn go?

Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man | It's a me problem, not a you problem | Give it a watch if you liked the show, tell me what YOU think | 7.5/10 | #ByOrderOfThePeakyBlinders #CillianMurphy #Screen_Stack #GangsterCinema

I watched Peaky Blinders movie the Immortal Man on Netflix, actually fast forwarded the last half hour found it so bad, no humour, dreary, found it very disappointing after a fantastic series, Cillian Murphy said this movie was for the fans? #theimmortalman

@TheMonologist Borstal Boy is one of my fave plays ever

@LharaMullins @mabaker_moz What’s the chance they were all men?

@mabaker_moz Exactly multiple people must have agreed

I'm sorry but there's nothing even remotely funny about the Epstein files. How do grown adults think this is a good idea? Like how many people has to discuss & agree this for it to be included?? #disgusting #paddysday

@marytyrrell @LharaMullins Actually that’s what I thought initially but it was still cringe at best, the romp on the mattress and chasing the people in the pink wigs?

@LharaMullins There’s absolutely no doubt this in the worst possible taste and wd NEVER condone but am I the only one who thought the float was meant to represent the Epstein perpetrators being taken to task, arrests, PA going to gaol etc. Was it all one really stupid misinterpreted idea?

@HippyMomPhD My now 24yo went through a phase of spy novels too like the Eagle has Landed, Munich or Fatherland - great drama, page turners

I read that encouraging kids to read mystery novels naturally sets them up to read more deeply -- because you have to in order to figure it out. I thought that was good advice. Gonna get my kids some Agatha Christie

@WonderFunBooks @HippyMomPhD Ruby Redford, teen detective

@HippyMomPhD And for the younger set, Encyclopedia Brown! Cam Jansen too (for even younger), and for teens don’t forget Sherlock!