Mary Elizabeth Armstrong (18) and sister Margaret (21) were born almost exactly 3 years apart.

They died on exactly the same day because police and courts failed them.

Worse, they've been forgotten.

Today is the 50th anniversary of their deaths, this thread is for them. /1 CW: Domestic violence, child abuse, murder, injustice.

This story is also infuriating.

Just if anyone would prefer to stop reading here.

Beautiful photograph taken in Kerry.

A 26-year-old Dutch woman in front of mountains, shortly before she vanished in Kenmare on July 2nd, 1978.

No trace of her found and she is largely forgotten in Irish public consciousness.

The disappearance of Aleida "Leidy" Kaspersma. /1 Aleida Maria Anderske Kaspersma was born on March 8th, 1952 in Zwolle, Netherlands.

Her father, Gotze Kaspersma, and mother, Anderske Jouwstra, were married on October 24th, 1944 in Groningen.

Gotze later a well-known musical composer and music teacher in Borne, Overijssel.

The usual geniuses keep using this photo, to make their usual dumb/hateful anti-immigration arguments.

Quite ironic, to say the least.

A few facts about this photo, for anyone interested in who those women were - and what their stories might tell you about Ireland. /1 That photograph is taken from the National Geographic feature on Ireland from March 1927, titled:

"Ireland: The Rock Whence I Was Hewn"

The author of that beautiful work, Brian Oswald Patrick Donn-Byrne, died tragically aged 38 in a car accident in Cork on June 18th, 1928.

Some research days I can't process what I'm reading.

Yesterday was one of those days, involving the death of a teenage girl in Huddersfield in 1981.

A shameful inquest verdict was eventually reached and, as usual, no justice for that poor girl 😢

CW: Messed-up story. /1 Kathleen Margaret Farren (14) was 3 months pregnant when she died on October 17th, 1981.

The inquest ruled her "boyfriend" and father of her baby, Mark 'Anthony' Kenyon (36), had killed her, before dying himself by suicide.

A verdict of unlawful killing was returned.

I always think of one woman, when gymnastics is on, now 18 years since she died aged 46.

One of the most talented gymnasts and courageous persons; she was a member of the Olympic Order, despite never competing at the Olympics.

Her name was Elena Mukhina, one of my heroes. /1 Elena born on June 1st, 1960 in Moscow.

Her single mother died in 1962, when Elena was a baby, and her father wanted nothing to do with the baby.

At risk of being sent to an orphanage, her maternal grandmother stepped up and raised Elena as if she was her own ❤️

Councillor Pepper yet again calling for human rights violations and unlawful mass deportations of asylum seekers.

I thought it might be an idea to go through some history, to give people a better understanding of why that's unlawful.

I'll start in 1950 and go from there. /1 Ireland was one of the original 12 signatories of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

It was signed in Rome, Italy on November 4th, 1950.

Seán MacBride signed it "For the Government of the Irish Republic", see below.

37 died in a nightclub at Denmark Place, Soho, London on August 16th, 1980.

Sadly nobody cared, as most were immigrants from Colombia, Scotland & Ireland.

You can't even find out nationality or age of victims in newspapers.

I went through civil records to try change that. /1 English media lost interest when it soon became apparent most of the victims were immigrants.

A few of the young women were also sex workers.

The tone in papers shifted at rapid pace; from "tragedy" on the evening of August 16th, to "seedy nightclub blaze" by August 17th.

Councillor Gavin Pepper breached numerous Code of Ethics at the "protest" and also on his social media.

I'll go through the legislative basis that underpins councillors conduct and his specific breaches.

Also how to report a councillors conduct, if anyone wishes to do so. /1 Code of Ethics has legislative footing (predominantly) in the Local Government Act 2001.

Specifically it's issued under Part 15, section 169.

Elements of the code rely on other legislation e.g. Ethics in Public Office Acts 1995 and 2001.

irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2001/act/3…

I'm as ever bound to regret doing this but I'm gonna go through the real figures for you, Aisling.

The figures you're throwing around in this tweet is cloud cuckoo land stuff, completely detached from objective reality.

Who knows maybe I can get through to you 😂

https://twitter.com/AislingOLoughl1/status/1807771010566885720

I'm gonna start by addressing your claim the pandemic was a "hoax".

Should be relatively straightforward, via life expectancy stats.

The scale of death in Europe in 2020 & 2021 was so bad that nobody (thinking clearly) could possibly believe all those people died randomly.

There's currently 7,758 children applying for asylum in Ireland.

Nobody really talks about those children.

I thought it might be an idea to discuss where those children are from, why their parents may have left and why they may have come to Ireland.

CW: distressing images. Before that, a short story.

It's about a few of the 40,000 Irish who emigrated to Argentina in the 1800's.

On April 21st, 1844 a ship 'William Peile' left Liverpool headed for Buenos Aires with 114 Irish passengers on board.

Getting to Liverpool a bit of a mission in itself.

One of the dumbest tweets I've seen this week.

The comments underneath it are somehow even dumber.

I would suggest restaurant guy do some basic research, before talking utter nonsense, but I doubt he would risk talking sense.

A few facts to try counter this shite. /1 No Ukrainians, or anyone else for that matter, were added to the voting register last week.

The deadline to register to vote was May 20th, likewise supplementary register.

Maybe he meant "3 weeks ago" but if he did mean that he should have typed that instead of typing rubbish.

The ignorance of Boylan's tweet and the comments section is off-the-charts.

So many "Irish patriots" completely clueless about the country they claim to live in 😂

Not that I expect those geniuses to read this thread but I'll lay out some electoral law history and facts. /1 This genius, Chris, reckons it's obvious why the government has now allowed asylum seekers to vote.

Comically believes it a new development.

I'll get to how new this development actually is but just for starters it's worth marvelling at the sheer ignorance.

This is a photo of Christobel Laura Boyce (32), mother of 2 young children, and former nanny to Lord Lucan.

Christobel killed by her husband in London on January 13th, 1985.

You'll never guess how long he spent in prison, after reading what he did.

CW: Extremely distressing. Christobel wanted a divorce and him to move out, before her death.

Killed her on January 13th and then proceeded to dismember her body.

Cut her body up and cooked it, arranged it on a plate like Sunday Dinner, then went around London putting pieces into different bins.

In January, when I published my femicide map, a few of my Welsh followers asked could I do it for Wales.

I quickly realised it would be exceptionally difficult but I've worked on it every day since.

This is for 500 women and girls killed in Wales. /1

google.com/maps/d/u/0/edi… It was a lot easier from a research perspective to do the map for the island of Ireland.

Search terms like "Gardaí", "RUC" and "Central Criminal Court" narrow a search down.

For Wales there's multiple police forces and murder trials were being held left, right n' center.

This has to be one of the most ignorant, insidious and offensive conspiracy theories I've ever seen on Irish Twitter.

Absolute bully here alleging Ivana Bacik's grandfather was a Nazi collaborator and (separately) defaming Ivana herself.

A thread on her grandfather. /1 Karla Bačíka (Charles Bacik) was born on June 25th, 1910 in Nová Říša near Telč in southern Czechoslovakia.

In 1933 he married Edith Starch and they 2 girls, Milada, Edith, and 2 boys, Karel and Jindřich.

Although his degree was in science, he got into the glassworks business.

It's sad that CervicalCheck keeps getting dragged through the mud and very lame the far-right pretend to care about screening, when it suits.

O'Keeffe doesn't know the basic timeline of events and I see tweets like his one all the time.

I'll go through that timeline again. /1 Knowing the timeline is useful because it still happens and will keep happening.

For example if Mary Lou (Taoiseach, SF) and Holly (Tánaiste, SD) this will still occur ⬇️

30 women diagnosed with cervical cancer every year in Ireland, despite their most recent test negative.

Seems to be "bash asylum seeker" weekend on here, which I suppose describes every weekend 😔

Very sad to see asylum seekers being confronted by angry racists non-stop.

This is a thread on asylum myths in Ireland, to try counter some of the hateful ignorance being spread. Myth #1: "It's all single males"

In the last 10 years (2014-2023) there were 13,145 asylum seekers granted a positive decision to remain in Ireland.

Male: 7,725 (58.8%)
Female: 5,420 (41.2%)

It's not 50-50 as you might intuitively expect but it's also not far off that.

The term "durable relationship" has been part of EU law for 20 years but was proposed in 1999.

I thought it might be interesting to trace the evolution of language from 1949 - 1999, to see how they eventually reached that term.

By interesting I mean boring, probably 😂 /1 June 8th, 1949 - Migration for Employment Recommendation (Revised), 1949 (No. 86)

It was agreed at General Conference of the UN's International Labour Organisation.

The language in that document to describe a family member of a migrant was objectively sexist and anachronistic.

The "protest" outside Celbridge Manor Hotel last night is a textbook example of how the far-right operates.

It's extremely disconcerting and someone is going to get killed, sooner or later, by racist vigilantes masquerading as 'concerned locals'.

Anatomy of an outrage. /1 A woman, Jessica Browne, took to Facebook to allege a 7-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by "3 Romanian men."

Jessica is an Irish Freedom Party supporter and admin of far-right accounts.

Routinely spreads rumours without any evidence and later retracts them.

Just FYI.

I've written threads on them before but today is a good day to write another.

A story of grieving parents from New Zealand who showed dignity, grace, resilience and courage to save lives.

Thinking of Kevin & Susan Campbell today on the 35th anniversary of their son's death. /1 United Airlines Flight 811 was from Los Angeles, USA to Sydney, Australia on February 24th, 1989.

It had planned intermediate stops in Honolulu and Auckland, NZ.

Plane was a Boeing 747-122 and had 337 passengers and 18 crew on board, including 24-year-old Lee Campbell.

Astonishing for a newspaper to publish defamatory lies so nonchalantly.

It's like people are actively going out of their way to get sued this week, incredible 🤷‍♂️

If it saves anyone getting sued, I'll give it a try to explain the cervical audit again.

clareecho.ie/hses-plans-to-… Underlined is a complete lie.

Chief Medical Officer in Ireland is a civil servant who advises the government.

CMO's don't work in (or for) the HSE.

Nobody in the HSE withheld smear test results; anyone saying they did, doesn't understand the design and purpose of the audit.