Affairs of the Nation

Leo Varadkar

Affairs of the Nation

LEO VARADKAR’S PR DANGER

WITH exquisite irony Leo Varadkar has managed to turn a concerted PR initiative into a PR disaster with the distinct image now emerging of a Taoiseach obsessed with style rather... Read more »
Tomas O Ruairc

Affairs of the Nation

TOUGH LESSONS FOR TEACHING COUNCIL

FUN AND GAMES at the Teaching Council of Ireland (TCI) where the chief executive’s reappointment has caused ructions and has led to the chairman stepping down. Tomás Ó Ruairc was... Read more »
Pearse Phelan

Affairs of the Nation

Pearse Phelan’s prescription

THE LIQUIDATION of the Fitzwilliam Private Clinic Ltd has just been completed and it turns out there is not a cent for the unsecured creditors, who were owed around €½m.... Read more »

Affairs of the Nation

Niall O'Connor

Affairs of the Nation

Niall O’Connor’s political bombshell

JUNIOR finance minister Patrick O’Donovan is still wiping egg off his face after his blunder in naming the IRA as perpetrators of the Dublin-Monaghan bombing. But did Irish Independent political... Read more »
Fiona McLoughlin Healy

Affairs of the Nation

FINE GAEL’S TRANSPARENCY ROW

THE Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has launched an inquiry into the procurement of contracts at the Kildare and Wicklow Education and Training Board (KWETB) following an audit of its... Read more »
WB Yeats

Affairs of the Nation

The Yeats Family Collection

NEXT WEEK, over 200 items from the Yeats Family Collection will go on display at Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin before being shipped to London for the Sotheby’s auction that... Read more »

Pillars of Society

Fintan O'Toole

Pillars of Society

Profile: Fintan O’Toole

IRISH Times writer Fintan O’Toole is regarded as the media’s pre-eminent political intellectual and literary critic. Globally he is certainly the best known Irish... Read more »

The Young Bloods

Frankie Gaffney

The Young Bloods

Young Blood: Frankie Gaffney

IS NOVELIST and academic Frankie Gaffney (36) his own worst enemy? Recently landing himself in the centre of a high profile and toxic row... Read more »

Fit to Print?

Liam Kavanagh

Fit to Print?

WHO WILL BUY ‘IRISH EXAMINER’?

THE Sunday Business Post’s recent report that a bid by The Irish Times Ltd to buy the Irish Examiner is virtually a done deal indicates that Post owners Key Capital... Read more »
John Burns

Fit to Print?

John Burns’s Hard Neck

IS Sunday Times associate editor John Burns beyond embarrassment? Just a wet week or so after ST columnist Kevin Myers – whose outpourings he used to edit – was defenestrated... Read more »
Christy Loftus

Fit to Print?

RINGER’S WESTERN SPIN

MINSTER for Rural Development Michael Ring is at least as conscious of PR and media manipulation as his new boss, Leo Varadkar, and his latest appointments to the Western Development... Read more »

Last Refuge

Regina Doherty

Last Refuge

CABINET PENSION CALCULATIONS

THE delicate political calculations about when Leo Varadkar might call the next general election will be determined by a number of fluctuating circumstances – the budget, the polls, the opposition’s... Read more »
Mary Hanafin

Last Refuge

Mary Hanafin’s last shot

THE mother of all Fianna Fáil faction fights is gearing up in Dún Laoghaire where ex-minister, now humble councillor, Mary Hanafin, is preparing to run in her sixth general election... Read more »
Roisin Shortall

Last Refuge

SOC DEMS ‘NO’ TO LABOUR

THAT recent two fingers from the Social Democrats to the Labour Party’s pleas for unity was especially hostile and was accompanied by withering denunciation of Labour’s record and its current... Read more »
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Last Refuge

UKIP’s Anne Marie Waters

A PECULIAR spin-off of Brexit has been the implosion of UKIP, the militant Little Englander group that now sees Irish woman Anne Marie Waters bidding for its leadership. But Anne... Read more »

Hush Hush

Theresa May

Hush Hush

BRITISH AGENTS IN IRELAND

THE meeting in the European Parliament hosted by Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan this week about the activities of British undercover police in Ireland and across Europe is partly an... Read more »
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Hush Hush

TJ McINTYRE’S SETBACK

WHILE the ID cards issue has pushed the State’s use (or misuse) of personal data to the front pages in recent weeks, the overall matter of data retention by the... Read more »

Bird's Eye View

Simon Coveney

Bird's Eye View

COVENEY BOWS TO THE DUP

SIMON COVENEY was in Belfast on Tuesday listening to the local parties to assess whether there was any point in convening a new round of talks. It was another opportunity... Read more »

Wigs on the Green

Ken Murphy

Wigs on the Green

BIG TOBACCO, BIG LEGAL THREATS

IT will be interesting to see if Big Tobacco now proceeds to carry out its threats of shock and awe legal action against the government when plain packaging legislation takes... Read more »

Foreign Frolics

Destruction of Mosul

Foreign Frolics

THE DAESH STORY IS NOT ENDING

By Ramzy Baroud IRAQ’S second largest city, Mosul, has been reduced to rubble. It has been finally conquered, snatched back from the notorious group, Daesh, after months of merciless bombardment... Read more »

The Hot Air Brigade

Laura Kennedy

The Hot Air Brigade

The Hot Air Brigade

I as a philosopher am qualified to say that her argument isn’t well reasoned. Tweet by Irish Times scribe and “philosopher” Laura Kennedy Mr Buckley who ran the AGM with... Read more »

High Society

High Society

Pat Doherty

High Society

PAT DOHERTY’S PAINTINGS

WHILE PROPERTY developer Pat Doherty is probably best known for his ambitious Titanic Quarter scheme in Belfast and for being one of Nama’s biggest... Read more »

High Society

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High Society

Paddy McKillen’s Hotel Headache

BAD NEWS for Irish entrepreneur Paddy McKillen whose involvement with the Qatari-owned Maybourne hotel group in London (made up of Claridge’s, the Berkeley and... Read more »

High Society

Noella Beaumont

High Society

TAX RELIEF AT HARRISTOWN DEMESNE

LAST WEEKEND the Sunday Business Post published a feature, “Houses fit for the sport of Kings”, that examined the stud farm market in Ireland in light of the recent €8m... Read more »

Behind the Scenes

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Behind the Scenes

HUNT ON AT the HUNT MUSEUM

AT LONG last, the job of director of the Hunt Museum in Limerick has been advertised (in the Limerick Leader). This process has somehow taken 15 months to put in... Read more »
Breege O'Donoghue

Behind the Scenes

NEW FACES AT CRAFTS COUNCIL

THE MINISTER for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Frances Fitzgerald, has just appointed two new members to the board of the Design and Crafts Council of Ireland (DCCI). The two new... Read more »
Morgan O'Sullivan

Behind the Scenes

MORGAN O’SULLIVAN’S GERMAN PROBLEM

THE PUBLICATION of the 2016 accounts for Octagon Films Ltd reminded Goldhawk of the ongoing legal tango in the Four Goldmines between Octagon directors Morgan O’Sullivan and James Flynn, and... Read more »

Sport of Kings

Sean Doyle

Sport of Kings

SEAN DOYLE’S BIG SPENDING

WEXFORD TRAINER Sean “Farmer” Doyle is back in the crosshairs of the Turf Club team of inspectors following a routine inspection carried out in February that has lead to the... Read more »
Sean Mulryan

Sport of Kings

SEAN MULRYAN’S SECOND ROUND

SEAN MULRYAN’S tentative move back into racehorse ownership has got off to a positive start. His City Ballerina, which runs in the colours of Mulryan’s wife, Bernardine, made a pleasing... Read more »
Music Box at Dundalk

Sport of Kings

BALLYDOYLE’S TROJAN WORKERS

WITH ALL the media focus on those overworked hapless grooms in Ballydoyle, it is perhaps surprising that nobody has mentioned any of the horses. Readers might spare a thought for... Read more »
Bryan Cooper

Sport of Kings

BRYAN COOPER’S DILEMMA

BRYAN COOPER is experiencing a bad run of luck that has seen him struggling badly to pick up rides. Will he cross the Irish Sea? In the last two weeks... Read more »

Reviews

TV3 Ireland's Got Talent

Reviews

SCHEDULES WAR – RTÉ v TV3

OUTDATED IDEAS, over-familiar faces and second-hand formats dominate the autumn schedules recently unveiled by RTÉ television and TV3. A shortage of fresh thinking is par for the course among domestic... Read more »
Married Quarters

Books

MARRIED QUARTERS – SHANE CONNAUGHTON (DOUBLEDAY IRELAND)

SET IN the fictional border town of Butlershill, this sequel to Connaughton’s 1989 short story collection, A Border Station, offers a revealing portrait of rural life in the late 1950s.... Read more »

Moneybags

Moneybags

Breon Corcoran

Moneybags

Paddy Power Betfair no sure thing

IN The Phoenix 20/5/2016 Moneybags warned that Paddy Power shares at €113 were trading on a pro forma p/e multiple of 50 – “a... Read more »

Moneybags

Ivan Menezes

Moneybags

Frothy Diageo shares set to go flat

SHARES IN Diageo are flying high following a nice bounce courtesy of the recently published June 2017 results. But the truth is, the lofty... Read more »

Brief Cases

David Ingram

Brief Cases

Stressful times for David Ingram

MORE on Galvanic Ltd, the intriguing Dublin company that successfully petitioned the High Court to appoint an examiner last month. Fans of Goldhawk will recall that the outfit makes a... Read more »
Trevor Daly

Brief Cases

Trevor Daly is Lovin the new gig

EXCITING times at Niall Harbison’s Lovin media group, which is set to expand operations by opening up franchises in some far-flung places. Maybe this means the struggling outfit – where... Read more »
Francesca McDonagh

Brief Cases

Francesca McDonagh’s headache

INTERESTING to see chief executive of Bank of Ireland Private Banking (BoIPB) Ltd Mark Cunningham announce his departure last week, just a month after the High Court ordered the merger... Read more »
Ian Hyland

Brief Cases

Ian Hyland ‘reaches out’

GOLDHAWK’s old pal Paddy Cosgrave popped up last week to announce part of the line-up for his next Lisbon Web Summit. Meanwhile Ian Hyland – the man trying to plug... Read more »
Doug Minihane

Brief Cases

Doug Minihane’s one-way ticket

SPARE a thought for the owners of Cork company Ticketscan Security Services (TSS) Ltd, which has just been put into liquidation. The principals here are listed as Cork businessmen Doug... Read more »
Chris Donoghue

Brief Cases

Spunout’s funding worries

THERE are rumblings of discontent coming from Spunout.ie after a former editorial staff member took to social media last week to complain about a recent round of redundancies at the... Read more »
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Brief Cases

Juice Store’s unhealthy numbers

GOLDHAWK spotted a troubling set of accounts recently filed by a company called The Organic Cold-Pressed Juice Company Ltd. This was the outfit behind Sinful Foods and the Juice Store... Read more »