Barney Kiernan
10 results

Famous Fontenoy – Frank McNally on an overshadowed anniversary of the Irish Brigade’s finest hour
- Opinion
- May 12, 2020, 19:15
One of the latest non-events in this year of things not happening has been a commemoration of the 275th anniversary of the Battle of Fontenoy. The da(...)

Rounding up the rounds – Frank McNally on the rise and fall of Ireland’s short-lived Anti-Treating League
- Opinion
- April 21, 2020, 18:30
Temperance campaigners from a century ago could hardly have imagined the Ireland of April 2020, with its closed pubs and its many alcohol manufacturer(...)

Himself Portrait – Frank McNally on a quintessential Irish pronoun
- Opinion
- November 8, 2019, 18:30
Among its definitions of the pronoun “himself”, the Oxford Dictionary Online notes a usage traditional in these parts and meaning “a third person of s(...)

Rising from The Dead? Frank McNally on the fate of No 15 Usher’s Island
- Opinion
- November 1, 2019, 18:00
As someone who was a frequent visitor to No 15 Usher’s Island in the years when Brendan Kilty was heroically trying to keep it alive, I would love to (...)

Holy Orders – Frank McNally on biblical Joe Biden, James Joyce’s Dublin, and pubs with no beer
- Opinion
- May 10, 2019, 19:01
When a mock row broke out this week between Joe Biden and other US Democrats about which of them was most Irish, and one – Maryland congressman John D(...)

Yours Gaelicly – how modern hurling pucked off on the letters page of ‘The Irish Times’
- Opinion
- October 3, 2018, 18:20
Everybody knows that the GAA was founded in Hayes’s Hotel, Thurles, in 1884. Less well-known, although perhaps just as crucial, is a meeting that happ(...)

‘Ulysses’ as an Underground map: From Kidney Parade to Mollydount
- Culture
- June 16, 2018, 06:00
While he was holed up inside during the snow a few months ago, Senan Molony came up with a cunning plan, born of boredom. Among the more arcane side i(...)

Smoke and teroirs – An Irishman’s Diary about peat wine
- Opinion
- January 31, 2018, 00:01
The existence of something called “Irish Peat Wine” had somehow passed me by until I saw it mentioned on Twitter earlier this week. The tweete(...)

Turning a new leaf – An Irishman’s Diary on James Joyce’s Dublin and the language of trees
- Opinion
- July 7, 2017, 00:01
‘I think that I shall never see/A poem lovely as a tree”, wrote Joyce Kilmer. And he was probably right, since he died only a few years later, in the (...)

Running with the Joyceans – An Irishman’s Diary on the marathon that is ‘Ulysses’
- Opinion
- June 15, 2017, 00:01
Reading Ulysses, as I’ve been doing again lately after a lapse of years, is a bit like running the Dublin City Marathon. The book and race cover much (...)