Not a whole lotta quakin’ goin’ on – An Irishman’s Diary about the Oxford word of the year that nobody anywhere used‘Youthquake’ made its debut in these pages only via a report from the London fashion shows of 1967Wed Dec 20 2017 - 01:00
Tidings of Discomfort and Joy – An Irishman’s Diary about miserable-but-uplifting Christmas songs‘The Pogues’ Fairytale is now 30 years old. And on Christmas Day, the son of Tipperary who wrote it will be twice that age’Sat Dec 16 2017 - 00:01
Four legs good: An Irishman’s Diary about horses, heaven, and Field Marshal Frederick RobertsAs the inscription says, he was for 23 years the ‘charger and faithful friend’ of Lord Roberts of Kandahar, Kipling’s favourite generalFri Dec 15 2017 - 01:01
The Phantom Flann – An Irishman’s Diary about the framing of Brian O’Nolan for a photograph he wasn’t inO’Nolan spent his career pretending to be other people. And sometimes even the other people were not who they were supposed to beThu Dec 14 2017 - 01:01
Union Hijack – An Irishman’s Diary about upside-down flags, the DUP, and the mutiny on the ‘Bounty’Fri Dec 8 2017 - 00:01
The Harp that Once – An Irishman’s Diary about a history of ‘the most exotic music instrument in the world’Thu Dec 7 2017 - 00:01
The height of madness – An Irishman’s Diary about hills you would or wouldn’t want to die onSat Dec 2 2017 - 00:01
Holly days are coming – An Irishman’s Diary about the bird-intoxicating properties of a seasonal treeFri Dec 1 2017 - 00:01
Poems and pipes: Kavanagh commemorated thus beautifullyCeremony in Inniskeen celebrates ‘Stony Grey Soil’ poet 50 years after his deathThu Nov 30 2017 - 19:35
Dancing at the crossroads (between life and death) – An Irishman’s Diary about November 30th’s otherworldly reputationThu Nov 30 2017 - 00:01
Stony but not grey – An Irishman’s Diary about Paul Durcan’s memories of Patrick KavanaghSat Nov 25 2017 - 00:01
Banging on about Swift – An Irishman’s Diary about why Dublin doesn’t make enough noise about one of its greatest writersThu Nov 23 2017 - 00:33
Hearse of a Different Colour – An Irishman’s Diary about the strange etymological story of how an agricultural implement turned into a funeral carSat Nov 18 2017 - 00:01
Running out of Road – An Irishman’s Diary about the enforced sabbatical facing the world’s greatest football supportersThu Nov 16 2017 - 00:01
Ireland outclassed by great Danes as World Cup dream endsNorsemen cast cold eye on best efforts of O’Neill’s men, then pass by, en route to RussiaWed Nov 15 2017 - 00:12
Clashes of Culture – An Irishman’s Diary on Dostoevsky in Kavanagh Country and Casement meeting ConradThu Nov 9 2017 - 00:01
November distemper – An Irishman’s Diary about the premature outbreak of ChristmasMany famous verifiers breathed their last in the eleventh month, including Kavanagh and Wilde and MiltonSat Nov 4 2017 - 01:02
The man in the gap or the gap in the man? – An Irishman’s Diary about men, women, and crimeFri Nov 3 2017 - 05:00
LongMyles Road – An Irishman’s Diary about Conor McGregor, Flann O’Brien, and the Tallaght Gaeltacht‘Suddenly, I was in Leopold Bloom’s kitchen, circa 1904, trying to fry kidneys (which burned, with the result that I smelled smoke)’Thu Nov 2 2017 - 01:04
Boston for Beginners – An Irishman’s Diary about Kurt Vonnegut, the Charles Regatta, and JFKSat Oct 28 2017 - 00:01
Turkey burghers – An Irishman’s Diary about the reviving fortunes of America’s true native birdFri Oct 27 2017 - 00:01
Ten Days that Puzzled the Reader – An Irishman’s Diary about John Reed’s classic account of the Russian RevolutionSat Oct 21 2017 - 00:01
Black North – An Irishman’s Diary on Patrick Kavanagh and the darker side of farmingFri Oct 20 2017 - 00:01
Code-cracker supreme – An Irishman’s Diary about the Limerick-born librarian whose cryptoanalysis helped defeat the NazisThu Oct 19 2017 - 00:01
An Irishman's Diary on the 50 Irish words for windTranslated from the original Gaelic (and other sources)Wed Oct 18 2017 - 00:01
Famous last haircut – An Irishman’s Diary about the Pearse Brothers’ favourite barbershopFri Oct 13 2017 - 00:01
Going down in history – An Irishman’s Diary on the contrasting fates of two notable ships, the ‘WM Barkley’ and the ‘Hougoumont’Thu Oct 12 2017 - 00:01
Monument to Murder – An Irishman’s Diary about Dublin’s forgotten Abbey of St Thomas the MartyrWed Oct 11 2017 - 00:01
Shear hell: Welsh fans in Dublin feeling sheepish after defeatThey had gathered in the Woolshed pub, but the cheers turned to bleats of disappointmentMon Oct 9 2017 - 22:44
Liam Cosgrave: My Part in His Downfall – An Irishman’s Diary about the 1977 general electionSat Oct 7 2017 - 00:01
Ireland win IMF derby but wait for real Bale-outMoldovan TV crew’s prediction was right: three handy points for the hostsFri Oct 6 2017 - 22:40
Silent screen queen – An Irishman’s Diary about the forgotten career of May McAvoyFri Oct 6 2017 - 00:01
The Aussie war hero from Roscrea – An Irishman’s Diary about Fr Michael Bergin SJThu Oct 5 2017 - 00:01
Lines of succession – An Irishman’s Diary about Patrick Kavanagh’s spiritual heirsWed Oct 4 2017 - 00:01
Stony Grey Area – An Irishman’s Diary about the Border’s most eccentric sectionSat Sep 30 2017 - 00:01
The Writing on the Wall – An Irishman’s Diary about a mysterious message on a Dublin churchWed Sep 27 2017 - 00:01
Death and syntaxes – An Irishman’s Diary about grammarA man who will misuse an apostrophe is capable of anything, as Con Houlihan knewFri Sep 22 2017 - 00:01
Mayo exiles seek divine intervention, and now they have been given a signPupils in Marino’s Scoil Mhuire and a landmark building hold their own against the blue tideSat Sep 16 2017 - 01:30
A Game of Two Calves – An Irishman’s Diary about Peter Kavanagh, St Columcille, and landmark cases in copyright lawFri Sep 15 2017 - 00:01