Affairs of the Nation Archives

AFFAIRS OF THE NATION

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 »

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 »

DE RENZY’S RETURN

July 30, 2020

GOLDHAWK spotted one of his old friends is in the middle of a High Court spat with a Cayman Island company. The intriguing... 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 »

REPLYING TO EOGHAN HARRIS

July 30, 2020

BRIGHT, NEW, innovative etc Sunday Independent editor Alan English made much of the frightfully courageous decision to interview Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou... Read more »

MRS BROWN’S BUCKS

July 30, 2020

WHILE FUNNYMAN Brendan O’Carroll and his missus, Jennifer Gibney, are presumably being very careful when enduring their lockdown in sunny Florida – something... 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 »

DECLAN HAYES’S BIOTECH ROLE

July 16, 2020

A BIOTECH outfit is floating on the American NASDAQ stock exchange, which could earn a fair few bob for the Irish taxpayer. One... 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 »

THAR HE BLOWS

July 16, 2020

MATTHEW KENNY has been appointed the Irish representative for the US Whistleblower Aid organisation that is expanding overseas. The Dublin legal eagle is... Read more »

CONOR’S CAMPUS

July 16, 2020

THE APPLICATION by one Conor Harrington for 10-year planning permission for a new sprawling film and TV studio complex (sorry, “media campus”) on... Read more »

MICHAEL HEGARTY’S ADVENTURE

July 16, 2020

The sphincter-tightening sight of Red Guard-style humiliation of Micheál Martin’s old pal, agriculture minister Barry Cowen, for a four-year-old drink-driving transgression will not... Read more »

THE SHAFTING OF DARA CALLEARY

July 2, 2020

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S ruthless dispatch of Dara Calleary, his deputy leader and policy director (not to mention a long-time aspirant leader), was not something... Read more »

RTÉ’S SUNBURN

July 2, 2020

FANS of Irish property porn were left scratching their heads on April 6 when part two of the heavily promoted RTÉ series Burnt... Read more »

JOHN GORMLEY’S SCREENPLAY

July 2, 2020

ONE OF the more urgent decisions to be made by newbie arts and media minister Catherine Martin is whether the government should underwrite... Read more »

JED DOWLING’S HEADACHE

July 2, 2020

WHILE SOME party-poopers will have been happy enough that the overblown Dublin Pride Festival was relegated to virtual status last week, the company... Read more »

MARY IRVINE’S AGENDA

July 2, 2020

THERE WAS a sense of a new wind blowing through the personal injuries (PI) neighbourhood of the legal world when Mary Irvine got... Read more »

BLUESHIRTS’ MILITARY BLUSTER

July 2, 2020

ONE OF the more bizarre responses to the American police killing of George Floyd recently was a statement from Fine Gael’s five MEPs.... Read more »

THE MOUSE THAT ROARS

July 2, 2020

Leo Varadkar, foreign minister Simon Coveney and diplomats like our ambassador to the UN Geraldine Byrne Nason made much of our commitment to... Read more »

PATSY O’BRIEN’S PREDICAMENT

July 2, 2020

FACED WITH new national responsibilities, super junior minister Hildegarde Naughton will be anxious to see a local party issue resolved speedily given that... Read more »

EOGHAN MURPHY’S REHABILITATION

July 2, 2020

EOGHAN MURPHY’S Gethsemane is at an end, but it looks like he will have to wait a little longer than three days before... Read more »

MORGAN O’SULLIVAN’S HAPPY ENDING

July 2, 2020

THIS WEEK’S settlement of the long-running (ie expensive) legal spat between German movie producer Winni Hammacher and his fellow shareholders in Octagon Films... Read more »

COUGHLAN’S PALS

July 2, 2020

BURSTING WITH pride, TCD Professor Emeritus Anthony Coughlan has circulated widely the news of his life honorary membership of the Campaign for an... Read more »

GREEN PARTY HEAVE

June 18, 2020

PREVIOUS FORECASTS about the Green Party’s leadership contest were that Catherine Martin would win if party members rejected the government deal, while Eamon... Read more »

JOHN O’DONOGHUE’S LIBEL CASE

June 18, 2020

A RE-RUN of the 2009 public debate about the excessive expenses claims of the then Ceann Comhairle and former minister, John O’Donoghue, is... Read more »