I've updated my list of clerical naturalists to include full bios and sources for 360 individuals in the database including all 290 born before 1770. There are currently 1016 in the list and I am working my way through them chronologically... brycchancarey.com/naturalists/in…

Today I was at Cobh, Co. Cork, birthplace of Rev. Francis Orpen Morris (1810-93), later a Yorkshire vicar, an early conservationist, and a populariser of birdwatching. Seeing the stunning landscape of his childhood explains much about where his love of nature came from.

Calling #Alnmouth ! Due to incompetence on my part I find myself in need of somewhere private with reliable WiFi to join a Zoom recording in Alnmouth on Thursday, from 2pm-4pm. Any ideas?

Plaques to some notable Galway people: Nora Barnacle, wife of James Joyce, African American boxer Tom Molineaux, Peter Stubbers, who beheaded Charles I, and Richard Martin MP who introduced the world’s first anti-animal-cruelty legislation.

I’m in Galway, meeting with the colleagues here from the English dept - English, Media & Creative Arts, Uni of Galway - who will be organising the 2025 asleuki conference on literature and environment. Read the full call for papers at asle.org.uk/events/galway-…

On my way from Belfast to Maynooth, I stopped by at Kilwarlin Moravian church, Co. Down, where the Rev. Basil Patras Zula (1796-1844), originally a Greek chieftain, turned the church garden into a scale model of the Battle of Thermopylae. Full story at classicalassociationni.wordpress.com/2019/10/13/the…

I’ve arrived at Queen’s University Belfast and am about to give my talk in a few minutes. It’s a beautiful warm afternoon and I wouldn’t blame anyone if they decided to go the beach instead of listening to me!

I'm heading to Belfast to give a talk on the ecopoetics of British abolitionism, taken from my forthcoming book The Unnatural Trade. I'll be speaking at the Queen's University Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies - CECS (QUB) - on Friday 17 May, 3.30pm, at 27 University Square.

Streetlights and fog combining this evening to give Alnwick Castle a rather spectral appearance.

***IMPENDING FUNDING DEADLINE - DON'T MISS OUT****
BSECS-Northumbria Fellowship deadline 31 May #twitterstorians #18thC

They say one swallow does not a summer make. Well, neither does one Holy Island causeway stranding. But with the second stranding in two days I think we can officially declare summer is here. Oh, and there are LOADS of swallows in Northumberland too.

The northern lights tonight from my garden in #Alnwick , #Northumberland . The camera picks up the colour very well. To my naked eye, the colours are a bit more muted.

In 1983 it felt like Bernard Hill had captured the essence of what it was like standing in the dole queue in a northern town, surrounded by proud blokes whose jobs and communities had been destroyed by Thatcher, and condensed it all into one tragic character. RIP Yozzer Hughes.

The Indian Pond at Kendal Plantation, Barbados. In his 1657 History of Barbados, Richard Ligon describes how Yarico, betrayed and sold into slavery by her British lover, later named as Thomas Inkle, gave birth to their child under the trees here, where there is now a monument.

I'm really looking forward to giving a talk to the Barbados Museum and Historical Society History Group this afternoon, on Richard Ligon, Griffith Hughes, and the Natural History of Barbados. Join us if you can on 2 May, 5.00pm at the Barbados Museum.

Still on the trail of Rev. Griffith Hughes, I have visited his parish of St. Lucy, Barbados, and descended into the Animal Flower Cave, which Hughes was the first to describe in his 1743 Royal Society paper on 'A Zoophyton somewhat resembling the flower of the Marigold'.

Looking forward to this upcoming lecture by Brycchan Carey hosted by our friends CECS (QUB) at Queen's University Belfast campus on Friday 17 May!

“Social sciences and the humanities have never been more necessary. They give shape and meaning and so the core of what the academy does will be to make that case.” Professor Rana Mitter, British Academy vice-president for public engagement in today's Guardian culture

I’ve been in Philadelphia on the trail of the Rev. Griffith Hughes, last Welsh-speaking priest in North America, at St. David’s, Radnor, where the present-day congregation gave me a warm welcome. He then went to Barbados and wrote the natural history for which he is remembered.