if it was never yours .. you cant give it back

London Irish in the past, the present … and the future

[Fran Mallon @FranMallon1]

An amazing video of Dolly Parton singing one of her most famous songs in Páidí Ó Sé’s pub in Ventry Co. Kerry 🇮🇪 in 1990
How did Páidí pull that coup off
#RIPDolly

[BabelColour @StuartHumphryes]

Here is a veteran from the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn. It is a genuine colour portrait of General Custer's Crow scout, Mahr-Itah-Thee-Dah-Ka-Roosh (also known as "White Man Runs Him" and "White Buffalo That Turns Around"). I have cleaned & enhanced this incredible Autochrome plate by Edwin L. Wisherd, taken in the Crow Indian Reservation of Montana between 1926-7. It is an early colour glass-plate process and not colourised.
An interesting note on his nickname "White Man Runs Him" which is the English translation of an Apsáalooke (Crow) moniker: according to the oral family history of his great-granddaughter, the name originated when he was a little boy as a lighthearted teasing, after he was chased by a white man for stealing candy from his store. The more correct translation would therefore be "White Man Chases Him".

[Nandi Madida 🇿🇦 @Nandi_Madida]

A definite highlight this World Cup 🥹❤️! Such a beautiful brotherhood. #fifaworldcup

[ITV Football @itvfootball]

That's one for the family album ❤️

Lamine Yamal's younger brother continues to steal the limelight at this World Cup 🥺

[Aston Villa Archive @AvfcArchive]

Paul McGrath with one of the greatest individual performances vs Italy in the 1994 World Cup. #AVFC

[ITV Football @itvfootball]

Who's the best showboat in #FIFAWorldCup history? 🥳

[British & Irish Lions @lionsofficial]

Today we mourn the loss of a true Lions legend, Fergus Slattery.

A family man, a valued friend, and one of the 1974 Invincibles, Fergus was an inspiration both on and off the pitch.

Our thoughts are with his loved ones at this difficult time.

Rest in peace, Fergus 🕊️

https://t.co/yHVOcc6OrZ

[Mark Simpson @BBCMarkSimpson]

DUP’s Tracy Kelly hands over chain of office to new Belfast mayor Róis-Máire Donnelly from Sinn Féin.

[Tansu Yegen @TansuYegen]

Fished for years, finally learned why hooks always twisted 🤣

[GoldenBoyy🚀 @Shendistyle03]

This is the perfect way to tie it.!!

[Jim Demps @jim_demps]

That’s a tasty af try from Hodnett. Some game from him too. Super stuff.

I know you have to take the quality of the opposition into account but four tries in a game is nothing to sniff at.

[James Martin, SJ @JamesMartinSJ]

Dear friends: I don’t know any Catholic in the United States, from the most traditional to the most progressive, who does not have strong feelings about the comments from President Trump and Vice President Vance about Pope Leo XIV. These include not only President Trump’s initial disrespectful Truth Social post about the Holy Father, but also Vice President Vance’s similarly disrespectful comments about Pope Leo having to be “careful” when he speaks about theology.

Let me share some of my own feelings. First of all, it is shocking that a President and Vice President would treat such a good, holy and learned man with such disdain. Imagine telling a man with the Holy Father’s learning and experience (and authority) that he doesn’t understand theology sufficiently. What’s more, imagine attacking him as, ridiculously, “weak on crime” or somehow not understanding foreign policy.

Second, I’m edified by Pope Leo’s charitable and courageous response to all this. Charitable because he has not responded in any way other than with charity and respect. As some of you may know, I know the Holy Father slightly, thanks to our being seated together at the Synod for two weeks, and know him to be a kind, reserved, discerning and highly intelligent person. In a word, holy.

But courageous too: as we have seen during his time in Algeria and Cameroon, Pope Leo has not shied away from continuing to preach the Gospel, and speaking out in favor of peace (and yes, he understands St. Augustine’s concept of the “just war”) and against, as he said today, tyrants and those who would use God’s name to support violence of bloodshed.

So, where will this all end? It’s hard to say. But I would imagine that now that the taboo has been broken, politicians will continue to denigrate him and thus try to persuade people, without saying it explicitly, to think that the Pope’s words do not need to be listened to.

But this will be in vain for two reasons. First, Pope Leo is clearly fearless. A few hours after he was elected as pope, I spoke with a fellow Augustinian priest who had known “Bob” for decades. “He’s a great listener, very kind and much loved.” Then he paused. “But he’s no pushover.” But the main reason that the Pope’s words will be heard is less about Robert Prevost’s own many virtues but something else: the Vicar of Christ will be heard because he is preaching the Gospel. As Jesus told his disciples, “Heaven and earth may pass away, but my words will never pass away.” So, in these strange times, fear not.

[Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll @skjask]

I am the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. My grandmother, Rifka, was married with four children when the Nazis murdered her husband. Alone with children to raise, her young son Avrumi, 12 years old, took her shift working so that she could prepare for Passover with her other children, sister and sister’s children.

When shouts of “Yudenrein!” “Jew round up” rang through the streets, Rifka took the children to the empty space below the floor boards to hide. As she was closing the hatch, Avrumi ran into the house. “Come! Come!,” she called frantically. “I can’t,” he said. “The Germans saw me, if I don't come out, they will know there is a hiding place. I just came to say goodbye.”

When the Nazis barged in, Rifka listened through the floorboards as her son told them he had run into the house in a random search for food. She would never see him again. Two more of her children as well as her sister, nieces and nephews were killed in subsequent round ups. Her brother had been killed earlier in the war.

Rifka was left with one son, Shlomo. 14 years old. They worked and hid in farms, in hay stacks and behind false doors. Exposed in the fields one day, they ran together, chased like animals by the Nazi’s. Shlomo told his mother, “If you don't let go of my hand, we will both die.” He let go.

Shlomo went one way, Rifka went the other. The Nazis shot him in the back. With no husband or children to live for, Rifka joined the Partisans in the woods. After the war, she lay sick in bed with no will to live. Shlomo, meanwhile, had survived the gunshot. After the war as he searched for family, he heard a woman singing a familiar song. “Where did you hear that song?” he asked her. She told him a woman who lay dying had been humming it. “Is she still alive? Please, bring me to her.”

And so Shlomo was reunited with his mother. In a displaced persons camp in Germany, Rifka married a man named Zalman whom she had met in the partisans. Zalman had lost his wife and three children to the Nazis but had one surviving son, Al. Together, Rifka and Zalman had two more children. Shep, born in the DP camp and Fayge (my mother) born in Bolivia where they moved after being sponsored by cousins.

Zalman fell ill and the family moved to NY for treatment. Unfortunately he died when my mother was 2.5 years old. Left alone with children to raise, Rifka bought a farm in NJ. Back then, being a single parent meant your children could be taken from you. She needed a husband fast.

A man named Berche, also a survivor, whose wife and two children were murdered, remarried after the war and had a daughter. His second wife, Dubye, died on the boat to America. A widower with a daughter to raise, he needed a wife to keep his daughter from a state run orphanage. Someone introduced Berche to Rifka and they married.

I was raised with their memories. Their tears and their fears. There was no Sabbath when my grandfather didn’t cry, no day my grandmother didn’t stare silently into a past I could not accompany her to. Each spoke 4- 5 languages. Each had rebuilt their lives over and over again...But despite their pain, they were full of love. Their pride in their families, their belief in goodness...I cannot imagine the depth of their loss and how much strength it took to simply continue breathing. Believing. Hoping. And loving.

I grew up with a family of half, whole and step siblings. A grandfather with whom I shared no blood but with whom I shared a heart. Cousins who drove me nuts but drove hours to see me. Aunts who were crazy and who I was crazy about. Uncles who slobbered me with kisses and showered me with love.

I grew up in a family that understood love and loss, the value of sacrifice and the vital importance of loyalty. I love them all for who they are and who they are to me. They are all part of the story and part of who I am.

#YomHashoa

[if it was never yours .. you cant give it back @chissymark]

@SBarrettBar Brave ???!!!!

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

In the light of #Easter, let us allow ourselves to be amazed by Christ! Let us allow our hearts to be transformed by his immense love for us! Let those who have weapons lay them down! Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them!

[Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok]

Kid just SMOKED a CNN reporter outside of Artemis II launch:

CNN: "Why do you want to be here?... Why do you love being a part of history?

Kid: "We're going back to the f*cking moon, that's why!" 🤣

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

Jesus tells us today what He once said to Martha, Lazarus’s sister: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” #GospelOfTheDay (Jn 11:25-26).

[Ed Conway @EdConwaySky]

📽️ There have been many scary, unnerving days in this latest Gulf war.
But the past 24 hours was particularly bad.
Why? Because both sides are now causing lasting damage to the world economy's life support system.
Our latest primer on the econ consequences of this war👇

[Feargal Sharkey @Feargal_Sharkey]

It's incredible to think about it. The Famine was 174 years ago and the population of Ireland still hasn't recovered from it.

[if it was never yours .. you cant give it back @chissymark]

@SaulGPowell @seanmurray0 @GaryHaubold @simongerman600 You really are pig-ignorant of historical facts