Article Category: Affairs of the Nation

NOEL KELLY’S GANG

August 27, 2020

WITH POOR Sean O’Rourke’s planned return to the airwaves scuppered by ‘Golfgate’, a prime Saturday lunchtime slot has just opened up on RTÉ... Read more »

THEO DORGAN’S ‘GREAT BOOK’

August 27, 2020

NO DOUBT University College Cork president Patrick O’Shea was delighted with the programme broadcast last week on RTÉ about the university’s acquisition of... Read more »

PATRICIA QUINN’S APPRAISAL

August 27, 2020

A CHARITY database fronted by Patricia Quinn is about to undergo an appraisal process that could end up with its funding being cut.... Read more »

LOBBYING AG SÉAMUS WOULFE

August 27, 2020

THE BELEAGUERED former attorney general, Séamus Woulfe, has been a long-time supporter of former climate action minister, Richard Bruton (as well as a... Read more »

STICKS AND STONES

August 27, 2020

IT HASN’T been the most auspicious start to a parliamentary career for new Green Party senator Róisín Garvey. “Fuck her,” the former Clare... Read more »

EXODUS CHAPTER 11

August 27, 2020

IF Colm McCann’s book, Apeirogon, wins the Booker Prize or even makes it on to the short list next month, the murmurings of... Read more »

THE GREENS AND MILITARISM

August 13, 2020

THE DEFENCE section in the programme for government is littered with references to Ireland’s military neutrality — five mentions in just over half... Read more »

FRANCESCA’S ‘LIVELINE’ LASHING

August 13, 2020

PRESUMABLY, THE chief executive of Bank of Ireland, Francesca McDonagh, knew she was in trouble when Joe Duffy dismissed her “blasé” comments about... Read more »

LYONS’S SHARE OF ASYLUM LOLLY

August 13, 2020

WHILE MUCH of the focus relating to the midlands lockdown has been on the meat plants, clusters in direct provision centres have also... Read more »

DAMN POLLS AND…

August 13, 2020

THE LATEST political poll – by Behaviour & Attitudes for the Sunday Times – was headlined, “Varadkar and Fine Gael soar in polls”.... Read more »

ARKINS VS ELEMENT

August 13, 2020

NEARLY A year ago – following a joint request by ICTU, SIPTU and the lobby group Screen Producers Ireland – an audit of... Read more »

HUMPHREYS CALLS IN THE TAXMAN

August 13, 2020

A RIVETING judgment emerged out of the High Court last month when Judge Richard Humphreys ruled that a food company, CGI Food Services,... Read more »

HUME/MALLON AXIS

August 13, 2020

MUCH HAS been made of the two ‘big beasts’ of the SDLP, John Hume and Seamus Mallon, both now dead, whose perseverance helped... Read more »

HUME’S PR PROCESS

August 13, 2020

JOHN HUME Jnr, a public relations and lobbying consultant, is hardly in the same line of business as his late father, to whom... Read more »

DERMOT DESMOND’S BUMPY RIDE

July 30, 2020

LAST YEAR’S crash-landing of Datalex – a company that supplies ticket-booking software to airlines around the world – was one of the more... Read more »

YATES, KENNY, COOPER RADIO WARS

July 30, 2020

NEWSTALK’S PROMOTIONAL blitz for its morning programme, The Pat Kenny Show, reached almost hysterical, OTT proportions recently, as it ramps up for what... Read more »

WOMEN BREACH LEGAL CITADEL

July 30, 2020

WHAT A restrained, non-triumphal article the Irish Times published about a victory for feminists – and indeed all women (if not exactly average,... Read more »

WILLIAM CAMPBELL’S PODCAST

July 30, 2020

A LITTLE-known podcaster attracted the attention of the super litigious Dermot Desmond recently, although the outcome may not have been exactly what the... Read more »

NIGERIAN BILLIONS

July 30, 2020

THE QUINN family – Adam and his late father, Michael – have enjoyed extremes of treatment at the hands of the Nigerian government.... Read more »

KINGSTOWN FACTION FIGHTS

July 30, 2020

SUCH HAS been the tumult in Dún Laoghaire Fine Gael in recent months that chairman of the constituency executive, Edward Kennedy, has decided... Read more »

FUNDING THE ‘YOUNG OFFENDERS’

July 30, 2020

THE HYPE machine was functioning in overdrive in the run-up to series three of Peter Foott’s mildly entertaining Young Offenders, which kicked off... Read more »

IAN BAILEY: DPP VS MEDIA

July 16, 2020

RALPH RIEGEL’S recently published book on the 1996 murder in west Cork of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, A Dream of Death, tries to... Read more »

DINNY’S BOYCOTT

July 16, 2020

MONEYBAGS Denis O’Brien has emerged as the Irish face of the Facebook advertising boycott put in place over claims that the social media... Read more »

AIDEN BURNS’S EXIT

July 16, 2020

IT HAS been heavy going for some of the horseracing bodies in the last couple of years, with scandals and expensive court cases... Read more »

THAT IRA FUNERAL

July 16, 2020

BOTH SIDES in the row about whether or not Sinn Féin breached Covid-19 regulations at IRA leader Bobby Storey’s funeral have avoided the... Read more »

RTÉ MUSICAL CHAIRS

July 16, 2020

CLAIRE BYRNE may not have been told she is to replace Sean O’Rourke as presenter of RTÉ Radio 1 morning show, Today with... Read more »

MEDIA COWERS BEFORE COWEN

July 16, 2020

WITH BARRY Cowen having been dumped out of Cabinet, it is interesting to look at the easy ride he got from most opposition... Read more »

ARMS TRIAL LIBELS AND APOLOGIES

July 16, 2020

EOGHAN HARRIS relies on two sources for his attempted rebuttal in the Sunday Independent of Michael Heney’s ground-breaking book, The Arms Crisis of... Read more »