Confounding Father - Frank McNally on the centenary of a radical Irish-American priest.
Fr Peter Yorke played a central role in politics, journalism and labour relations in the San Francisco archdiocese
The Irish (and Redmondite) origins of the Augusta National Clubhouse
Denis Redmond who designed what is now the clubhouse might be baffled by what it has become
Dooley Dooby Doo - Frank McNally with more on the origins of a famous “Joycean” ballad
Sheet music of the Jerome song sold a million copies
Child of Prague Spring – Frank McNally on a sun-soaked country wedding
The Child of Prague is a statue of limitations, apparently: its responsibilities begin and end with blue skies
A Game of Two Calves (and several cows): Frank McNally on Patrick Kavanagh’s imagination, mysterious street names, and a bovine legend
On the stem of memory . . .
Detour de Force – Frank McNally on William Bulfin’s unwitting side-trip into literary history
We now know that Bulfin was in the Martello Tower at Sandycove, and that his hosts would later be immortalised in Joyce’s Ulysses
Barroom Bard – Frank McNally on the fictional Mr Dooley, whose thoughts were once required reading in the White House
Finley Peter Dunne first adopted the Hiberno-English patois in his newspaper columns as a defensive ruse, to confuse lawyers
Art Attack – Frank McNally on the dangers of passive exposure to art and culture
“Europe’s largest digital art screen” now occupies the front lawn of the Irish Museum of Modern Art
No-Ivy Day at the Committee Room - Frank McNally on an Oval Office mystery
Something is conspicuously missing
Old Mister Brenon - Frank McNally on a remarkable Dublin-born Hollywood director and his even more remarkable father
One judge was sufficiently impressed by Brenon snr to issue a backhanded compliment
Gnomes of Donegal - Frank McNally on William Allingham’s peculiar brand of Irishness
His verse revealed the temperament and spirit of Ireland
Trinity College Dublin celebrates renaming former Berkeley library after poet Eavan Boland
Trinity Chancellor Mary McAleese said move was part of dealing with ‘colonial legacies’
`Alas! I am very sorry to say/That ninety lives have been taken away' Frank McNally on the `famously bad' poet William McGonagall
A poet so bad, as the Book of Heroic Failures puts it, “he backed unwittingly into genius”.
Moore the Merrier - Frank McNally on the commemoration of a famous Irish garden party from 1902
Three hundred invited guests attended a party that seemed to capture the zeitgeist of a new Ireland
Ché sara, Sara – Frank McNally on a mysterious Irish beauty who turned Casanova’s head
It was a humble barmaid who made the deepest impression on the Italian adventurer