THE ELUSIVE McRIB is back – and fans are asking if it will make a return to Ireland.

It might not be the thing to show you at breakfast time but for some, the sandwich has inspired a cult-like following. This week, McDonald’s Corp has announced that the boneless barbecue pork sandwich, usually available in only a few stores at a time, will be sold at all US locations until 14 November.

Germany is the only place where it’s available all year round, but McDonald’s said the response was so great last November when it made the McRib available nationally for about three weeks that it decided to bring it back this year.

The company previously hadn’t sold the McRib nationally since 1994.

The sandwich was introduced in 1982 and has 500 calories and 26 grams of fat.

It has gathered quite the cult following – there are Facebook groups like “Bring Back the McRib!!!”, there are Twitter tags, and posts range from “Lucky me, the McRib is back” to “If you eat McRibs, you need to re-evaluate what it is you actually want in life.”

The McRib Locator website was set up by Alan Klein, who said he suspected something was up when traffic exploded from about 150 hits a day to about 4,000 in the past week or so, as more fans reported sightings.

Klein, a meteorologist in the Minneapolis area, runs the website in his spare time with help from his wife, Kimberly.

He created the Locator in 2008 because he wanted to learn how to use the Google Maps program for work, and because he had fond memories of eating the pork sandwich while growing up on a hog farm.

“We’ve been spoiled this year and last year with it being around nationwide,” he said. “But I hope it stays elusive because otherwise nobody will come to our website.”

If the McRib is so popular, why not just offer it all the time? McDonald’s likes to stoke the enthusiasm with an aura of transience.

“Bringing it back every so often adds to the excitement,” said Marta Fearon, McDonald’s US marketing director, who added that she’s not sure if the McRib will reappear in stores every autumn.

And how can it be called a McRib if it doesn’t have any bones? Said Fearon: “That gives it this quirky sense of humour.”