{"id":615287,"date":"2026-09-05T12:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T12:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/615287\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T12:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T12:20:09","slug":"frank-mcdonald-former-environment-editor-of-the-irish-times-dies-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/615287\/","title":{"rendered":"Frank McDonald,\u00a0former environment editor\u00a0of The Irish Times, dies \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frank McDonald \u2014 the former environment editor of The Irish Times<\/a>, author and campaigner \u2014 has died. He was 76.<\/p>\n

McDonald was born in Cabra, Dublin, and studied history and politics at University College Dublin before entering journalism.<\/p>\n

He initially worked for The Irish Press but left in 1979 to join The Irish Times where he spent the next 36 years of his career.<\/p>\n

McDonald became the newspaper\u2019s first environment correspondent in 1986 after a series of ground-breaking investigations into planning failures and dereliction in Dublin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His reporting on planning corruption was pioneering in Irish journalism, and he regularly reported from abroad on international climate negotiations.<\/p>\n

But he also maintained his deep interest in the built environment and Dublin\u2019s struggles to balance the demands for housing and transport with architectural conservation and heritage preservation. <\/p>\n

He was appointed environment editor in 2000 and was also a prolific author, writing or co-authoring eight books and contributing to academic publications on the subjects of urban planning, planning corruption, architecture and the history and possible futures of Dublin. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Frank McDonald obituary: campaigning journalist changed how we think about urban planningOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Frank McDonald: \u2018It took me years to accept who I am. I\u2019m still working on it\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He wrote his memoir, Truly Frank, in 2018, an account of his life and work in which he chronicled his experience of being gay in a country that for most of his life discriminated against people of his sexuality.<\/p>\n

Seamus Dooley, Irish secretary of the National Union of Journalists, described him as \u201ccommitted, dogged, and persistent\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am sorry to learn of the untimely death of Frank McDonald,\u201d he said. \u201cFrank was ferocious in his determination to hold those in power to account. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was committed, dogged and persistent in investigating poor planning and corruption. He was not afraid to ask difficult questions or to swim against the tide when he felt passionate about an issue. He leaves a remarkable legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2016, he married his partner of 40 years, Eamon Slater. The couple lived in Temple Bar in Dublin city centre for many years before settling in Blackrock on the city\u2019s south side in 2022. <\/p>\n

McDonald retired in 2015 but continued to contribute to The Irish Times and other publications and often appeared as a commentator in radio discussions. <\/p>\n

He also remained active in planning issues, one of his most recent concerns being the configuration of MetroLink.<\/p>\n

In particular, he was concerned about plans for a MetroLink station in St Stephen\u2019s Green, expressing fears for the park\u2019s integrity and heritage as a national monument.<\/p>\n

He died overnight at the Blackrock Clinic in Dublin after a short illness and is survived by his husband and partner of 50 years, Eamon Slater, two brothers and a sister, and a large circle of friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Frank McDonald \u2014 the former environment editor of The Irish Times, author and campaigner \u2014 has died. He…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":615288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[615,61,60,43,84498],"class_list":["post-615287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-dublin","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-the-irish-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}