Frank McNally: My life as a civil servant in 1980s Dublin
Frank McNally on the Department of Social Welfare in Not Making Hay – The Life and Deadlines of a ‘Diary’ Farmer
Here it was again, the phantom Yeats quote in an Irish pub in Perpignan
This same legend turned up on the Dublin City Marathon medal two years ago
Skipping pages – Frank McNally on trawling through the discarded library of a lifetime
A full-blown bibliophile, the deceased was said to have had up to 100,000 volumes
For the Birds – Frank McNally on an encounter with Dublin’s Pigeon Man
When I got a word in edgeways, finally, I wondered why Dublin’s rapacious seagulls never came near him
Blades and Fades – Frank McNally on New York’s ‘Lads of Kilkenny’ and a Joycean Fenian in Paris
Washington Irving was a native New Yorker who had no known connection with Kilkenny
The Word made fresh: One enlightening billboard outside a church in Mount Merrion
A friend from south Dublin suggested I write something about a church billboard where Foster Avenue meets the Stillorgan dual carriageway
Tourists beware: supposed new ‘traditions’ at Dublin statues
As with tour guides inventing stories, here’s hoping the phenomenon is not on the rise
A day trip to Electric Picnic does not go as planned
If you go down to the woods: Frank McNally on a long, dark night of no soul in Stradbally
Eavesdropping on tour guides in Dublin I overheard what sounded like a very dubious story
I began to feel some Swiftian indignation on the part of the innocent Americans who were listening to the tour guide’s claim
Contraceptive crop: How an Irish-American agricultural fortune helped pay for the pill
Philanthropist Katharine McCormick used her riches to help the cause of women’s rights
Dedicated to the one I hate: Frank McNally on how a book inscription came back to haunt Patrick Kavanagh
Signed first American edition of Tarry Flynn is dedicated to ‘poet and painter’ Brendan Behan
The night a ‘sputnik’ crash-landed in rural Wexford
A garda arrived immediately to cordon off a crater in the field, then the Army was called in
‘A breakthrough in the case of my stolen Dublin Bike and the subsequent €150 fine’
I am no wiser as to where the bicycle spent its long, lost weekend
A daisy with a doctorate? Frank McNally on the enrolment of ragwort in the rewilded lawns of Trinity College
Who knows how ragwort will evolve with the benefit of a few years in university? It might lose the latter part of its name, Jacobaea vulgaris, for a start
Ballet Go Backwards – Frank McNally on Patrick Kavanagh’s short-lived career as a dance librettist
This strange incident came about because of another surprising phenomenon little remembered today