Frank McNally

Frank McNally

Frank McNally is an Irish Times journalist and chief writer of An Irish Diary.

Bitter Harvest – Frank McNally on the darker side of farming in Flanders and the Somme

Body parts are still being found, exhumed, and if possible identified

Fields of Gold – Frank McNally on the rise and fall of a colourful Monaghan family

Theirs was an old English surname, derived from proximity to cornfields or work as a harvester

A stranger in a pub in Spain hugged me like we were old friends after Parrott’s heroics

In the ensuing mayhem, a man I’d never met before hugged me like we were old friends

Ring of untruth – Frank McNally on how the Irish language gave ‘phoney’ to English

A link with telephones was also suspected

Rock of Ages – Frank McNally on the shock of punk turning 50

Sid Vicious had been included in the Sex Pistols mainly for his comic-scary appearance

Adolf Mahr: Frank McNally on the confused reputation of an Austrian Nazi in 1930s Ireland

When he tried to resume his old job in Dublin after the war, he was no longer welcome

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 stands

Flying columnist – Frank McNally on a lightning visit to Leeside

He studied me a second, as if trying to assess if I was a Dublin jackeen out to make a feck of him

The Death of Reilly - Frank McNally on the demise of ‘Reilly, Ace of Spies’ 100 years ago

Russian-born intelligence agent who called himself Sidney Reilly, and inspired James Bond, made use of several Irish cover identities

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 Irishness

‘This is a godforsaken place’: A despairing letter from a garda stationed in Tipperary in 1940

Written in the outpost of Rearcross, the letter is a bleak portrait of human misery worthy of Samuel Beckett

Camera Obscura: An exhibition of ‘secret’ photography at Kilmainham Gaol

The Prisoners’ Lens shows theatrical staged scenes which remind us that the events of 1916 were inspired by playwrights and actors as well as poets

How Nancy Spain became the unlikely heroine of an Irish folk classic

Christy Moore’s haunting song immortalised the woman Nancy Spain

What’s another year? Frank McNally on the rise of a new tautology

Words that were doing a perfectly good job are suddenly deemed to need prefixes

Laughing for Ireland? Frank McNally on Bobby Sands and Kneecap

Sands would surely have approved of the rap band’s success in helping make Irish fashionable with the young

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