A midsummer like no other, with a nod to St John and flash of Star TrekAn Irishman’s Diary with the theme of a classic Irish ballad for this time of yearSat Jun 20 2020 - 20:01
How you can share in Patrick Kavanagh’s isolation at Inniskeen this yearFrank McNally: Refurbished Kavanagh centre due to have a low-key opening in JulyThu Jun 18 2020 - 20:01
Zoom and Bloom: How I tried to fill Pete Buttigieg’s shoes on BloomsdayFrank McNally: On a Ulysses talk that brought him virtually from Phoenix Park to New YorkWed Jun 17 2020 - 20:01
Royal flush: Frank McNally plumbs the depths of Ascot, Bloomsday and GBSIrish writers have done more to promote Royal Ascot, surely, than English writers ever didTue Jun 16 2020 - 20:01
A day to mark Anthony – Frank McNally on middle-aged running, the Mafia, and the enduring cult of an Italian saintFri Jun 12 2020 - 19:15
Glossed in translation – Frank McNally on ambivalent statues, Flann O’Brien rebranded, and the plan to move Nelson’s PillarThu Jun 11 2020 - 18:45
And the man became word – Frank McNally on the nicotine-stained history of eponymsWed Jun 10 2020 - 18:40
Unfit to Plinth? – Frank McNally on Ireland’s uneasy – and sometimes violent – relationship with statuesTue Jun 09 2020 - 19:15
Paris on a shoestring – Frank McNally on James Joyce, TS Eliot, and the art of revenge hospitalityFri Jun 05 2020 - 19:30
View from the Gods – Frank McNally on how the pandemic has been a golden age of balconiesFri Jun 05 2020 - 00:01
From Leningrad to Louth – Frank McNally on a little piece of Ireland that is forever RussiaWed Jun 03 2020 - 19:01
A Man You Could Count On – Frank McNally on Richard Taaffe, aka ‘Uncle Yaxy’, who brought Austrian imperial secrets to DublinTue Jun 02 2020 - 18:45
A year with an R in it – Frank McNally on a consonant with a colourful historyFri May 29 2020 - 19:01
Dating Game – Frank McNally on writers getting their datelines crossed, from Joyce to Elmore LeonardThu May 28 2020 - 19:15
Play It Again, Dom – Frank McNally on the strange echoes of a Planxty classic in Britain’s latest scandalTue May 26 2020 - 19:38
Cordon Sanitaire – Frank McNally on lockdowns, lazarettos, and the Plague Wall of ProvenceFri May 22 2020 - 19:35
Butte Cavan Man – Frank McNally on the colourful history of corporate branding, Cavan-styleThu May 21 2020 - 19:15
High spirits – Frank McNally on the Phoenix Park dolmen and the ghost of Knockmaree HillWed May 20 2020 - 19:15
Oh Stony Grey Soil of Montparnasse – Frank McNally on culture, curve-flattening, and carrying on in a crisisFri May 15 2020 - 19:01
A Tale of Two Cities – Frank McNally on Brendan Behan, the IRA’s 1939 campaign, and the other Fontenoy StreetThu May 14 2020 - 19:15
Gladbach tidings – Frank McNally welcomes the return of German football while still pining for Gaelic GamesWed May 13 2020 - 19:30
Famous Fontenoy – Frank McNally on an overshadowed anniversary of the Irish Brigade’s finest hourTue May 12 2020 - 19:15
All quiet on the smallpox front – Frank McNally on a major milestone in medical historyThu May 07 2020 - 19:01
Bittersweet surrender – Frank McNally on the Irishwoman airbrushed out of a wartime victory portraitThu May 07 2020 - 00:01
Great Irish Wake-Off – Frank McNally on a global reading of James Joyce’s most difficult bookTue May 05 2020 - 19:20
A Game of Two Calves – Frank McNally on how a new Bob Dylan song has set two Irish counties at oddsFri May 01 2020 - 19:52
Of ramps and lamps – Frank McNally on coronavirus cliches, Florence Nightingale’s statistics, and literature’s worst nurseThu Apr 30 2020 - 18:30
Spell Check – Frank McNally on witches, Walpurgis Night, and why Mayo can’t win the All-IrelandWed Apr 29 2020 - 19:01
Spoiled Proust – Frank McNally on bittersweet memories of a first trip to ParisTue Apr 28 2020 - 18:01
Copyright and wrong – Frank McNally on Ireland’s chequered history of copyright lawFri Apr 24 2020 - 19:01
April ghouls – Frank McNally on ‘bills of mortality’, springtime Halloween, and other excuses for drinkingThu Apr 23 2020 - 19:01
War minus the killing (usually) – Frank McNally on the strange world of military re-enactments, now also on ceasefireWed Apr 22 2020 - 19:15
Rounding up the rounds – Frank McNally on the rise and fall of Ireland’s short-lived Anti-Treating LeagueTue Apr 21 2020 - 18:30
A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Government – Frank McNally on arks, parks, and literary escapismFri Apr 17 2020 - 18:30
River Dunce – Frank McNally on fake-bookshelf builders (and other transpontine types)Thu Apr 16 2020 - 18:50
The English Malaise – Frank McNally on a mysterious ‘sweating sickness’ that terrorised 16th-century EnglandThu Apr 16 2020 - 00:01
Frank McNally on the joys of Europe’s biggest city park at a time of pandemic‘The deer grazed safely, unworried by dogs. People walked singly or in twos. An occasional lone cyclist passed’Fri Apr 10 2020 - 19:01
Frank McNally on James Joyce and Ireland’s bubonic plague scare of 1900A journal of Dublin in the plague yearThu Apr 09 2020 - 19:01
Coronavirus curve-ball: Frank McNally on a bad year for forecastersA hard year to have 20/20 visionThu Apr 09 2020 - 00:01
Wordsworth’s daffodils were not lonely – or even aloneFormer rugby player Ollie Campbell said he enjoyed the poem because it was ‘simple, like myself’Wed Apr 08 2020 - 00:01
Ring a Ring – Frank McNally on the shrinking (and expanding) circles of lockdownFri Apr 03 2020 - 18:45
Distance learning – Frank McNally on the revelations of lockdownReally, the adjustments have been minimalThu Apr 02 2020 - 16:26
Corner Cuttings – Frank McNally on a sobering week from Kilmainham to CaliforniaThu Mar 19 2020 - 19:01
Tippling Point – Frank McNally on similarities between the coronavirus crisis and the Great Plague of 1665Wed Mar 18 2020 - 19:01
