Not From The Desk of Rory McCann…

I wasn’t sure where to put this.

I very nearly put it on my own website, but I have had two different women this year contact me on this topic after finding this site. I don’t want to keep having, starting, or whatever, these conversations here but at least for now, I guess this is where you will find them. And I’d love to see us fangirls all get on the same page as far as information. I mean, that’s a major reason I started this site at all.

So, the big question, in two parts:

Is Rory McCann really married?

and

How do you know?

Honestly, I don’t know why I even did the page about his love life. I was pretty sure I had answered this two-part question adequately there. It is very frustrating writing a thing only to have people become aware of it, not actually read it, and then ask you questions you already answered. If you have kids, you have experienced something like the verbal version of this phenomenon. If you don’t have kids, ask your mom. Be prepared for an ass-chewing. It’s coming.

But I also understand the holding out hope against all evidence to the contrary. He is a rather nice-looking man and quite the interesting person. And everyone did make a big deal out of him being single for a long, long time and, frankly, so did he. I think we all expected him to make an equally big deal out of finally finding someone. Never mind what a private person we all knew he was. We thought he’d make an exception just this once.

And before I go on, I want to step back a bit. Because if Rory is reading this, his probable next question would be, What business is it of yours, anyway? And a lot of other people — bystanders who scoff at celebrity fandom culture — often ask the same question, generally. I want to address this, because maybe the fandom interest in this situation will then make a lot more sense.

Basically, if I had to sum up what’s going on here, it would go like this: Most people are not cheating bastards.

Think about how you interact, or interacted when you were single, with someone you think you could develop an interest in. Almost immediately you want to know if they’re taken, right? You would like to know this so that you know whether you should let yourself develop that interest or whether you should halt that process and back off, keeping things platonic.

We’ve all faced this question at some time or another. Society understands this dilemma. It is why a person’s relationship status is generally not considered private information. Perhaps the partner’s identity might be. That you’re involved with someone, even if unnamed? No.

And I guess I should spell this out: Not being willing to divulge relationship status is borderline shady. I don’t want to put it that way, but there it is. Keeping that a secret is something cheaters do. Literally you could be the most ethical romantic partner in a thousand years and you will still look iffy if you can’t even admit you’re partnered. Looks more than a bit like you’re ashamed of them, too. Even though you probably aren’t.

People just want to know. It better defines their position in the universe relative to you and tells them where they can safely aim their Looking For Love energy. Or not aim it. Either way.

“But nobody has a shot with Rory McCann in the first place!”

Rory McCann is a man, not a god. In fact, as actors go, he’s fairly normal too. He came from a working-class background. He lived in normal society until quite recently. Hell, I’ve got a Facebook friend who used to see him around Glasgow, and she and I connected for a completely unrelated reason!

Shit, I had a very outside shot. No, stop laughing for a minute. His sister knows I exist. He very likely knows I exist. I am five years younger than he is. We’re weird in some very similar ways. If I were actually beautiful, things might have fallen out very differently. Life’s funny. You never know. But I’m a troll, so here we are.

And if I’d known in 2018 that he was seeing someone — or that he was married, depending on when that occurred — this site might not be here today. It is here now only because I already had the emotional investment put in and because my life had gone to shit by the time I found out for sure that he had a wife. I needed a thing to have fun with. A diversion. It’s harmless. It helped me some. I said I would keep this up until I wasn’t having fun with it anymore. I’ve kept my word. Go figure.

But I’ve got to say that in the past year and four months I’ve run into this Not Talking About Love thing AGAIN, and once again with a public figure I really liked, except this time I’ve met him in person and we’ve somewhat become friends. And I am tired of unpleasant surprises like this. Next time it happens I will be withdrawing immediately. I’m sorry but if you can’t tell me something this basic about yourself that actually affects how I should interact with you, then I can’t trust you. End of.

I don’t know if any of that inane babble has enlightened any of you on why some (or a lot) of us think about this topic at all, but I suppose it was worth a try. You’re welcome.

So. End (slight) digression. Now to answer the two-part question.

Is Rory McCann really married? Yes, unless I was blatantly lied to, or unless Rory is lying to people.

How do you know? I was in a Facebook direct-message conversation with a business owner who had had a face-to-face conversation with Rory, who informed this person that his (Rory’s) wife had set up his (Rory’s) Instagram for him.

I still have the conversation. It happened in early 2023. I have thought more than once about screenshotting it so I don’t lose it and then putting it here as part of the “chronicle,” but I’d censor the sender and then people would probably get weird with me. So, I haven’t up ’til now. Don’t know if I ever will.

I don’t care what any other fangirl has told you. Two degrees away from the big man trumps that. Next-best thing to being told by Rory himself. The end.

Latest fangirl to ask about this had specific questions about looks and such. I don’t think Mrs. McCann is famous at all, so I couldn’t say what she looks like. Does it matter? Rory seems reasonably happy with her. We were hearing about her as far back as late 2020. Five-ish years are a pretty good run for a married actor. Especially one who was more or less a confirmed bachelor for most of his life.

I will say it sounds like she was born in the ’80s, and that I am a bit weirded out by that, but that’s their affair. Unlike Rory’s marital status, it’s none of our business.

So there you go. I’m sure I will be asked about this again [sigh], but I’m trying.

[edit] I did not hear about Mrs. McCann having an eighties birth year from Business Owner. I heard it from a different source.

It has been a while since I titled one of these with something besides “administrivia.”

An interesting side-effect of me running this site is that once in a very great while, a complete stranger will email me. Not a big deal; I’m an easy find, on purpose. (I used to not be public about my identity, and then realized I didn’t give two shits.) You would be surprised how often it’s been someone with an actual connection to Rory, which has freaked me out more than a little, though that hasn’t happened in a long time. But sometimes it’s another fangirl (not meaning to be dismissive; I call myself a fangirl) who likes to go down internet rabbit holes about Rory, and then presents me her findings to bounce them off me and see what I think. It’s kind of fun. I used to search for stuff like that but damn, that’s been four or five years gone now — I’ve been in kind of a personal almost-life-and-death struggle more often than not. So it’s nice someone’s helping me out. I didn’t ask. They’re just being helpful.

I don’t mean they’re breaking into anything they don’t belong in. There are places where orphan news articles end up that mention Rory in some capacity. These articles used to be on the websites of the publications that first published them, but those publications have since removed the articles because they are old, so you have to look to archive sites and mirror sites to find them. I really wish publications would quit being assholes about this — you’re supposed to be papers of record, for fuck’s sake, and text files do not require much storage space — but, here we are. Unfortunately. So I’m glad anyone stored them at all, and this is why I store articles here too. The more repeats, the better. Anyway, that’s where people look. It’s no secret. It’s all public record.

There are other public records too. Again, no big secret. Just stuff.

I said all that to say this: I am pondering making a change to the bio section, specifically about Rory’s family. If I do that it will not be as a “gotcha,” it will just be to make a more complete record, because I do that here. I don’t want the rest of you getting the fucking vapors, getting offended, or whatever other negative thing you can come up with. Like I said, it’s public record already. Freely accessible. Hell, some of you have likely seen this stuff already and you thought it was supposed to be classified info so you don’t talk about it. That is your decision. I might make a different one.

But I gotta think about this some more, about whether it’s worth the drama. There will probably be drama. I’m really not up for that at the moment.

Let me get this out of the way, too: it’s nothing to do with his wife. I have reason to believe I recently learned her name and you will not see me announce it here or anywhere else. That’s a line I won’t cross. I don’t know if they have kids, but I wouldn’t name them either. This person I’m talking about is an adult male — someone older than Rory, in fact. FYI.

“What’s the vexing question?”

Just whether to update his bio with this new info. I might, I might not. I haven’t decided yet. No, this is not a ploy to get Rory to talk to me. (Let’s just get that out of the way right now.) I just want to make it clear that if I do add this info, it’s not to be an asshole and it wasn’t on a whim. I really did give it serious thought. That is all. Carry on.

Oh wow, I’ve been gone way too long.

Okay. Not really “gone.” Was here, just wasn’t updating.

Long story short, shit had gotten hairy. I’m still where I was, but there for a while I wasn’t real sure how things would go and I spent many weeks teetering on the edge of real hunger because a lot of what was keeping me going materially had dried up. It wasn’t from lack of trying to improve my situation but it was starting to look like nothing was going to work.

And finally I found a job. It is nothing earth-shattering but, based on the number of times I saw a job listing for this on Indeed before I finally applied because there wasn’t anything that would have kept me from working any days asked, they needed me at least as much as I needed them. It’s nice when it works out that way.

It’s not meant to be permanent. I’ll stay in the current employment situation as long as I have to in order to get to the next phase — there are phases now; I finally have a game plan — but I intend to move on to something else at some point. I’ll know when it’s time.

In the meantime, here is a recent Rory for you!

Well. It’s recent from my POV. Possibly also yours, but it wouldn’t surprise me if you’ve seen it on Instagram already. It seems Mr. McCann has entered into some sort of partnership with an outfit (no pun intended) called Slanj Kilts, which has apparently decided to diversify into whisky-making somehow. And as we fangirls are marvelously aware, if there are two things Rory loves in this world besides Mrs. McCann and his mum, those are kilts and whisky. Thus.

I was given to understand Rory likes the peaty whiskies, or at least he loves two of them that I’m aware of — but apparently, this one’s not peaty. I’m mad curious to try it. Perhaps one of these days.

Anyway. Have fun. If this wasn’t on Instagram before, it will turn up there now. (Big man has not shared it himself.) I still find stuff there from my old screenshots and stuff. On Pinterest too. It’s a nice little walk down memory lane.

I had meant to be a good little fangirl and wish Rory a happy birthday on the day of, but I’ve got all manner of stuff going on that isn’t usually going on in my day-to-day, and the minute you throw me off my daily routine, I start forgetting things left and right. I did post about it on Facebook, but I get on Facebook daily. I don’t write here daily. Therein lies the problem.

Anyway, happy birthday, big man! Hope you had a great time.

Similarly I’ve got all kinds of shit to do today, but I wanted to pop in here real quick because I got this in the Google Alerts and thought it was funny so I am passing it on to you: Apparently, we’re seeing another wolf reference in Rory’s life and career. You may have seen from his bio on this site that McCann means “son of wolf cub,” right? And then there was the whole House Clegane saving the girls of House Stark thing. Here we go again with the lupine references. And I don’t mean the flowers.

That’s okay. My life’s pretty much wall-to-wall with the big dogs and the caniforms; I live with three Great Pyrenees (and am dogsitting at present until the middle of next week), and I see black bears around here a lot. And to think I identify as a cat person…

I just want you all to know that when you search the name Sandor Clegane on Amazon (USA store), this turns up in the search results.

A panini press. A grilled-sandwich squisher. A toastie-maker. And this was NOT the first one I saw in these exact search results. Third or fourth actually?

I wanna know what smartass at Amazon algorithmed this one. I wanna shake his hand.

Like, five of you are outraged right now. Look. Rory’s gonna laugh too. Don’t believe me? Show it to him.

I’m giggling just thinking about him giggling. This has totally made my night. (I’m up late, not up early.)

Happy March Equinox! Spring for probably most of you reading, fall for the Southern Hemisphere.

First up, a recent interview with Rory, just ’cause we all love to hear his voice:

He’s righter than he knows. It’s not just a matter of scenery or of the Scottish economy. If you know enough about Scotland, there is a whole treasury of Scotland references in the A Song of Ice and Fire novels. Or I dunno, Rory probably knows that. He’s not one to show off his brains, but he’s a smart fella. I once hoped to compile a list of ASOIAF/GOT Scotland references for another site I was keeping, but during my worst poverty I lost that domain. I have another one I can stick it on, though. It’d be fun.

Next up. I wanted to let you know that I’m moving this site’s domain name again. There’s a sale on with .com domains for new registrations at my current hosting service. This wasn’t a new registration but I still got half off. I thought, “fuck it,” you know? I will have three more domains after this to move and I’ll probably do that later this week if I don’t forget. But ANYWAY, there may be a blip in site availability as they switch over. Past experience tells me that if there is one, it won’t last long, but I’m going to warn you anyway ’cause I’m nice like that.

And obviously, at that point it’ll be paid up for the following year, too. So that’ll be out of the way and no more drama for a while. Yay!

I haven’t forgotten Rory, this site, or y’all. Some things are better in my life, some I wish I could change, and basically just the whole past three and a half years has taken the wind out of my sails, and my mother’s passing last December didn’t help. (I have gotten particularly useless, except for the odd jobs I do around here, ever since then. Didn’t feel hugely sad, just went numb and got stuck. Same thing really, I guess.) I am currently planning a way to redirect my energy and make sure I get more done. This time in NorCal was never meant to be a final stop, unless the universe suddenly makes it one. It’s a way station, and I need to be making plans to move on at some point. I know where I’m going. You probably do too. (Not Scotland. Unless they develop a digital-nomad visa?) I just can’t do it YET. Got work to do.

Also got work to do here. As I allocate my time, that’ll include time spent here. Looooong overdue. Massive apologies that this place has gone stagnant. (Sorry, Rory!) I need to consolidate some more material at the very LEAST.

Sorry for my long silence here. I’ve been neglecting a whole bunch of stuff I shouldn’t be, one item of which I’m actually getting paid for, and I’m fairly disgusted with myself but hopefully I’m coming out the other side of it and can get on with things.

I wanted to drop in and say something because I just got the news about Denzil Meyrick today.

If you’re going “what’s that got to do with Rory?” then you’re new to the fandom, right? Meyrick wrote/ was writing a series of crime novels about a character named Jim Daley, a police officer in Scotland, and in recent years had been working on bringing DCI Daley to television. He posted on Facebook wondering aloud who his fans would want to see in the role, and they put him onto Rory as a candidate. Last I heard there had been filming of the pilot episode but I’ve heard nothing beyond that. The way TV works, the creators will put together the pilot episode and then shop it around to various networks and maybe it’ll get picked up and maybe it won’t. Rory’s already featured in at least one TV series that didn’t get picked up. You may have seen the video of the ad for it on YouTube.

I don’t know if that will be the fate of the DCI Daley series. It could go either way, really, if the decision has not already been made; they could say, “Oh, Meyrick has passed away so let’s drop this because it won’t be the same without him,” or they could say, “Oh no, Meyrick has passed away so let’s make this happen in his honor.” We’ll just have to wait and see.

One thing’s for sure: the news doesn’t say (as far as I’ve seen) what took Meyrick from us, but he didn’t see it coming. His recent Facebook posts indicate he expected to have a full year. There will be one more DCI Daley novel coming out this summer, apparently, for instance. All I can think is it was one of those things that tends to take us middle-aged people off when we least expect it. I always say that from ages forty to sixty we’re really running a deadly gauntlet and if we can make it to sixty we’ll be okay for a while yet. I am sorry for Denzil’s family, friends, and fans that that was not the case for him.