Leah Leslie

Book Arts Girl - and Marketing Executive for the National Library of Ireland @NLIreland 📚

[Leah Leslie @sweetvisage]

Thanks to @RositaBoland for this lovely interview about my grandmother #AgnesBernelle - gone, but certainly not forgotten! Featuring in today’s @IrishTimes (magazine pgs. 16-17)

[LIR HEAnet @LIRHEAnet]

We are delighted to announce our annual seminar taking place on the 30th of April. Make sure to save the date!

[Leah Leslie @sweetvisage]

I will be delivering a lecture alongside my colleague Caoimhe on the topic of 'The Digital Front Desk: Social Media Engagement at the @NLIreland' on April 30th - join in person or online!

[LIR HEAnet @LIRHEAnet]

oin us at the LIR Annual Seminar 2025 as we delve into the challenges and opportunities of today’s social media landscape, with insights from leading voices like Caoimhe Fox and Leah Leslie of the National Library of Ireland. #LIRseminar2025 https://t.co/avKYgk74HH

[Leah Leslie @sweetvisage]

💕 RIP Lila 🐾 14/05/08 - 28/12/24 https://t.co/pX5FMMlLN2

[Leah Leslie @sweetvisage]

Not that I've ever used #Twitter/#X much, but you can now find me over here on #Bluesky very much jumping on the bandwagon🤸: https://t.co/AO8u81LeKC

[Leah Leslie @sweetvisage]

Delighted to help facilitate filming at the @NLIreland for this new #ChristyBrown documentary. Narrated by actor Aidan Gillen, and featuring Saoirse Ronan bringing Brown’s poetry to life.

Airing tonight at 9.35pm on @RTEOne: https://t.co/ZVLr97ogXT

[Leah Leslie @sweetvisage]

"I, myself, am strange and unusual" - Lydia Deetz

Happy Halloween 💀

[Leah Leslie @sweetvisage]

My great uncle Captain Lionel Leslie hunting for lake monsters 🦕

[RTÉ Archives @RTEArchives]

Reported sighting of a monster in a Connemara lake.
WATCH: Newsbeat broadcast #OnThisDay in 1967
https://t.co/MZlPAJb6Md

[Leah Leslie @sweetvisage]

Exciting news from the office!:

[National Library of Ireland @NLIreland]

#BramStoker enthusiast #BrianCleary found an undiscovered short story, #GibbetHill, while researching at NLI. A book on the story of its discovery supported by @RotundaCharity is out on 26 October @bramstokerdub.

[National Library of Ireland @NLIreland]

Today is the anniversary of the Irish #poet and #playwright #LouisMacNeice who died in 1963. This extract is from his poem '#Autumn Journal', an autobiographical long poem in twenty-four sections. It was written between August and December 1938. #poetrycorner

[Clodagh Finn, now on Instagram @FinnClodagh]

#IrishResistance
A heartfelt thank you to everyone who helped us send 'The Irish in the Resistance' out into the world @HodgesFiggis last night - in particular the relatives of the people featured in the book, many of whom travelled to join us.
Massive thanks to @fallon_donal for a brilliant launch speech.
And to everyone at @Gill_Books for bringing this book into being.
The photos show John Alvey, son of special agent Maureen 'Paddy' O'Sullivan, with Annette O'Meara, friend of Mary Cummins who joined the Resistance in Belgium. We were also so honoured to welcome Mark Leslie and @sweetvisage , son and grand-daughter of the incredible Agnes Bernelle. Luke and Cliona from the Leslie family were there too.
Very many other relatives were also there - it was such a privilege to tell the stories of your loved ones. 🙏
The two of us - yours truly - and my amazing co-author @Maoilmordha are also visible in many of the photos, beaming widely at finally being able to bring the lives of the 60 or so Irish people (that we know of) in the Resistance in WWII to a greater audience.
Thank you to everyone who made it such a special event. 🙏

[Leah Leslie @sweetvisage]

Delighted to attend the launch for @FinnClodagh & @Maoilmordh's moving new book #IrishResistance. I'm honored to have my granny #AgnesBernelle's story inc. in this remarkable collection of real-life stories highlighting the heroism of the forgotten men & women in the Resistance.

[Leah Leslie @sweetvisage]

It was a pleasure to assist with this event at the National Library, commemorating the important work of former NLI Director, Richard Hayes.

[National Library of Ireland @NLIreland]

Last week @NLIreland officially opened the #RichardHayes Room in honour of its former director. Hayes (1902-76) lived many remarkable lives ­– he was an academic, the Director of the NLI, a loving father, & one of WWII’s most successful Nazi codebreakers: https://t.co/tBd9SitiFK

[Leah Leslie @sweetvisage]

@FinnClodagh Thanks again for the opportunity to share granny Aggie's story <3 Can't wait to hear about all the remarkable people in your book Clodagh.

[Leah Leslie @sweetvisage]

Really looking forward to attending the launch of @FinnClodagh and John Morgan's exciting new book 'The Irish in the Resistance' this week, which includes a chapter about my very own grandmother Agnes Bernelle.

[Clodagh Finn, now on Instagram @FinnClodagh]

#IrishResistance
London, 1943 – Agnes Bernelle (of Berlin and Dublin) wasn’t aware of it, but she was being followed. A man had climbed aboard the train carriage adjoining hers as she travelled to Bletchley station to make clandestine broadcasts designed to confuse and demoralise German troops and citizens.
For months now, she had been drawing in listeners with her seductive jingle. ‘This is Vicky with three kisses for you, mwah, mwah, mwah,’ she said, in her distinctive husky voice at the start of a radio show that was thought to be coming from somewhere inside Germany.
In truth, the radio station, Atlantiksender West, was an American propaganda operation targeting the Kriegsmarine (the German Navy) and it was broadcasting from a secret studio built into the chapel at Woburn Abbey estate in Buckinghamshire in England.
Twenty-year-old Agnes Bernelle had been recruited because she was a native German speaker with a background in singing and acting. She had the voice for it. And, as a German refugee with a Jewish father, she also had a motive to resist Hitler.
The idea was to casually include plausible disinformation, which, if believed – and it very often was – would sow confusion and lower morale.
Vicky had a turn for it.
On one memorable occasion, she told German citizens to put samples of their morning urine into small bottles and to post them to the Minister of Health in Berlin. It was a wartime Aryan health check, she explained. It was convincing enough to be believed and listeners did what she asked, clogging up the German postal service for weeks.
She was the queen of fake news, to use a modern term. But like the codebreaking activities taking place at nearby Bletchley Park, her broadcast was top secret. She had been warned not to tell anyone, but now she was about to be discovered: on that fateful morning a man was waiting for her at the top of the steps as she made her way out of Bletchley station.
‘Gotcha!’ he said, as she approached...

Huge thanks to Agnes's son Mark Leslie and her granddaughter Leah Leslie for helping us with research for this chapter.

'The Irish in the Resistance' out this Thursday.

https://t.co/sHlVwIKJjp

[Leah Leslie @sweetvisage]

Cheeky quote from me in @IrishTimes this weekend. (They took a bit of creative license - deffo haven't been to EVERY @EPfestival since 2009, just most!) https://t.co/Vsizw4LM96

[National Library of Ireland @NLIreland]

Rest in peace, Edna O'Brien ❤️

[Leah Leslie @sweetvisage]

@IrPsych All the screens to watch my stocks so I can buy more gold legs 🦵

[Leah Leslie @sweetvisage]

@EPfestival @NoahKahan @CalvinHarris @kylieminogue Looking at the stellar line-ups for similarly priced, if not much cheaper festivals across Europe for this summer... EP needs to book better acts. We're punching well below what we should be for a festival of this scale and price.

[Leah Leslie @sweetvisage]

@EPfestival @NoahKahan @CalvinHarris @kylieminogue I have been going to EP since 2009, but that line-up is shocking. I put up my tickets for re-sale on Ticketmaster. Never before have I ever sold my tickets... But for the 20th anniversary, and with the festival bigger than EVER, I think we were all expecting a lot better.

[National Library of Ireland @NLIreland]

For #biodiversityweek2024: Irish animals (in pigment on parchment) from our collection. 🦊 The animals in the margins of manuscript #TopographiaHibernica (1200 A.D.) illustrate descriptions of the fauna of Ireland. The painter used a very fine brush for these small paintings. 🖌