Life Imitating Art: Frank McNally on the Art O’Neill challenge, recreating an actual 1592 jailbreakConfusingly for some of us, the pursuers had set off earlier on Friday night, before the escapeesTue Jan 20 2026 - 16:03
Terminal Condition – the unfortunate origins of Dublin’s Townsend StreetWe are where we are, as the politicians sayFri Jan 16 2026 - 19:00
Did ‘divine intervention’ on Merrion Street lead to a cure for leprosy?As with many great discoveries, there was an element of chance involved for Cork-born scientist Vincent BarryFri Jan 16 2026 - 06:00
Fool’s paradise: Frank McNally on a cliche beloved of obituaristsNot a day passes when a writer does not note that the deceased ‘didn’t suffer fools gladly’Wed Jan 14 2026 - 19:00
A Tale of Two Hospitals – Frank McNally on the architectural dramas of KilmainhamRoyal Hospital there was built as home for old and wounded soldiers at time of relative peaceTue Jan 13 2026 - 19:00
The small patch of Dublin where the Jameses – Joyce and Connolly – passed each other byBoth men had considerably different views on life, but their worlds intersected through writingMon Jan 12 2026 - 19:00
Rewrites and Wrongs: Frank McNally on reinterpreting Thin Lizzy for a new generationI may have been lulled into a false sense of senility by the opening verseThu Jan 08 2026 - 19:00
Sinners’ redemption: Frank McNally on vampires, Irish music and the Ku Klux KlanRyan Coogler’s film Sinners features trad music and vampirism, and has macabre echoes of a real-life event 100 years agoWed Jan 07 2026 - 19:00
Good (and Bad) Vibrations – Frank McNally on Vibe for Philo, immersive James Joyce and 4DX AvatarSome Lizzy veterans must have worried they’d slipped into the next worldTue Jan 06 2026 - 19:00
Hibernian Rhapsody: Frank McNally on the rise of a great football anthem, Sunshine on LeithYou might question the wisdom of the ballad’s central metaphor as a guarantor of success in relationships or footballFri Jan 02 2026 - 19:00
‘Every hip, young thing in south County Dublin seemed to be partying it up at Leopardstown’ Leppers, lepers and the Lep: the racing festival on St Stephen’s DayTue Dec 30 2025 - 19:00
Leopardstown races: Faux fur, fake tan and f-f-f-freezing temperaturesThe going was yielding, the punters soft-to-heavy after Christmas excessFri Dec 26 2025 - 19:09
‘Am I no longer a child? Are so many of the years past? How quickly they have flown!’Shore had good reason to reflect on her mortalityThu Dec 25 2025 - 19:00
Frank McNally on 19th century engineering project that linked Tipperary with ‘civilisation’Fr Edmond Walsh was a late vocation, having previously worked as a carterFri Dec 19 2025 - 19:00
‘So long as these people are here, we’ll never starve’: In the queue for Christmas vouchers at Dublin’s Capuchin Day CentreThe volunteers of Dublin’s Capuchin Day Centre handed out free €50 vouchers for Dunnes Stores to more than 3,000 people Fri Dec 19 2025 - 14:02
A Passage to Innocence – Frank McNally on an anthology of old school routes rememberedRoutes described range geographically from Caherdavin to China Thu Dec 18 2025 - 19:00
Craicing the Case – Frank McNally on the origins of a cultural and linguistic phenomenon I also lamented that the compunction to do things for the craic was not yet recognised as a defence in Irish courtsWed Dec 17 2025 - 19:00
Frank McNally on a grand stretch in the evenings, a new Dublin restaurant and ‘Gloomsday’Strung-out Joyceans will use any excuse for a hitWed Dec 17 2025 - 06:00
The woman who enchanted Proust – Frank McNally on the rise and fall of Gladys MarlboroughGladys, meanwhile, entertained herself and guests with memories of countless former loversFri Dec 12 2025 - 19:00
‘He never said that’: Frank McNally is tired of hearing a phantom WB Yeats quoteIt was a week of oral exams as the art of storytelling excelled at parties and awards ceremoniesThu Dec 11 2025 - 19:00
Fighting Farney – Frank McNally on the battle for his hometown’s ‘western front’Carrickmacross's lopsided pub distribution seems to be indirect effect of a deeper divisionWed Dec 10 2025 - 19:00
Monumental misstep: Frank McNally on the ‘tragedy’ of a great Irish sculptor, John HughesWhat should have been the peak of the sculptor’s career was doomed to coincide with what the Chinese call interesting timesTue Dec 09 2025 - 19:00
Frank McNally: Investigating the mystery of the black stork’s Irish rootsThis beautiful and shy bird is a rare visitor now, but that may not always have been the caseFri Dec 05 2025 - 19:00
Bognor Bodies – Frank McNally on the Irish literary connections of an English seaside townIts English origins stem from a holiday James Joyce and his family spent there in the summer of 1923Thu Dec 04 2025 - 19:00
‘The cadet was now descending rapidly towards Cavan without any training in the use of a parachute’The lesson for the day in question was how to deal with an aircraft when it stalled and went into a spinTue Dec 02 2025 - 19:00
Bitter Harvest – Frank McNally on the darker side of farming in Flanders and the SommeBody parts are still being found, exhumed, and if possible identifiedFri Nov 28 2025 - 19:00
Fields of Gold – Frank McNally on the rise and fall of a colourful Monaghan familyTheirs was an old English surname, derived from proximity to cornfields or work as a harvesterThu Nov 27 2025 - 19:00
A stranger in a pub in Spain hugged me like we were old friends after Parrott’s heroicsIn the ensuing mayhem, a man I’d never met before hugged me like we were old friendsTue Nov 25 2025 - 19:00
Ring of untruth – Frank McNally on how the Irish language gave ‘phoney’ to EnglishA link with telephones was also suspectedFri Nov 14 2025 - 19:00
Rock of Ages – Frank McNally on the shock of punk turning 50Sid Vicious had been included in the Sex Pistols mainly for his comic-scary appearanceThu Nov 13 2025 - 19:00
Adolf Mahr: Frank McNally on the confused reputation of an Austrian Nazi in 1930s IrelandWhen he tried to resume his old job in Dublin after the war, he was no longer welcomeWed Nov 12 2025 - 19:00
Thwarted hotel development keeps doors closed at Dublin pub 121 years after Leopold Bloom ‘pushed in the door of the Burton’, public house doesn’t know where it standsTue Nov 11 2025 - 19:00
Flying columnist – Frank McNally on a lightning visit to LeesideHe studied me a second, as if trying to assess if I was a Dublin jackeen out to make a feck of himFri Nov 07 2025 - 18:59
The Death of Reilly - Frank McNally on the demise of ‘Reilly, Ace of Spies’ 100 years agoRussian-born intelligence agent who called himself Sidney Reilly, and inspired James Bond, made use of several Irish cover identitiesThu Nov 06 2025 - 19:00
Daily Telegraph’s agony aunt faces a conundrum – a mother worried that her son is turning ‘Irish’We are well used in this country to visitors outdoing us in the performative aspects of IrishnessWed Nov 05 2025 - 19:00
‘This is a godforsaken place’: A despairing letter from a garda stationed in Tipperary in 1940Written in the outpost of Rearcross, the letter is a bleak portrait of human misery worthy of Samuel Beckett Tue Nov 04 2025 - 19:00
Camera Obscura: An exhibition of ‘secret’ photography at Kilmainham GaolThe Prisoners’ Lens shows theatrical staged scenes which remind us that the events of 1916 were inspired by playwrights and actors as well as poetsSat Nov 01 2025 - 06:00
How Nancy Spain became the unlikely heroine of an Irish folk classicChristy Moore’s haunting song immortalised the woman Nancy SpainWed Oct 29 2025 - 19:00
What’s another year? Frank McNally on the rise of a new tautologyWords that were doing a perfectly good job are suddenly deemed to need prefixes Tue Oct 28 2025 - 19:00
Laughing for Ireland? Frank McNally on Bobby Sands and KneecapSands would surely have approved of the rap band’s success in helping make Irish fashionable with the youngFri Oct 24 2025 - 19:00
Faithful departure: Frank McNally on a belated first visit to Knock Airport, 40 years on I had to marvel briefly at its location, on a hilltop bog halfway between Charlestown and nowhereThu Oct 23 2025 - 19:00
A rock in a hard place: Frank McNally hunts an elusive ancient monument in MayoNatural monolith covered with carvings suggests Croagh Patrick was an object of pilgrimage long before ChristianityTue Oct 21 2025 - 19:00
Frank McNally: A History of Ireland in a Hundred HyperbolesA catalogue of 100 colourful expressions, myths, legends and sayingsMon Oct 20 2025 - 19:00
Old Men of the Canal – Frank McNally on the herons of Percy PlaceThere is something military-looking about the birds’ appearanceFri Oct 17 2025 - 19:00
Roots and Branch: Alex Haley’s lesser known Irish heritageThe Roots author’s follow-up novel Queen traces five generations of a second branch of his ancestry back to a town in Co MonaghanFri Oct 17 2025 - 06:00
A Feast of Festy: A new lease of life for a colourful Irish nameFestus, from the Latin for ‘joyful’, is a popular boy’s name in NigeriaWed Oct 15 2025 - 19:00
Lips Sealed - Frank McNally on a mysterious facial feature, the philtrumNow it’s just a vestige of evolution, with no apparent function.Fri Oct 10 2025 - 19:00
Cast a Cold Eye – Frank McNally on the monuments, republican and otherwise, of TipperaryDivorced of importance it later acquired, was original War of Independence event worthy of pride?Thu Oct 09 2025 - 19:00
Our Man in Havana – Frank McNally on a forgotten Irishman honoured in CubaJames Joseph O’Kelly was also, for a brief period, a man of two wivesWed Oct 08 2025 - 19:00
Charlie Tango – Frank McNally on revisiting the Charlie Hebdo massacre 10 years onIn keeping with a low-budget production, the movie was projected onto a make-shift screenTue Oct 07 2025 - 19:00
