Frank McNally

Frank McNally

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

Ron for your life: Frank McNally on what the late Ron Delany could teach table quizzers

Not that The Irish Times team needed any help crossing the finish line first to claim victory in the annual Dublin Rape Crisis Centre corporate quiz night

‘Die roaring’: What we can learn from the demise of Doran’s bull and Orwell’s elephant

Orwell’s account was partly corroborated by a police colleague of the time

Double trouble: Frank McNally on the dramatic effect of saying the same thing twice

An ordinary person might ask you to ‘cease’ doing something. A lawyer will require you to ‘cease and desist’, and then you’re in trouble

Frank McNally on a posthumous anthology from a ‘reluctant businessman’ and literary wit

Intrepid investigation reveals Frank O’Dowd and I did indeed cross paths

The long and melodious trail from a sweet English barmaid to a former Irish finance minister

The long and colourful path from a sweet English barmaid to a former Irish finance minister

Frank McNally on the lasting legacy of George Boole, a celebrity victim of the Irish climate

He walked the three miles from home to university during a downpour, and then delivered a lecture in drenched clothes

‘You have mocked God,’ Enoch Burke tells judge after jailing of his mother and sister

Judge notes we live in a democracy, not a ‘theocracy governed by the Burke family’

Voices from the Grave: The mixed paternal legacy of ‘Irish tenor’ Jeff Buckley

The other big influence, on the last two members of the family at least, was the absence of a loving father figure

Getting our oar in: Frank McNally on the perils of linguistic imperialism

Their eccentricity might be charming if it wasn’t for the assumption that everyone else speaks that way

Ernie O’Malley’s century-old memoirs now read like a nature writer at war

In his memoirs, the former IRA organiser wrote in unique detail about the Irish landscape as he travelled the country

Haunted by Hamlet: The sad story of Ireland’s greatest Shakespearean scholar

When Belfast-born William John Lawrence died in penurious English exile at the start of the second World War, his manuscript on the origins of Hamlet was lost too

Why experts believe Shakespeare may have had an ‘Oirish’ accent

Linguistic detectives believe Shakespeare would have said ‘divil’ instead of ‘devil’ and would have drunk a cup of ‘tay’

‘O, the drenching grey weather’: Irish rain in 40 wonderful phrases

From October to April, the walls of Limerick glistened with the damp

‘It’s the All-Ireland final of theatre’: The Plough and the Stars, 100 years on from its riotous first run

Frank McNally sits in on a new production of Seán O’Casey’s play and revisits the ‘chaotic scenes’ that greeted it in 1926

A history of Ireland, as told through the medium of... rain

It has rained in Ireland every day of 2026 so far. From Samuel Beckett to Flann O’Brien, the country’s literary heritage is awash with the stuff

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