[4] From 1917 to 1918, McNally also served as moderator of Boston College's Fulton Debate Society and in 1919 and 1920 he taught German.

McNally began work at Georgetown University with rather rudimentary equipment,[6] observing occultations and searching for Herschel's fields using a 12" equatorial visual refractor.

Thereafter, two 3" Ross-type astrographic cameras were added, and the focus of the Georgetown Observatory's research was on solar eclipses.

He participated in solar eclipse expeditions that were sponsored by the National Geographic Society in Siberia in 1936; in Canton Island in 1937; and in Patos, Brazil in 1940.

[2] Father McNally developed symptomatic coronary artery disease in 1952, and had the first of several myocardial infarcts (heart attacks).

McNally died on March 4, 1955, at the age of 64, in the midst of a project to organize a graduate program in physics at Georgetown.