Affairs of the Nation Archives

AFFAIRS OF THE NATION

DREW HARRIS’S ‘ABUSE OF POWER’

June 18, 2020

THE ANNOUNCEMENT last November of yet another investigation into state collusion with loyalist murder gangs – this time the notorious Glenanne gang –... Read more »

SIMON STOKES’S PHOTO

June 18, 2020

GOLDHAWK SPOTTED High Court defamation proceedings lodged against the Mail on Sunday earlier this month by one Simon Stokes (no, not that one).... Read more »

TENI’S FUNDING

June 18, 2020

THANKS TO JK Rowling’s incendiary comments last week, the transgender debate got rather heated again, although here in Ireland the temperature remained relatively... Read more »

NPHET’S ACADEMIC MATTER

June 18, 2020

IT’S HARD to keep everyone happy and in the snippy world of academia this is doubly true. Goldhawk is hearing grumblings about UCD’s... Read more »

ADMIRAL HIGGINS

June 18, 2020

Gregg Bemis Jnr, American owner of the wreck of the Lusitania, (torpedoed by a German submarine off Kinsale in 1915), recently died aged... Read more »

EUGENIE HOUSTON’S NEW FRONT

June 18, 2020

AS IF barrister Eugenie Houston has not cost the Bar Council enough in recent times, she has just landed the esteemed legal eagles... Read more »

RORY GODSON AND THE PRINCESS

June 18, 2020

EMBATTLED BILLIONAIRE Isabel dos Santos – eldest daughter of the Angolan president of nearly 40 years, José Eduardo dos Santos – has hired... Read more »

DERMO TO THE RESCUE?

June 17, 2020

WITH THE hunt on for a new chief executive of the FAI, the first team players are coming in for some rough treatment... Read more »

FIANNA FÁIL FAILING

June 4, 2020

WHY IS the media closing its eyes and ears to the ongoing implosion of Fianna Fáil as its poll figures decline in inverse... Read more »

BARRY ENGLISH VS ‘IRISH TIMES’

June 4, 2020

HIGH COURT defamation proceedings have been initiated by Barry English (one of Bertie Ahern’s ‘dig-out’ buddies) against the Irish Times. Curiously, the case... Read more »

MEL GIBSON’S MOVIE BLUES

June 4, 2020

IT IS nearly a year since the Mel Gibson film The Professor and the Madman got a (very) limited release in the US... Read more »

SIMON COVENEY’S SILENCE

June 4, 2020

LAST MONTH, Nicolás Maduro’s security forces rounded up around 50 of those suspected of having participated in a botched attempt to capture the... Read more »

TRANSGENDER BODY’S MISSING AUDIT

June 4, 2020

WITH THE government preparing to simplify the process for 16 and 17 year olds to change gender, there is nothing simple about funding... Read more »

COVENEY’S SLEVEEN DIPLOMACY

June 4, 2020

ONE OF the most disingenuous speeches in the annals of diplomacy was delivered by our ambassador to the United Nations, Geraldine Byrne Nason,... Read more »

PASCHAL DONOHOE’S VACANCY

June 4, 2020

WHILE THERE has been an agreed truce regarding the filling of seats on assorted state-linked boards while the ‘caretaker’ government remains in situ,... Read more »

OLD ‘FRIENDS’ ARE BEST

June 4, 2020

FIFTY-ONE YEARS is a long time to wait for possible reversal of a miscarriage of justice. But whether or not 75-year-old Lt Donal... Read more »

MILEY’S €500 MILLION

June 4, 2020

JIM MILEY’S four-year stint as the Blueshirts’ general secretary (prior to outgoing gen sec Tom Curran) appears to count for little with the... Read more »

DR KEVIN CAHILL’S ACCUSER

June 4, 2020

A POTENTIALLY devastating scandal threatens one of the most distinguished Irish-American medics in generations, New York-based Dr Kevin Cahill. Cahill studied with Mother... Read more »

BLUESHIRT ELECTION PLOT

May 21, 2020

THAT Irish Times report about general election contingency preparations “by officials on the orders of minister for housing Eoghan Murphy” was revised in... Read more »

BARNSTORMING THE HIGH COURT

May 21, 2020

RETIRING HIGH Court president Justice Kelly’s successor will likely come from that set which for years staffed the upper echelons of the Law... Read more »

RORY MCILROY’S INVESTMENT

May 21, 2020

RORY MCILROY made headlines last week after saying in an interview that he wouldn’t play golf again with Donald Tump. He has also... Read more »

MBS AND MCD

May 21, 2020

THERE WERE glum faces earlier this month, including Denis Desmond’s, when MCD pulled the plug on the 2020 Electric Picnic. However, Goldhawk wonders... Read more »

TROUBLE BREWING FOR TRACING APP

May 21, 2020

THERE HAS been much talk by Paul Reid and the HSE about the proposed Covid-19 smartphone contact tracing app due out in the... Read more »

MANDARINS DEFEND NAMA

May 21, 2020

THE DEPARTMENT of Finance (DoF) went out to bat for Brendan McDonagh and Frank Daly (CEO and chair of Nama respectively), claiming that... Read more »

SPECIALISTS IN SPLITS

May 21, 2020

THE HIPPOCRATIC Oath brigade are a great bunch for splits and it looks like another has emerged in recent weeks. The 400 private-only... Read more »

AENGUS Ó SNODAIGH LEADS THE WAY

May 21, 2020

THE MORE ‘respectable’ political parties were recently made to look amateurish and even disrespectful of parliamentary procedure by Sinn Féin. At a virtual... Read more »

BOI SUPERWOMAN

May 21, 2020

Things seem to keep going from bad to worse for Bank of Ireland (BoI) boss Francesca McDonagh. Having spent days last week calming... Read more »

NURSING HOME CASH

May 21, 2020

INDEPENDENT CLARE TD Michael McNamara will have his work cut out running the new Oireachtas Covid-19 committee. Real teeth will be needed to... Read more »

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S APPALLING VISTA

May 7, 2020

THE REMARKABLE aspect of the current crisis in Fianna Fáil is the almost deafening silence, not just from senior politicians but the media,... Read more »

MICHAEL SOMERS AND THE LAWYERS

May 7, 2020

WITH THE state focused on the immediate impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the associated mounting costs, a new front was opened by... Read more »

ANNE HERATY’S REWARDS

May 7, 2020

INTERESTING to see that eager nurses who thought they would be recruited by the HSE when seeking to help fight the pandemic are... Read more »

FESTIVAL FEELS THE PAIN

May 7, 2020

WITH THE 61st Rose of Tralee hooley cancelled, it will be 2021 before the successor to Limerick’s Sinéad Flanagan is crowned. Given the... Read more »

TALES FROM THE FRONT

May 7, 2020

THE SOOTHING tones of the messages pumped out on the state broadcaster, reassuring employers that the government of Ireland has their backs in... Read more »

CONSULTANTS HOLD THE LINE

May 7, 2020

THE SUDDEN appearance of what looks like a single, public-only health service has come as a shock to the better-paid specialist doctors in... Read more »

LUCINDA TAKES ON LEFTIES

May 7, 2020

LAST MONTH Lucinda Creighton got back into her Renua ‘flat-tax’ mode with hysterical attacks on harmless Labourites, do-gooder Social Democrats and environment-loving Greens... Read more »

COMING AND GOING AT REHAB

May 7, 2020

THE PANDEMIC means that few – apart from regulators in HIQA and some funders in the Department of Health – have noticed the... Read more »