Theirs was an old English surname, derived from proximity to cornfields or work as a harvester

Words that were doing a perfectly good job are suddenly deemed to need prefixes

I had to marvel briefly at its location, on a hilltop bog halfway between Charlestown and nowhere

A catalogue of 100 colourful expressions, myths, legends and sayings

Now it’s just a vestige of evolution, with no apparent function.

The Irish Times columnist reflects on farming roots, newsroom dramas, and the cost of nostalgia

Frank McNally on the Department of Social Welfare in Not Making Hay – The Life and Deadlines of a ‘Diary’ Farmer

Frank McNally’s new book, Not Making Hay, launched by presidential candidate Heather Humphreys

A full-blown bibliophile, the deceased was said to have had up to 100,000 volumes

If you go down to the woods: Frank McNally on a long, dark night of no soul in Stradbally

I am no wiser as to where the bicycle spent its long, lost weekend

He was in no doubt about where the blame for such bad taste lay

‘Sometimes the law takes a while to catch up’

A rather uninspired choice as Oxford University Press word of the year? Maybe not

The name Lucy shares its origins with the word lux, Latin for light, so it’s no coincidence her feast day coincides with the darkest time of the year

I just hope the ghost of Burton’s most famous non-customer has not entered an objection

The foundation sacrifice

Keeping the countryside open for walkers and other recreational users

Urban myth versus official version

Behind the scenes of a columnist’s work