Much as it pains me to say so, the name Francis has suffered a catastrophic fall from fashion in recent times. In part, this is because of the general trend in which television has replaced the saints' calendar as a baby-naming resource. But while Patrick, James, and John are all still holding their own, nobody seems to call a child Francis any more, writes Frank McNally.
I suspect that the media have played a more active role in the name's demise. In Ireland, the rot probably set in during the 1970s, with the massive popularity of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, the BBC sitcom that cast a man called Frank Spencer as a bumbling idiot.
Maybe you've forgotten Frank's wife's name. I haven't. The influence of that series was still strong when, years later, I had a brief romantic liaison with a woman called - of all the names in all the world - Betty. Needless to say, the relationship was doomed from the start.
But the demise of the name Francis was truly sealed whenever it was that Hollywood executives met in secret - as I choose to believe - and decided that, henceforth, all movie characters named Frank would be either idiots or psychopaths.
As a result of this directive, the spectrum of cinematic Franks now runs from Drebbin, the comically incompetent detective from the Naked Gun series, to Booth, the masochistic weirdo in Blue Velvet, played with such disturbing conviction by Dennis Hopper.
Even Henry Fonda, in a lifetime of being the good guy, turned vicious when playing a Frank in Once Upon a Time in the West. But if there is a single moment in film history when the name's cause was lost, it was the bit in Blue Velvet when someone asks: "Why is there so much trouble in the world? And why are there people like Frank?"
The real-life Franks in show business haven't always helped. Yes, Sinatra was in many ways a good role model. Apart, that is, from being mixed up with the Mob, and being the rumoured inspiration for Johnny Fontaine in The Godfather. You remember him: the actor whose audition for a big film role involved decapitating the director's racehorse.
THUS IT WAS with mixed feelings recently - pride as well as concern - that I learned the title of cinema's newest awards. Move over, the Oscars: the Francies are here. Named after Francie Brady, the hero of Patrick McCabe's great novel The Butcher Boy, they will be inaugurated this weekend at the Clones Film Festival, to mark the 10th anniversary of Neil Jordan's movie.
On the one hand, this is an occasion of pride for the dwindling demographic of people named Francis. All the more so for those of us who grew up as Frankie or Francie (or both in my case). On the other hand, we must reflect sadly that Francie Brady is not exactly a positive role model either. In fact, as a deranged murderer, he fits comfortably into the Hollywood conspiracy.
Clones is remarkable in having a film festival while no longer having a cinema. Such events are usually hosted by cities (the Mid-Ulster Film Festival in Tyrone is a notable exception, being held in a village). But Clones is small enough to have suffered the fate of most provincial towns in the 1980s and 1990s, losing its local cinema in the rush to the multiplexes.
Aptly, the festival opened on Wednesday night with a short film about one of the latest to go - the Ormonde in Castlemartyr, Co Cork, which closed last year. The Ormonde was the sort of place where, if you were running late, you could ring the management, who would happily delay the screening until you arrived. Try ringing one of the omniplexes with such a request, and the voice-activated automated answering service won't know which number to tell you to press.
The Butcher Boy anniversary is also being marked by a book on the making of the film, written by Colin MacCabe, which reminds us just how unusual it was in the mid-1990s for a Hollywood studio to underwrite a small Irish film for some $12 million.
Firstly, it marked Neil Jordan's follow-up to Michael Collins, confusion about which in the US was summed up by one cinemagoer quoted, who found the Collins character "awesome" but added that the "gay Nazi dude sucked". (The gay Nazi dude was Eamon de Valera.) The Butcher Boy did not make the same demands of viewers' historical knowledge, but the local accents on which McCabe and Jordan insisted had been anathema in Hollywood ever since the Hays code, which required standard American English in all films.
Having given way on the issue, the studio lost its nerve only once, voicing concerns in a memo to the production team about the use of swear words.
The memo was rebuffed by McCabe in a letter, purportedly written by Francie Brady, the most polite part of which was the address: "2, Bastard Lane, Hoortown." There were no further memos from the studio.
In the absence of the lamented Luxor, the Clones Film Festival will hold screenings in the Lennard Arms Hotel and in a "cinemobile" the size of a bungalow, located on the back of a lorry in the town square.
A lovingly restored Volkswagon camper van, seating an audience of two in complete comfort, will also play a part, hosting a series of 15-second films. Further details are available from www.clonesfilmfestival.com.