Barney Kiernan

10 results

A stamp jointly issued in 1995 by Ireland and Belgium to commemorate the Battle of Fontenoy on May 11th, 1745
Famous Fontenoy – Frank McNally on an overshadowed anniversary of the Irish Brigade’s finest hour

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(...)

“The St Patrick’s Anti-Treating League, a movement aimed not at making its members teetotal, but only at getting them to forswear the habit of buying or accepting rounds of drink.” Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
Rounding up the rounds – Frank McNally on the rise and fall of Ireland’s short-lived Anti-Treating League

Temperance campaigners from a century ago could hardly have imagined the Ireland of April 2020, with its closed pubs and its many alcohol manufacturer(...)

Gay Byrne was probably the last Irish broadcaster who could be routinely referred to by the term “himself”
Himself Portrait – Frank McNally on a quintessential Irish pronoun

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(...)

When hosting re-enactments of the Christmas dinner described in Joyce’s most famous short story, the former owner liked to tell guests they were in “the most important dining room in world literature”. Above, Brendan Kilty, John Sheahan, John Gallagher, Mark Lawler and Oisin Quinn. Photograph: David Sleator/The Irish Times
Rising from The Dead? Frank McNally on the fate of No 15 Usher’s Island

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 (...)

Joe Biden on the campaign trail in Los Angeles this week. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images
Holy Orders – Frank McNally on biblical Joe Biden, James Joyce’s Dublin, and pubs with no beer

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(...)

The exchange of letters is the starting point of ‘The Hurlers’, a fascinating new book by Paul Rouse about the origins of “the first All-Ireland Championship and the making of modern hurling”
Yours Gaelicly – how modern hurling pucked off on the letters page of ‘The Irish Times’

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(...)

The Hibernian Metropolis by Senan Moloney
‘Ulysses’ as an Underground map: From Kidney Parade to Mollydount

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(...)

A sizeable section of the internet, myself included, was googling Irish Peat Wine to learn what exactly it involved
Smoke and teroirs – An Irishman’s Diary about peat wine

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(...)

The Irish National Foresters on parade
Turning a new leaf – An Irishman’s Diary on James Joyce’s Dublin and the language of trees

‘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 (...)

Vladimir Nabokov’s map of ‘Ulysses’
Running with the Joyceans – An Irishman’s Diary on the marathon that is ‘Ulysses’

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 (...)