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Patrick Freyne

@patrickfreyne.bsky.social
9.6K followers 1K following 1.5K posts

Irish Times writer & author of OK, Let's Do Your Stupid Idea & now, out in June, Experts in a Dying Field. You can preorder here: linktr.ee/expertsinadyingfield

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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
One of them seduces her husband on camera because nothing says “love” like your wife’s camera crew getting in on the action. Other Girls get drunk and pretend to hump one another. They also have teensy French bulldogs who watch as they do this humping with the thousand-yard stare of Vietnam vets who have seen too much. If I can read the minds of these tiny dogs – and I believe I can – they’re thinking: “I am descended from the mighty wolf. I should be eating these people.” And also: “Please help me.”
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
TONIGHT in Annesley House the 1st El Diablo gig in 22 years. Free in and already sold out but donations to Brain Tumour Ireland are welcome www.justgiving.com/page/el-diablo (If you haven't a ticket and wish to come drop a DM in case other people can't make it). We still like exactly like this:
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
HEADLINING ELECTRIC PICNIC on Sunday (I assume) at 2 in the Manifesto tent (assumedly the biggest tent) with Sinéad Gleeson discussing Experts in a Dying Field. Excellent place to hide out form the rain and listen to me discuss the fictional band from my book
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Wrote about children's television www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-r...
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Was out "raving" at a thing at the weekend with lots of other middle aged people. Sent my friend a picture from the dance floor and he sent back this:
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
My column www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-r...
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Excellent picture captioning with my column this week:
Succession: Scrooge McDuck’s children Huey, Dewey and Louie. Photograph: Sky/HBO
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
In my column on my favourite rich freaks www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-r...
Bruce Wayne’s Ted Talk
Wayne [coughs]. “How does a billionaire process trauma and, at the same time, contribute to the city he loves?”

[From the audience: “Pay your fair share of taxes!”]

Wayne [annoyed). “The answer isn’t obvious.”

[From the audience: “It is!”]

Wayne [glaring at the audience and steepling his fingers in a show of power]. “After the brutal murder of my parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne, by the hoodlum Joe Chill, I knew I needed to do something.”

[From the audience: “Get therapy!”]Wayne [sticking a hand into his inside pocket and retrieving a batarang]. “Then it came to me: I would hone my body and mind into the ultimate weapon, so I could wage war on the criminal classes.”

[From the audience: “You mean ‘the poor’?”]

Wayne [throwing a batarang into the audience, which produces a thump and a cry of “Ow!”]. “But I also needed an image, a shtick, something to strike fear into the heart of Gotham. For criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot.”

[From the audience: “That hurt!”]

Wayne [ignoring this]. “I would become a bat. I would dress up in a rubber bat suit with ears and everything and hang out down the docks, getting into fights with addicts. I would become the Batman!”

[Round of applause, standing ovation, headlines in the newspapers: “Novel way of dealing with poverty. Wealth redistribution unnecessary”]
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
And Experts in a Dying Field was very kindly picked by @dorianlynskey.bsky.social as one of his summer recommendations in this article in the Nerve www.thenerve.news/p/best-summe...
Dorian Lynskey
Nerve theatre critic
The very funny Irish journalist Patrick Freyne’s debut novel, Experts in a Dying Field (Sandycove), is a fast-moving, unpredictable delight. Ostensibly about the survivors of an obscure 90s indie band, it’s full of twists and stylistic games: a chapter might take the form of an album review or an interview. Its combo of punk and postmodernism recalls Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad but has a charm of its own. I’m planning to pack The Director by Daniel Kehlmann (Riverrun), translated by Ross Benjamin. Shortlisted for the International Booker prize, Kehlmann’s novel audaciously reimagines the film director GW Pabst’s Faustian pact with the Nazis. I’m already a sucker for fiction based on historical figures, especially when Europeans do it. Throw in fascism, cinema and the price of complicity and I’m sold.
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
I'm in the guardian again this time talking about some books I liked recently (including @seamas.bsky.social's book despite the fact I HATE him) www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...
I’ve been binge-reading Tessa Hadley. Her most recent novella, The Party, is a beautifully old-fashioned coming-of-age novel about class and youthful aspiration. I also read Prestige Drama, the debut novel by Séamas O’Reilly. It’s a brilliantly angry, funny and cacophonous book about a fancy TV show being made about the Troubles in O’Reilly’s home county of Derry.

Both of these books are very short. I also enjoyed rereading Ulysses by James Joyce for a Bloomsday event. The trick is to 1) remember it’s very funny, and 2) don’t check the page count. I suspect it might be up to 300 pages long.

Experts in a Dying Field by Patrick Freyne is published by Penguin Sandycove. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
I wrote about Million Dollar Nannies www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-r...
Ibelieve the children are our future. And what I mean is that I believe the children in Million Dollar Nannies (Disney+) are our future because their multimillionaire parents can afford apocalypse bunkers.

Your less-wealthy children? Most will be cinders in the coming conflagration. The rest will be battling it out as savage marauders on the Fury Road. (The columnist looks ruefully at his thuggish nephews, who’ve had an early start with such behaviour.)

In the meantime, before rogue AI and climate change and Peter Thiel destroy civilisation, the best way to survive is to be employed as a servant to an oligarch. Then perhaps they will take you with them to their compound in New Zealand, where, please God, you’ll be able to murder them in your sleep and hoard all of their precious water, canned goods and crypto tokens.
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
And now I'm reminded of the woman in a homeless hostel who called me and Jack "Harry Potter and Hagrid" when we were interviewing her.
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Is this him?
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
is this him?
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Is this him?
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Is this him?
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Is this him?
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Is this him?
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
I am on the Brendan O'Connor show at around 12 discussing the "music of my life" in connection with my musical novel Experts in a Dying Field. God help us all.
Experts in a Dying Field cover featuring a golden fox
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
So THIS happened (Experts in a Dying Field is in shops from Thursday)
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Blindboy gave my book a plug and hit himself on the head with it in his most recent excellent podcast episode. I thanked him and he said:
"I enjoyed hitting myself with it" 
New blurb just dropped for Experts in a Dying Field (in shops from June 11th)
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
And this is the cover and you can buy it/preorder it from nice shops in Ireland and the UK here: linktr.ee/expertsinady...
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
My novel, Experts in a Dying Field, is OUT IN TWO WEEKS, June 11th. Here are some nice things people have said about it
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
In the past I have been FAR too sexy with my substantial column (ooh matron!) so I'm dialing it down in this examination of Rivals www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-r...
Due to the filth I wrote about sexy shows on the telly in last week’s column, the governors of the trust that oversees The Irish Times held a special meeting. They decided I was being far too sexy. They are now permitting me to write about the excellent Jilly Cooper adaptation Rivals (Disney+) only if I focus on the intricacies of local-television franchising in the 1980s and not “shenanigans”*, “tomfoolery”* or “high jinks”* (*riding, *riding and more *riding).

With this in mind they have suggested that I dispense with the “intimate” parts of Rivals in the first few paragraphs, just to get them out of the way. So here goes.

When a mummy, a daddy, a daddy’s business partner, a cigar-chomping business aristocrat, a morning-show presenter, a priapic MP, a sexy American ladyboss, a romance novelist, a simple young ingenue (much like myself) who is vulnerable to seduction (guilty as charged!), a polo team, several topless farmers and the actor Danny Dyer all love each other very much, they make luuurve.
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Look at this gorgeous, funny, moving, romantic book about bickering yet sexy soap writers by @urchinette.bsky.social It's in shops now and you should all go buy it from one of these great shops here: linktr.ee/LoveSceneAnn...
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
The finished copies of my novel Experts in a Dying Field also arrived this morning. The golden fox actually glitters!
Patrick Freyne's novel Experts in a Dying Field featuring a spiralling golden fox as the cover image
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Anna's excellent new book Love Scene in the window of Dubray Books on Grafton Street (she's launching it there tomorrow at 6.30!). Everyone should go out and buy it
Anna Carey's brilliant book Love Scene in a kind of pyramid display in the window of Dubray Books
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
this brilliant, funny and romantic book about sexy, bickering writers is by @urchinette and is published today. you should all go out now and buy it
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
I wrote about the most expensive telly ever. Key line: www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-r...
Or, even more importantly, how many slap-up meals and embroidered suits and tropical hideaways and vintage guitars would that buy for poor old Patrick, who works so hard and gets so little in return?
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Anna isn’t sure it’s appropriate to write about Freyne in this manner given that he is, in fact, my near 78 year old father. I think it’s fine
As a man of letters, dedicated to the life of the mind, I don’t know how I would manage without the help of my trusty groundskeeper, Freyne. Though getting on in years (78-ish – not sure if he has a birth cert) Freyne is an absolute treasure and friends are often asking me if they could borrow him. “Not a chance,” I say. “Get your own Freyne!”

It’s not like days of yore when the relationship between upstairs and downstairs was a cold and distant one. We have a friendly and informal relationship, Freyne and I. I often take him refreshments when he is, for example, powerhosing my drive or insulating my shed and I am taking a break from writing deep thoughts in my study. And when I do so, we chat about the affairs of the day and I survey my estate (a terraced former council house in north Dublin).
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
It's being covered by another "fictional" artist Rex Casey with his backing band the Inlaws. Here they are working on the song (I think one of them is the Irish songwriter and musician A Smyth)
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Under Irish law, if Dermot Bannon demands entry to your house, you have to let him. He has special constitutional powers, like the president or Bosco. It’s there in black and white: “The Irish nation hereby affirms its inalienable, indefeasible and sovereign right to choose its own form of government, to determine its relations with other nations, and to develop its life, political, economic and cultural, in accordance with its own genius and traditions. Also, Dermot Bannon can come into your house whenever he wants.”
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
I love how opinions I recall from being 17 are now getting into the opinion pages of fancy newspapers. This is what some of my friends who now have normal jobs used to say about rampaging through the cassette racks of HMV
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
Mr Beast
Ah, MrBeast and the way he might look at you, the big Easter Island head on him looming out at us from a social-media landing page. See him there, emoting like a fleshy emoji, his voice rising and falling as if in Auto-Tune, in a plastic mimicry of man. MrBeast basically answers the question: what if the YouTube algorithm had a head?

Regard that head. Regard his huge, slightly embarrassed rictus grin below a set of apple cheeks and a pair of glassy, expressionless eyes, all framed by the vague beige blur of his large, generic face. Your children know that face better than your own. He is their parasocial digital daddy, and they watch with nihilistic glee while, like a modern-day Sun King, he randomly launches money at the desperate victims of US economic policy.
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
As the Irish Times Young Person Correspondent, I have written about Euphoria www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-r...
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
I am totally Russian-dolling this now but here's the picture of Phil I drew as a "professional artist"
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
I started The Night Always Comes yesterday afternoon and finished it at 2 this morning. Willy Vlautin is very good
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
I wrote about "golf" and "food." I know a lot about golf www.irishtimes.com/food/2026/04...
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
This is my analysis of Made in Chelsea btw
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Reading Susan Orlean’s memoir Joyride and found a perfect example of how I expect to be treated at the Irish Times
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Sometimes I think the things I'm writing about aren't the things I'm writing about at all. Here's my review of Inside on Netflix (Also Last One Laughing and the Pitt) www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-r...
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
More from my personal manosphere: www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-r...
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Appalled that nobody stopped me putting this into the so-called "paper of record" (from my piece on my personal manosphere) www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-r...
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
Her own foray into the zine world is also very cool
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
Few and Far Between by @jancarsonwrites.bsky.social is fantastic, a very moving, strange alternative history, fantasy novel about burying/drowning the past. It’s out in april.
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
My column this week www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-r...
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Actually, this AI meme beloved of the UK far right and which is all over X is VERY "Aslan Partridge"
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
Planning to escape the rat race by selling the film rights to my master’s thesis. Bring on that passive income baby (to quote Cardew)
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
Hello UK based folks! You can PREORDER my novel Experts in a Dying Field in Waterstones this week WITH A 25% DISCOUNT using this code (FEB26) but only until Friday. It's a book about creativity, bands, grief, failure, aging & community (the fun stuff) out in June www.waterstones.com/book/experts...
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