Seán Campbell

Irish Northerner ▪︎ Gaeilgeoir ▪︎ Writer ▪︎
Cape Town

[Seán Campbell @SeanCampbell39]

Sure we all know New York, but what of New Cork? Well, it doesn't exist, but it ALMOST did. Here's a thread I never expected to write 🧵

(Credit to Donal P McCracken's 1992 paper "Irish Settlement and Identity in South Africa before 1910")

[Seán Campbell @SeanCampbell39]

My generation's Beyonce country pivot

[Seán Campbell @SeanCampbell39]

I've heard literally 3 conversations since 2021:

1) - howzit?
- busy man, busy. Stressed.
- nice

2) - how's it going man?
- FUCKING busy
- good busy?
- not really
- nice

3) - busy?
- not really
- NICE bru
- not really

[Seán Campbell @SeanCampbell39]

Noticed that my fireplace looks like Darth Vader and now I can't unnotice it.

[Seán Campbell @SeanCampbell39]

@Connla_Stokes Indeed, this is all part of my years-long research into the Síbín / Shebeen / Shabeen connection (which may just have become something else entirely).

[Seán Campbell @SeanCampbell39]

Sure we all know New York, but what of New Cork? Well, it doesn't exist, but it ALMOST did. Here's a thread I never expected to write 🧵

(Credit to Donal P McCracken's 1992 paper "Irish Settlement and Identity in South Africa before 1910")

[Seán Campbell @SeanCampbell39]

This all touches, by the way, on another story set a few years later in which the Cape ALMOST became the destination for Irish convicts (read: starved from the Great Hunger), rather than Tasmania, and thus Australia, but that's another thread for another day.

[Seán Campbell @SeanCampbell39]

Upon further reading, one more point:

Over the next 40 odd years, another ~1,000 arrived, but "Colonial antipathy to unskilled Irish settlers, mainly on the grounds of drunkenness, was very great". So, that very same year, the Cape's immigration officer said "No more Irish."

[Seán Campbell @SeanCampbell39]

Started my Friday by watching the trailer and damn I'm looking forward to this

[hbo max fka @streamonmax]

Which side are you on?

#TheSympathizer, the new @HBO Original Limited Series based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, is coming in 2024 to Max. #StreamOnMax

[Seán Campbell @SeanCampbell39]

So this is how I learn Afrikaans

[Seán Campbell @SeanCampbell39]

@kvn_clmn Fella at my school bought a heap of them on eBay, sold them for a pound or two each in our school and the one next door. Used the money to buy his first car. Great hustle

[Seán Campbell @SeanCampbell39]

A client recently suggested I (a writer) use ChatGPT as a "thought partner" to bounce ideas off, since I work alone. So here we are, bouncing ideas around.

I look forward to my new venture as a roosterkoek hawker.

[Seán Campbell @SeanCampbell39]

Since Cape Town is built around Table Mountain, then this is *technically* Cape Town city centre.