Analysis 18 min read

Nine Years' Notice

The world's sea trade runs through a dozen narrow places and this summer most of them are failing together: war at Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, drought at Panama, on the Rhine, the Danube and the Amazon, a degraded Black Sea. Chatham House modelled exactly this in 2017 and told governments to build buffers before climate and conflict made coincidence routine. …

Analysis 8 min read

Nobody Fired Anything

Between October 2025 and March 2026 users of a far-right imageboard built and shared an autonomous doxxing agent, and produced dossiers on four private individuals. …

Analysis 9 min read

They have no souls

Corporate personhood was created in canon law so that institutions could hold property beyond the lifespan of the humans inside them, and it came with …

🫏 Donkey Derby Who's making an ass of us now? Today's talking heads.
Analysis 18 min read

Nine Years' Notice

The world's sea trade runs through a dozen narrow places and this summer most of them are failing together: war at Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, …

Analysis 8 min read

Nobody Fired Anything

Between October 2025 and March 2026 users of a far-right imageboard built and shared an autonomous doxxing agent, and produced dossiers on four private individuals. …

Analysis 9 min read

They have no souls

Corporate personhood was created in canon law so that institutions could hold property beyond the lifespan of the humans inside them, and it came with …

Analysis 20 min read

The key is to get it out of Irish hands

Revenue spent €16,841,193 keeping the seized bulk carrier MV Matthew in commercial condition, then transferred her to an unnamed buyer for one dollar. She is …

Explainer 7 min read

The One Filter

A single structural claim, that the resemblance of an output is not the identity of the process that made it, and that self-referential evaluation is …

Explainer 37 min read

Two ways to lose the upper regime

A new Frontiers in Human Neuroscience hypothesis paper proposes a biological mechanism for the switch between System 1 fast-parallel cognition and System 2 slow-sequential cognition. …

Commentary 5 min read

Weaponise the Welcome

A US export-control order has reclassified frontier AI as a munition, barring foreign nationals, including a leading lab's own immigrant engineers, from its most capable …

Commentary 18 min read

A country is not a business

Five stories from one day's news cycle in Ireland reveal the Ireland.Inc frame: socialised costs, private upside, externalities borne by the public.

Briefing 3 min read

The Portal They Built and Buried

The Derelict Sites Act 1990 already obliges every local authority to keep a register, serve notices, enter properties on it, charge a three-percent annual levy …

Briefing 4 min read

Every Reform, None Enacted!

Every election since 2007 has produced fresh pledges on political accountability. Registers of interest. Codes of conduct. Ethics commissions. Lobbying regulations. Whistleblower protections. Each arrived, …

The "Isms" series 20 min read

What Is Distributism?

Wide distribution of productive property as the foundation of economic dignity. A primer on the tradition, and why modern Ireland is one of its most …

The "Isms" series 20 min read

What Is Christian Democracy?

The tradition that built post-war continental Europe and founded the EU. A primer on what it is, and why Ireland never built one despite having …

The "Isms" series 16 min read

What Is Populism?

Left populism, right populism, and a moving target. A primer on what populism actually is, what it gets right about democratic failure, and where it …

The "Isms" series 18 min read

What Is Fascism?

A specific 20th-century tradition, not a generic insult. A primer on what fascism actually is, what its regimes did, and where Irish politics sits relative …

Investigations 1 min read

What the Rivers Are Telling Us

The EPA's 2019-2024 assessment shows 48% of 4,842 water bodies are unsatisfactory — a declining trend. Short rotation coppice yields 8-12 odt/ha/year (Teagasc/Forest Research verified). …

Investigations 1 min read

The Permits That Kill Good Ideas

A farmer who wants to rewild a riverbank faces 7 separate regulatory requirements across 15+ agencies. Professional fees alone run €10,000-28,000. Meanwhile, the opportunity cost …

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