Patrick's work spans a wide range of topics and genres, including science and technology, travel, culture, and history. He specializes in writing for a general audience about complex ideas and technologies, from communication infrastructures in developing nations to aerospace and biomedical engineering, neuropsychology, and biotechnology. His  feature articles have appeared in publications as wide-ranging as The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, Athletics Magazine, InFlight, University Affairs, The Concordia Magazine, The National Theatre School Magazine, and McGill News. 

With a client list that includes McGill University, as well as McGill Faculties of Engineering, Science, Dentistry and Medicine independently, Softimage, CN, Fido, Miriam Home and Services, the James Bay Cree Heath Board, the International Institute of Communications Development (The Hague, Holland), and the International Anthony Burgess Foundation (Manchester, UK), Patrick McDonagh has expertise across the public and private sectors.
 

He also recently published the book Idiocy: A Cultural History (Liverpool UP, 2008), which was reviewed in the Times Higher Education and has been nominated for the 2009 Quebec Writers' Federation's Mavis Gallant Award for Non-Fiction.