Affairs of the Nation

Leo Varadkar

Affairs of the Nation

STANLEY AND ‘LEO D TORY’

WHY DID Fine Gael’s ever alert social media watchers not react with outrage in early June 2017 when Brian Stanley tweeted about “Leo d Tory” winning the Fine Gael leadership... Read more »
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Affairs of the Nation

SUSAN KIRBY’S EXHIBITION

THE NEW boss of the Screen Producers Ireland lobby group is former St Patrick’s Festival CEO Susan Kirby. There has, however, been no mention in media coverage of her attempt... Read more »
Roz Flanagan

Affairs of the Nation

ROZ FLANAGAN’S RESCUE PACKAGE

A COMPANY that was just placed in examinership to protect it from creditors turns out to be half-owned by Roz Flanagan of Dublin Housewives fame. Back in 2012, Roz made... Read more »

Affairs of the Nation

Trevor White

Affairs of the Nation

CLEVER TREVOR’S PAY PACKET

LIKE MOST cultural venues, The Little Museum of Dublin has been hit by the pandemic, which resulted in the St Stephen’s Green operation closing its doors for much of the... Read more »
Simon Coveney

Affairs of the Nation

PREPARING FOR EU ARMY

THE CHOREOGRAPHY towards the creation of an enhanced EU defence and security apparatus (one is not to call it an army; that would be alarmist) has culminated in a planned... Read more »
Frank Clarke

Affairs of the Nation

FRANK CLARKE’S SUCCESSOR

CHIEF JUSTICE Frank Clarke’s magnificent and munificent gesture in declining to accept his €5,200 pay increase has not impressed all his colleagues and a slew of jealous judges resent the... Read more »
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Affairs of the Nation

NICK ASHMORE’S LENDERS

The Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI), headed up by Nick Ashmore, was set up in 2014 to funnel hundreds of millions in low-cost moolah to middle-man lenders at a... Read more »
Michael Creed

Affairs of the Nation

FEED THE BIRDS

What could be more heart-warming than a fisherman sharing his catch with hungry penguins in a wildlife park forced to close due to Covid-19? Fota Wildlife Park in Cork has... Read more »
Carol Nolan

Affairs of the Nation

ABORTION: THE NEXT ROUND

SEVERAL OIREACHTAS members have banded together to form the Oireachtas Life and Dignity Group. Five Oireachtas members were present at the group’s launch this month, as the advance guard of... Read more »
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Affairs of the Nation

SANTA’S TESTERS

CONGRATULATIONS TO Dave Rock and his team at RocDoc, who managed to secure some top-notch PR in the Sindo earlier this month for the company’s Dublin Airport antigen ‘Lamp’ test... Read more »

Pillars of Society

Helen McEntee

Pillars of Society

PROFILE: HELEN MCENTEE

STRANGELY, THERE have been several ministers for justice appointed to that important position while still in their early 30s – Kevin O’Higgins and Des... Read more »

The Young Bloods

James Kavanagh

The Young Bloods

YOUNG BLOOD: JAMES ‘EXTRA’ KAVANAGH

IS SOCIAL media darling James Kavanagh taking audiences for granted with his Paris Hilton-lite excess and bombastic claims? Or is he a shrewd businessman... Read more »

Fit to Print?

Tommie Gorman

Fit to Print?

RTÉ TO POACH FROM BBC?

WILL RTÉ management be again forced to tap up a BBC journalist to staff their Belfast office given that its northern editor, Tommie Gorman, is due to retire next year?... Read more »
Padraig Conneely

Fit to Print?

GALWAY BAY LITIGATION

Galway 2020 must have breathed a sigh of relief when former Fine Gael councillor Pádraig Conneely decided not to run in the last local elections. The three times Galway city... Read more »
David McConnell

Fit to Print?

ROSE DEEGAN’S SONG

HOW REFRESHING to see the Christmas spirit pierce the normally po-faced publishing exterior of the Irish Times with a human-interest story that hopefully lifted the Covid/Brexit gloom this yuletide. Last... Read more »

Last Refuge

Brian Stanley

Last Refuge

BRIAN STANLEY’S FOES

INTERESTING to see that Fianna Fáil members on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) did not row in with abandon behind Fine Gael’s onslaught against Sinn Féin’s TD and PAC chair,... Read more »
Louise O'Reilly

Last Refuge

EXTRA DUBLIN DÁIL SEAT

ALL BETS are off in Dublin Fingal, where the five-seat constituency is likely to be divided into two three-seaters by the time of the next general election – barring an... Read more »
Janice Boylan Irish Military Mali Coolock Says No IFP Hermann Kelly Timmy Dooley Aontú Mal O’Hara Fintan O’Toole Josepha Madigan Eoghan Harris Ukraine War Micheál Martin Middle East Philip Ryan Seán Clancy Simon Coveney Hugo MacNeill Mountbatten Neasa Hourigan Green Party Martin NPT Ivana Bacik Independents Limerick Hospital Overcrowding Barry Cowen

Last Refuge

JENNIFER WHITMORE’S GREEN CONCERNS

IF SINN Féin stands accused of deliberately embarrassing the government parties with confidence motions and other tactics, Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore, party spokesperson on climate change and diversity, can... Read more »
Pippa Hackett

Last Refuge

CAN’T SEE THE GOOD FOR THE TREES

WHAT AN unusually flattering article the Irish Times published last weekend about the involvement of junior agriculture minister Senator Pippa Hackett in the planting of trees by Coillte Nature, “transforming... Read more »

Hush Hush

Judge Peter Smithwick

Hush Hush

ANOTHER IRA TRIBUNAL?

The Irish state’s ‘stab in the back’ collusion with the IRA is an old unionist hobby horse that should have been put up in the attic once political discourse had... Read more »
HushHush-def

Hush Hush

KINAHANS’ BELFAST LINKS

The Russian Makarov firearm, either as a handgun or rifle, is a signature weapon of the Kinahan cartel and has been linked to a series of Kinahan murders and arms... Read more »

Bog Cuttings

Bog-Cuttings-Defaul

Bog Cuttings

BOG CUTTINGS

Clueless Dealer Judge Helen Boyle heard the case of a young man who, having been caught with a large quantity of cannabis, turned up at the Garda station to be... Read more »

Fowl Emissions

Charlie McConalogue

Fowl Emissions

FISHY EU BUSINESS

“EU SUPERTRAWLER hell as dolphins killed!” screamed a Daily Express headline last week. The image of foreigners catching British fish and killing British dolphins is a potent one for the... Read more »
Climate Disinformation Coillte Climate Action EU Livestock NDC Claude Etchelamendy Ed Brophy Richard Boyd-Barrett Kish Dale Crammond Frank Mitloehner Shell Greenwashing Meta Data Centres Ireland

Fowl Emissions

METHANE MUMBO JUMBO

“Methane is a short life cycle gas.” This was just one of several flimsy arguments from IFA president Tim Cullinan that went unchallenged by Bryan Dobson in an interview on... Read more »

The Hot Air Brigade

Barry Cowen

The Hot Air Brigade

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Look at the adversity of Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali and many others like him who were on their backside a few times too – he got up and became world champion... Read more »

High Society

High Society

Samantha Leslie

High Society

SAMMY’S REVIEWS

SAMMY LESLIE, the chatelaine of Castle Leslie in Co Monaghan, is celebrating being chosen as one of the winners of the Good Hotel Guide... Read more »

High Society

Consuelo O’Connor

High Society

KIERAN WHITE’S €5,000

MICHAEL O’FLYNN’S property development outfit earned some positive publicity last week with the announcement of the winners of the inaugural O’Flynn Group Heritage Prize.... Read more »

High Society

Anne Heraty

High Society

ANNE HERATY’S BAD TIMING

THE AIR of scandal currently surrounding Gene Murtagh’s Kingspan must be generating a sense of déjà vu for the hapless Anne Heraty, the loaded founder of recruitment firm CPL Resources,... Read more »

Behind the Scenes

Niamh Smyth

Behind the Scenes

NIAMH SMYTH’S CAST

LAST WEEK Niamh Smyth’s Oireachtas media committee spent a couple of hours discussing the impact of Covid-19 on the film and TV production industry with Screen Ireland (SI) chief executive... Read more »
Susan Bergin Marlowe Mullingar Film Studio RTÉ Self-Employment

Behind the Scenes

ANN CLARKE’S TEST RESULTS

CONGRATULATIONS TO Anne Clarke, whose Landmark Productions outfit is co-producing the first theatrical ‘test’ live performances at the Abbey Theatre. Culture minister Catherine Martin announced the performances on Sunday and... Read more »

Sport of Kings

Michael O'Leary

Sport of Kings

MICK O’LEARY CASHES IN

MICK O’LEARY may not be happy with the number of passengers flying with Ryanair this year, but he should still be able to afford a decent sized Christmas turkey after... Read more »
Brendan Duke Adrian Murray Mick Bailey

Sport of Kings

PUNCHESTOWN BLUES

THICK FOG put Punchestown’s recent big meeting in jeopardy but the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board’s clerk of the course and Punchestown chief executive Conor O’Neill deemed the racing should go... Read more »
Brendan Duke Adrian Murray Mick Bailey

Sport of Kings

SARAH LYNAM’S FRUSTRATION

ALTHOUGH THEY represent one of the largest category of racehorse in training, it seems low grade sprint handicappers are getting a raw deal. The frustrating situation was flagged up by... Read more »

Reviews

Undernose Farm

Books

UNDERNOSE FARM – HARRY CROSBIE (THE LILLIPUT PRESS)

THE PAST year of lockdown has seen a surge in autobiographical fiction. This slim hardback book (90 pages) of short stories about Dublin life in the 1960s is rare auld... Read more »

Moneybags

Moneybags

Sean Corkery

Moneybags

DATALEX FACING REAL TURBULENCE IN 2021

IT IS difficult to know what is going on inside Datalex. The company was already in significant trouble due to accounting irregularities, only surviving... Read more »

Moneybags

Tony Smurfit

Moneybags

SMURFIT KAPPA’S VISION COSTLY FOR SHAREHOLDERS

ALMOST THREE years ago, Smurfit Kappa shareholders were presented with a takeover at €40 a share that was rejected out of hand by CEO... Read more »

Briefcases

Des Rogers

Briefcases

ROUGH SEAS FOR ROGERS BROTHERS

COMPANIES HOUSE in the UK has just served a compulsory strike-off notice on City Splash Tours UK Ltd, one of the entities in the sprawling group of companies controlled by... Read more »
Tom Higgins

Briefcases

TOM HIGGINS LOSES ALTITUDE

THE LONG wait for former Psychics Live phone-line operator Tom Higgins to blast into space looks set to continue for some time after Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic suffered yet another... Read more »
Luke Comer Ban

Briefcases

LUKE COMER’S LONG SHOT

A FEW months ago, Luke Comer wrote his name into the history books when his horse, He Knows No Fear, became the longest-priced winner on record ever in Ireland and... Read more »
Ross Desmond

Briefcases

DERMO’S SQUAD DEPTH

IT’S BEEN a tough period for fans of Celtic FC lately, resulting in a brighter spotlight being shone on the Kaiser, Dermot Desmond, and his sons – in particular young... Read more »
IPA Directory

Briefcases

DEADLY DIARY

THIS IS the time of year when Goldhawk gets his claws on the Institute of Public Administration’s indispensable annual Directory, jammed full of useful information about a whopping 9,000 public... Read more »