Frank McNally

Dublin

Journalist and Chief Writer at Irish Times

Chief Writer of An Irish Diary, The Irish Times. Runner. Monaghan football supporter. Flannorak. Father. Himself/Yer man.

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Articles

Irish Blood, Irish Heart: Frank McNally on a Mancunian hibernophile, Sir Norman Moore

5 days ago | irishtimes.com | Frank McNally

Manchester-born and Cambridge-educated, the baronet, pathologist, and historian Sir Norman Moore (1847 – 1922) was in some ways a pillar of the English establishment. But the defining events of his life included an encounter at Crewe railway station, one night while waiting for a connection, with two travelling harvest workers from County Mayo. Moore was able to greet them in their native language, after which they all drank coffee together, discussing Irish history at length.
Throwing shapes: Frank McNally on the mysteries of the Hiberno-English ‘gimp’

6 days ago | irishtimes.com | Frank McNally

Reader and writer Michael Flanagan has appealed for my help with a word he “used in a story” recently, only to be told that his intended meaning is now redundant and liable to be misunderstood. The word was “gimp”. And it’s funny he should ask, because ever since hearing this term applied to myself a while back, I’ve been wondering what it means too.
Holy Irish, partly French - Frank McNally on 800 years of St Laurence O’Toole

1 week ago | irishtimes.com | Frank McNally

I’m indebted to several readers who, in response to my ruminations about “full professors” last week, pointed out that there is at least one other career where that adjective is used. In the Army, they sometimes refer to “full colonels” to avoid confusion with mere lieutenant colonels, and “full generals” to differentiate from the lieutenant, major, and brigadier variety.
Academic questions: Frank McNally on Titanic terriers, epic expense accounts and the rise of the ‘full professor’

1 week ago | irishtimes.com | Frank McNally

At the prestigious annual Theatrical Cavaliers table quiz in Dublin last weekend, held this year in aid of the My Lovely Horse animal rescue charity, they had a round on the theme of dogs. A typical question asked us to identify the Pekinese terrier, named after a famous revolutionary, which was one of only three canine passengers to escape the sinking of the Titanic. This is the sort of utterly useless information that we veteran quizzers pride ourselves on knowing.
Not so merry - Frank McNally on the month of May’s somewhat ominous reputation

1 week ago | irishtimes.com | Frank McNally

This week’s balmy weather will persuade eternal optimists that summer is here already, and that it’s sure to be a long one. But the month that’s now in it will also revive a small annual controversy as to what one of the best-known pieces of meteorological lore means when warning: “Cast not a clout till May is out.”Those of cautious temperament take that to be exclusively calendrical advice, urging us to hold on to our overcoats until June.
Farren Away - Frank McNally on how the dreaded phantom ‘Flann’ picture struck again

2 weeks ago | irishtimes.com | Frank McNally

Long-time readers of this column will be aware that there exists in literary circles a widely circulated photograph purporting to be of Flann O’Brien in Dublin’s Palace Bar, circa the early 1940s, but that is in fact of the poet Robert Farren. It’s a very convincing Flann photo, unless you’re a certified Flannorak who knows, for example, that the real-life man behind the pseudonym, Brian O’Nolan, did not wear glasses. O’Nolan was indeed a Palace regular.
Non Habemus Librum: Frank McNally on Flann O’Brien’s unwritten epic about the election of an Irish pope

2 weeks ago | irishtimes.com | Frank McNally

The news that an Irishman is overseeing the Vatican pending the election of a new pope would have been of great interest to Brian O’Nolan, aka Flann O’Brien and Myles na gCopaleen, formerly of this parish. Before he wrote any of the books or columns that made his name, O’Nolan conceived a plan for the Great Irish Novel – still to be written by the 1930s, he thought, despite Joyce’s best efforts – which would include the election of a first-ever Irish pope.
Frightfully unfashionable: Frank McNally on the century-long decline of adverbs

2 weeks ago | irishtimes.com | Frank McNally

That Casimir Markievicz exhibition (Diary, April 23rd) reminded me in passing how dependent the upper classes of these islands used to be on what grammarians call “degree adverbs”. Witness a letter, included in the show, in which Eva Gore-Booth congratulates her sister Constance on becoming engaged to the Polish count. “I can’t help being frightfully amused when I think of the bomb bursting,” she writes (the bomb-burst being the reaction when others find out).
A count in arrears - Frank McNally on a first-ever solo exhibition of the life and work of Casimir Markievicz

3 weeks ago | irishtimes.com | Frank McNally

Casimir Markievicz (1874–1932) was an example of that rare 20th-century phenomenon: a man who came to be completely overshadowed by his wife, even though for most of their lives together they did much the same thing. His uncertain place in the national memory was unwittingly summed up back in 2013, by a protester at a distressed properties auction on Dublin.
Over on Out: Frank McNally gets to the bottom of a mysteriously familiar phrase

3 weeks ago | irishtimes.com | Frank McNally

Faced with a deluge of unfamiliarity from almost all corners of Ireland, I was beginning to doubt that the sentence-ending superlative “it took out!” (Diary, April 17th) was a recognised phrase anywhere other than my own head. Then came reassurance from reader Catherine McVerry, a native of south Armagh now exiled in Warrenpoint. She hadn’t heard it since the 1980s, when she left home for Guernsey, then England, and later Dublin.

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Frank McNally @FrankmcnallyIT

9 May 25

“The Irish meaning referred to a person’s “demeanour, bearing, appearance”. Illustrating which, Dolan cites a sample usage from Meath: “You’d know by the gimp of him he was a guard.” https://t.co/PVgv8Kk3Jb

Frank McNally @FrankmcnallyIT

7 May 25

RT @IrishTimesOpEd: Opinion: Holy Irish, partly French – Frank McNally on 800 years of St Laurence O’Toole https://t.co/M9JHXnAUFR via @Ir…

Frank McNally @FrankmcnallyIT

7 May 25

RT @FT: The west’s shameful silence on Gaza https://t.co/u0FcxQ881W | opinion

Frank McNally

Articles

Irish Blood, Irish Heart: Frank McNally on a Mancunian hibernophile, Sir Norman Moore

Throwing shapes: Frank McNally on the mysteries of the Hiberno-English ‘gimp’

Holy Irish, partly French - Frank McNally on 800 years of St Laurence O’Toole

Academic questions: Frank McNally on Titanic terriers, epic expense accounts and the rise of the ‘full professor’

Not so merry - Frank McNally on the month of May’s somewhat ominous reputation

Farren Away - Frank McNally on how the dreaded phantom ‘Flann’ picture struck again

Non Habemus Librum: Frank McNally on Flann O’Brien’s unwritten epic about the election of an Irish pope

Frightfully unfashionable: Frank McNally on the century-long decline of adverbs

A count in arrears - Frank McNally on a first-ever solo exhibition of the life and work of Casimir Markievicz

Over on Out: Frank McNally gets to the bottom of a mysteriously familiar phrase

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