Frank McNally
@frankie49.bsky.social
Chief writer of An Irish Diary, The Irish Times
Reposted by Frank McNally
Ring of untruth – Frank McNally on how the Irish language gave ‘phoney’ to English
Ring of untruth – Frank McNally on how the Irish language gave ‘phoney’ to English
A link with telephones was also suspected
www.irishtimes.com
November 14, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Ring of untruth – Frank McNally on how the Irish language gave ‘phoney’ to English
Reposted by Frank McNally
Rock of Ages – Frank McNally on the shock of punk turning 50
Rock of Ages – Frank McNally on the shock of punk turning 50
He had been included in the Sex Pistols mainly for his comic-scary appearance
www.irishtimes.com
November 13, 2025 at 7:05 PM
Rock of Ages – Frank McNally on the shock of punk turning 50
November embers, Dublin
November 11, 2025 at 5:18 PM
November embers, Dublin
Reposted by Frank McNally
Favorite line so far: "The mother herself was half Irish, on her father’s side, so the teenager was in high-risk group for developing symptoms." (Second-most-favorite: "I might also add in passing that 'Polly Amory' would be an excellent name for an agony aunt.") THANK YOU FRANK McNALLY. 😀
‘Your boy is in love with the notion of Irishness, as well he might be’
‘Your boy is in love with the notion of Irishness, as well he might be’
We are well used in this country to visitors outdoing us in the performative aspects of Irishness
www.irishtimes.com
November 5, 2025 at 9:57 PM
Favorite line so far: "The mother herself was half Irish, on her father’s side, so the teenager was in high-risk group for developing symptoms." (Second-most-favorite: "I might also add in passing that 'Polly Amory' would be an excellent name for an agony aunt.") THANK YOU FRANK McNALLY. 😀
“We are well used to visitors outdoing us in the performative aspects of Irishness. The Normans started it, becoming famously ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’ and so launching the Eight Hundred Years of Impressionism.” www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-i...
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
www.irishtimes.com
November 6, 2025 at 10:50 AM
“We are well used to visitors outdoing us in the performative aspects of Irishness. The Normans started it, becoming famously ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’ and so launching the Eight Hundred Years of Impressionism.” www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-i...
This is a godforsaken place’: A despairing letter from a garda stationed in Tipperary in 1940 www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-i...
‘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
www.irishtimes.com
November 5, 2025 at 3:29 PM
This is a godforsaken place’: A despairing letter from a garda stationed in Tipperary in 1940 www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-i...
Reposted by Frank McNally
How Nancy Spain became the unlikely heroine of an Irish folk classic
How Nancy Spain became the unlikely heroine of an Irish folk classic
Christy Moore’s haunting song immortalised the woman Nancy Spain
www.irishtimes.com
October 29, 2025 at 8:55 PM
How Nancy Spain became the unlikely heroine of an Irish folk classic
Reposted by Frank McNally
Frank McNally: My life as a civil servant in 1980s Dublin
Frank McNally: My life as a civil servant in 1980s Dublin
Frank McNally on the Department of Social Welfare in Not Making Hay – The Life and Deadlines of a ‘Diary’ Farmer
www.irishtimes.com
October 31, 2025 at 12:43 AM
Frank McNally: My life as a civil servant in 1980s Dublin
“Driving up north recently, I passed a mural of Bobby Sands with his famous quotation: “Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.” And reflecting on what kids find funny now, I wondered what he would have made of Kneecap.” www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-i...
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
www.irishtimes.com
October 27, 2025 at 9:02 AM
“Driving up north recently, I passed a mural of Bobby Sands with his famous quotation: “Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.” And reflecting on what kids find funny now, I wondered what he would have made of Kneecap.” www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-i...
Reposted by Frank McNally
Laughing for Ireland? Frank McNally on Bobby Sands and Kneecap
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
www.irishtimes.com
October 24, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Laughing for Ireland? Frank McNally on Bobby Sands and Kneecap
Reposted by Frank McNally
Faithful departure: Frank McNally on a belated first visit to Knock Airport, 40 years on
Faithful departure: Frank McNally on a belated first visit to Knock Airport, 40 years on
I had to marvel briefly at its location, on a hilltop bog halfway between Charlestown and nowhere
www.irishtimes.com
October 23, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Faithful departure: Frank McNally on a belated first visit to Knock Airport, 40 years on
Reposted by Frank McNally
A rock in a hard place: Frank McNally hunts an elusive ancient monument in Mayo
A rock in a hard place: Frank McNally hunts an elusive ancient monument in Mayo
Natural monolith covered with carvings suggests Croagh Patrick was an object of pilgrimage long before Christianity
www.irishtimes.com
October 21, 2025 at 6:01 PM
A rock in a hard place: Frank McNally hunts an elusive ancient monument in Mayo
Reposted by Frank McNally
Great work here from @frankie49.bsky.social
Especially pleased to see MOPE (Most Oppressed People Ever) on the hyperbolic list of Irish history.
I'd cast a vote for GUBU (Grotesque Unbelievable Bizarre and Unprecedented) as entry #101 😱
Especially pleased to see MOPE (Most Oppressed People Ever) on the hyperbolic list of Irish history.
I'd cast a vote for GUBU (Grotesque Unbelievable Bizarre and Unprecedented) as entry #101 😱
Frank McNally: A History of Ireland in a Hundred Hyperboles
Frank McNally: A History of Ireland in a Hundred Hyperboles
A catalogue of 100 colourful expressions, myths, legends and sayings
www.irishtimes.com
October 21, 2025 at 8:45 AM
Great work here from @frankie49.bsky.social
Especially pleased to see MOPE (Most Oppressed People Ever) on the hyperbolic list of Irish history.
I'd cast a vote for GUBU (Grotesque Unbelievable Bizarre and Unprecedented) as entry #101 😱
Especially pleased to see MOPE (Most Oppressed People Ever) on the hyperbolic list of Irish history.
I'd cast a vote for GUBU (Grotesque Unbelievable Bizarre and Unprecedented) as entry #101 😱
Reposted by Frank McNally
Frank McNally: A History of Ireland in a Hundred Hyperboles
Frank McNally: A History of Ireland in a Hundred Hyperboles
A catalogue of 100 colourful expressions, myths, legends and sayings
www.irishtimes.com
October 20, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Frank McNally: A History of Ireland in a Hundred Hyperboles
Reposted by Frank McNally
Old Men of the Canal – Frank McNally on the herons of Percy Place
Old Men of the Canal – Frank McNally on the herons of Percy Place
There is something military-looking about the birds’ appearance
www.irishtimes.com
October 17, 2025 at 6:05 PM
Old Men of the Canal – Frank McNally on the herons of Percy Place
“Despite being born in the same town myself, the astounding fact of Alex Haley’s Irish roots had somehow escaped me until as recently as Wednesday.” www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-i...
Roots and Branch: Alex Haley’s lesser known Irish heritage
The Roots author’s follow-up novel Queen traces five generations of a second branch of his ancestry back to a town in Co Monaghan
www.irishtimes.com
October 17, 2025 at 3:29 PM
“Despite being born in the same town myself, the astounding fact of Alex Haley’s Irish roots had somehow escaped me until as recently as Wednesday.” www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-i...
Reposted by Frank McNally
A column from @frankie49.bsky.social that manages to link Festy Ebosele, James Joyce and Wittgenstein, via Connemara
www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-i...
www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-i...
A Feast of Festy: A new lease of life for a colourful Irish name
Festus, from the Latin for ‘joyful’, is a popular boy’s name in Nigeria
www.irishtimes.com
October 16, 2025 at 7:37 AM
A column from @frankie49.bsky.social that manages to link Festy Ebosele, James Joyce and Wittgenstein, via Connemara
www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-i...
www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-i...
Reposted by Frank McNally
I seem to have written a buke
September 19, 2025 at 11:32 AM
I seem to have written a buke
Reposted by Frank McNally
Our Man in Havana – Frank McNally on a forgotten Irishman honoured in Cuba
Our Man in Havana – Frank McNally on a forgotten Irishman honoured in Cuba
James Joseph O’Kelly was also, for a brief period, a man of two wives
www.irishtimes.com
October 8, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Our Man in Havana – Frank McNally on a forgotten Irishman honoured in Cuba
Reposted by Frank McNally
Charlie Tango – Frank McNally on revisiting the Charlie Hebdo massacre 10 years on
Charlie Tango – Frank McNally on revisiting the Charlie Hebdo massacre 10 years on
In keeping with a low-budget production, the movie was projected onto a make-shift screen
www.irishtimes.com
October 7, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Charlie Tango – Frank McNally on revisiting the Charlie Hebdo massacre 10 years on
Sunrise on the Beckett Bridge, Dublin.
October 6, 2025 at 12:31 PM
Sunrise on the Beckett Bridge, Dublin.
Reposted by Frank McNally
Howya Heid? - Frank McNally on a visit to one of Glasgow’s toughest pubs
Howya Heid? - Frank McNally on a visit to one of Glasgow’s toughest pubs
We had only dropped in for the proverbial one drink
www.irishtimes.com
October 2, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Howya Heid? - Frank McNally on a visit to one of Glasgow’s toughest pubs
“I don’t expect to be a conscious participant at my own wake when the time comes, but I had a sneak preview of that event while attending a book launch last week.” www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-i...
Waking Dream – Frank McNally on having intimations of mortality at a book launch
There may even have been ghosts present, as I was reminded by the attendance of some of my maternal cousins
www.irishtimes.com
October 1, 2025 at 7:32 AM
“I don’t expect to be a conscious participant at my own wake when the time comes, but I had a sneak preview of that event while attending a book launch last week.” www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-i...
I seem to have written a buke
September 19, 2025 at 11:32 AM
I seem to have written a buke
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and sky. (Me on a slipway in Oban, Scotland, as pictured by my son Daniel.)
September 15, 2025 at 4:37 PM
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and sky. (Me on a slipway in Oban, Scotland, as pictured by my son Daniel.)