Brian O'Neill

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[Brian O'Neill @SpokesONeill]

Great graffiti in Bologna.

[Brian O'Neill @SpokesONeill]

You see a tweet like this and wonder why they are not even pretending to not be juicing. Depressing.

[ammattipyöräily @ammattipyoraily]

⛰️🏁 ⏱️ PLA D'ADET (first 9.08 km, 8.60 %, 781 m) | 🇫🇷 #TDF2024

2024 | 25:08 | Pogacar
2001 | 27:04 | Armstrong
| 28:00 | Ullrich
1993 | 27:06 | Rominger, Indurain, Jaskula

[BUCHANAN: Dublin Time Machine @RobLooseCannon]

"Billy in the Bowl" was a disabled beggar, theif and occasional serial killer, who was born with no legs. He terrorised 18th-century Stoneybatter and Oxmantown, using his muscular arms to drag himself through the lamplit streets in his eponymous bowl to prey on vulnerable women.

Billy was described as a handsome and charismatic man who lived fairly well despite his unfortunate circumstances, by begging for food and coin from the maids and servant-girls of the area. But something snapped in him and he began to rob wealthy women passing through town.

The theft escalated to murder. He began to stalk his female victims, learning their routines and lying in wait to pounce on them, using his unique physicality to conceal himself in ditches and hedges. He would overpower them with his freakishly strong arms and strangle them.

His horrific crime spree came to an end in 1786 when he changed his modus operandi and attacked two women at once near the Royal Barracks (now Collins Barracks). One of his would-be victims gouged his eyes with her thumbs. The ladies escaped, and a manhunt began for the instantly recognisable assailant. Billy was captured and bound in rope and conveyed into custody in a wheel-barrow, jeered by onlookers and pelted with rotten vegetables.

Without evidence of his alleged murders he was only convicted of robbery, and condemned to the dreaded Newgate prison to spend the remainder of his days in hard labour.

It's worth remembering that people with disabilities were often treated with extreme discrimination. Their physical situation, over which they had no control, was often cruelly attributed as a judgement from god. Compounding this misery, stigma and social ostracism, they were often unable to work, leaving them entirely at the precarious charity of others.

Billys grim legend entered Dublin folklore in the form of ghost stories and songs like ‘The twang-man’ and the Pogues song ‘The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn’. He is even featured in Joyce's Finnegans Wake as ‘Billi with the Boule".

[Tim Carey @tim_carey1]

This is the most extraordinary death notice. I’m so happy for the Gleason family and for Harry. He was wrongfully executed in 1941 and his remains have lain in Mountjoy Prison, until now. Delighted, but still terribly sad about this awful story. https://t.co/eapLFKkQ0R

[Brian O'Neill @SpokesONeill]

@Camogiecoach Not yet, but you're very popular!

[Brian O'Neill @SpokesONeill]

@Camogiecoach Cute little danger noodle!

[Irish Lights @IrishLights]

🌊✨ Fastnet is one of Europe's most iconic beacons. Built after the 1847 loss of the packet ship Stephen Whitney, it has guided mariners for over 120 years. Explore further: https://t.co/fx45j0UpPs

#Fastnet120Years

[Brian O'Neill @SpokesONeill]

The plot thickens. The watch is corrected at full time.
#RTE

[Brian O'Neill @SpokesONeill]

Why is Richie Sadlier's watch on upside down? It's very distracting.

#Rte

[Brian O'Neill @SpokesONeill]

I rarely post here these days, but I have to say that Lisa Fallon is an incredible addition to the RTE panel. So insightful and educated and able to get the point across. A joy to watch.
#EURo2024 
#Rte

[Brian O'Neill @SpokesONeill]

I didn't know Virgil attended Cúl Camps 😀

[Liverpool FC @LFC]

VVD ©️🇳🇱

[Brian O'Neill @SpokesONeill]

@Camogiecoach If I had a penny....

[Brian O'Neill @SpokesONeill]

I saw an election poster earlier with #IrelandIsFull as its tag line. While it saddened me that someone would put their name and face to this, it occurred that a tiny addition would make it much nicer. #OfLovelyPeople.

#IrelandIsFullOfLovelyPeople

[BUCHANAN: Dublin Time Machine @RobLooseCannon]

A bone chilling October night in 1775. A yellowish full moon illuminates our surroundings, revealing we are at the centre of a sprawling ancient graveyard. Roll up your sleeves, you're about to go bodysnatching!

The church prohibited body donation.This forced doctors and surgeons to pay unscrupulous “Resurrection Men” to dig up fresh corpses to study anatomy. I've bribed some shady character's to give us a demonstration of their dirty deed.

Our employer tonight, an anonymous professor from the Royal College of Surgeons, is frustrated that the law only allows him to dissect 6 specimens a year. They must be murderers who've danced on the hangman's noose.

To stop these ghoulish "sack 'em up" men, Glasnevin Cemetery built watchtowers along the impressive walls with bloodhound shelters.Huge slabs of rock & metal cages called mortsafes, also hampered many attempts. Adult cadavers fetch £2, a small fortune. Kids are sold by the inch

We find our gang stood around the fresh grave of a local man. The biggest bloke thrusts a short spade in to your hands. This stealth shovel is made entirely of wood to mute the noise. You only need to tunnel down by the corpses head. That dark sheet they've just spread out on the ground is for churned up soil to refill the hole later.

Before long, the muted thud of wood on wood tells us we've struck gold. We use iron slash hooks to pull off the head section of the coffin lid. The sickening crack of splintering wood echoes through the cemetery. Sometimes, the notoriously rowdy medical students do their own dirty work and bring home the decomposing bacon themselves.

One ingenious and extremely gruesome type of heist involves the students disguising themselves in peasants' clothes and carrying a coffin full of rocks to the graveyard. They would then locate their target, a real funeral which their sources informed them would only have a few mourners.

The fake mourner-students would strike up conversation and offer them whiskey laced with laudanum or opium. With the victims incapacitated by drugs, the students would swap the contents of the coffins and leg-it.

As insane and cartoonish as this sounds to our 21st century ears, these things were a regular occurrence! This method was used frequently at The Cabbage Garden burial ground near Kevin Street.

As if that wasn't spooky enough, sometimes if trouble started with the drugged up mourners, the bodysnatchers would strip the corpse on the ground and redress it wearing fancy clothes. Then, with one man on either side, drag the body home through the streets as if it was a drunk.

That smashed section of coffin wood is removed, releasing a draft of befouled fetid air. Exposed in the moonlit hole is the ghastly sight of the grey gaunt deceased man's face. The shroud has parted to display waxy translucent skin, already shrivelling from its time in the earth. Retracting lips expose teeth and sunkrn flesh accentuate the round hollowing sockets of dead deflated eyes. The corpse seems to grimace at us for disturbing its slumber. The reality of what we are about to do is like a shower of ice cubes.

Before we lose our nerve, the bodysnatchers swiftly use a long rope, with a hook noose at the business end, to secure their rotting quarry around the neck. For a big corpse, the rope goes under the arms.

They start to pull and and the deceased's jaw drops open with a sickening wet clack. The cadaver is unceremoniously heaved up through the hole and deposited at our feet.

The resurrection men must remove shroud and clothes from the corpse. Due to a legal gray-area,nobody owns a dead body, but burial attire is property. Hence, they could be arrested for theft. The hole is back-filled with the soil on the sheet.

Alarmingly, we notice the grave robbers are staring strangely at us, whispering to each other whilst rubbing their grimy hands together. The largest one takes out a tape measure. We make a polite but brisk, exit back to the Dublin Time Machine....

[Brian O'Neill @SpokesONeill]

@EoghanLynch1 @CarlowWeather Time at the top left. As soon as it gets proper dark, I'd say.

https://t.co/fXiv2O7oFu

[World of Engineering @engineers_feed]

Tonights Aurora Forecast from the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. #NorthernLights

The geomagnetic storm came in stronger and reached further south than the original models predicted.

[Brian O'Neill @SpokesONeill]

Best of luck to #BambiThug - I hope they knock it out of the park. 3/3

[Brian O'Neill @SpokesONeill]

I won't watch the #Eurovision final tomorrow for the first time in my life. Masking the reaction of the audience was disingenuous and dishonest by the broadcaster. The 40% that Israel got (reported from Italy) is the real kicker though. 1/3

[Brian O'Neill @SpokesONeill]

Similar to watching cycling, I frankly don't believe that result. 40% is so outrageously high, who or whatever was responsible for it overcooked it into the realm of the unbelievable. Regardless of who wins, I've lost confidence in the process. 2/3

[Gone to Bluesky @IrishCycle]

A number of people have said that they will boycott businesses involved with any possible legal challenge against the Dublin City Centre Transport Plan... Would you join them?

[Brian O'Neill @SpokesONeill]

@Camogiecoach @Homefarm_FC Look at the smile. You've lost nothing!