Affairs of the Nation Archives

AFFAIRS OF THE NATION

NOELINE BLACKWELL’S WINDFALL

November 16, 2017

GOOD NEWS for chief executive Noeline Blackwell and her team at the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC). With funding for charitable bodies generally... Read more »

Come back Catherine

November 16, 2017

MEATH WEST’S Catherine Yore has not been welcomed by everyone in the local party. Yore was voted hottest candidate in the 2011 general... Read more »

HALLIGAN’S NORTH KOREAN LINKS

November 16, 2017

DESPITE saturation media coverage and general bafflement at John Halligan’s proposed mission to North Korea little attention has been paid to the close... Read more »

PADDY COSGRAVE’S TALES FROM THE CRYPT

November 16, 2017

SERIAL attention-seeker Paddy Cosgrave has a knack for pushing his luck. So it comes as little surprise that Goldhawk’s old pal has had... Read more »

LEO’S LITTLE HELPERS

November 16, 2017

LEO VARADKAR and his handler, Brian Murphy, had to make some delicate decisions on how to utilise the deputy leader and defeated contestant... Read more »

THE ‘INSPIRATION’ OF AODHAIN Ó RÍORDÁIN

November 16, 2017

“INSPIRED by an impassioned speech made in the Seanad by Aodhán Ó Ríordáin…” So begins an online video describing the dramatic emergence of... Read more »

Farrell’s Food

November 14, 2017

WHAT A surprise to see one of achingly trendy Dublin restaurateur John Farrell’s eateries on the wrong end of a judgment for a... Read more »

HALAWA: THE FRENCH CONNECTION

November 2, 2017

FOLLOWING Ibrahim Halawa’s release from a Cairo prison last week the government’s Strategic Communications Unit (SCU) and Iveagh House diplomats carried out a... Read more »

STUDIO SEQUELS

November 2, 2017

AFTER BUYING the defunct Galway Airport at Carnmore in June 2014, Galway city and county councils sought views, commissioned reports and generally agonised... Read more »

Kerry’s Hack

November 2, 2017

GER COLLERAN has been editor and managing director of the Irish Daily Star and was at various times tipped to be editor of... Read more »

Brian Kingham goes to court

November 2, 2017

WHAT A surprise to see the name of Brian Kingham surface as one of two parties (along with Blessington Sailing Club) taking a... Read more »

Lucy Gaffney’s selfie

November 2, 2017

US SINGER, record producer and all-round internet phenomenon DJ Khaled is a rather well-known character, at least among the yoof. But his popularity... Read more »

RORY GODSON’S ADVENTURES

November 2, 2017

WHAT an exciting, not to say dangerous, sequence of events Powerscourt PR boss Rory Godson endured last month in just 48 hours. On... Read more »

LYNSEY McGOVERN’S AMBITIONS

November 2, 2017

LAST MONTH, Lynsey McGovern, independent councillor in the Dún Laoghaire Rathdown constituency, tweeted: “Great to see real progress made in healthcare.” It was... Read more »

Demolition Job

November 2, 2017

A JUDGMENT mortgage has been registered against Slaneygio Ltd, a company controlled by some members of the wealthy Germaine family of Baltinglass, Co... Read more »

Denis O’Brien’s control problem

October 19, 2017

DENIS O’BRIEN and INM chairman Leslie Buckley still await the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) inquiry into Robert Pitt’s complaint... Read more »

INVESTIGATING THE REFUGEE COUNCIL

October 19, 2017

THE BOARD of the Irish Refugee Council (IRC) is involved in a spat with the European Commission over alleged “illegible” expenditure of grant... Read more »

NCAD Issues

October 19, 2017

AT LEAST the incoming Director of the National College of Art And Design, Sarah Glennie, won’t have to worry about the ridiculously overdue... Read more »

MUTINOUS NOISES BELOW DECK

October 19, 2017

THE Military Police Corps were mobilised recently on a special mission to identify the source of insubordinate and seditious sentiments from the ranks... Read more »

Catalan Tourism

October 19, 2017

THE Spanish Tourism Office in Ireland, oblivious perhaps to the political significance of some of their own leading artists, advertised last week “a... Read more »

WHO FEARS BORDER POLL?

October 19, 2017

WITH exquisite irony, the Irish government is running scared of a request by northern Unionist Raymond McCord to support his legal challenge to... Read more »

Miriam O’Callaghan’s ambitions

October 19, 2017

MONTROSE matriarch Miriam O’Callaghan will have been quietly thrilled at the vote by Fianna Fáil ard fheis delegates last weekend to run a... Read more »

Katie Ascough’s burrito blues

October 19, 2017

KATIE ASCOUGH, the under-fire president of UCD’s student union (SU) will face her public next week when students vote on whether or not... Read more »

BRIAN MCDONAGH’S DATA OVERLOAD

October 19, 2017

GOLDHAWK’S old pal, Brian McDonagh, didn’t come out too well of last week’s High Court ruling on the huge Apple data centre in... Read more »

ST. SUSAN’S HALO SLIPS

October 5, 2017

HOW comforting for the Fine Gael-led government that new chief justice, Frank Clarke, a strong Blueshirt down the years, should go some way... Read more »

BRENNAN EXITS IAA FOR €240,000 EU SLOT

October 5, 2017

WHILE MOST of the focus in relation to the Ryanair flight cancellation farce has been on Mick O’Leary and his airline, what about... Read more »

CINEMA PLOTS IN GALWAY

October 5, 2017

CHAPTER 15 of the Comptroller & Auditor General’s 2016 report, ‘Grant Funding of Galway’s Art House Cinema’, will not come as news to... Read more »

CIVIL WAR ON INISHBOFIN

October 5, 2017

MINISTER for Culchies, Ringer (aka minister for rural and community development, Michael Ring) along with culture and the Gaeltacht minister Heather Humphreys and... Read more »

CIARA KELLY’S COMPANY

October 5, 2017

THINGS ARE looking up for Ireland’s best known GP, Ciara ‘Operation Transformation’ Kelly, who is itching to take over from George Hook on... Read more »

Curious Obit

October 5, 2017

AN intriguing death notice in The Irish Times recently announced the death of Michael John de Clare Studdert (78), who died in Bishops... Read more »

POWER STRUGGLE DIVIDES HUMANISTS

October 5, 2017

THE Humanist Association of Ireland (HAI) has had various differences in the last few years as its membership has increased in this secular... Read more »

Nóirín O’Sullivan’s perfumed bullet

September 21, 2017

THE received wisdom purveyed by the ‘serious’ media is that garda commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan’s resignation was a ‘stroke of luck’ for Leo Varadkar... Read more »

WHERE IS BONO WHEN HE’S NEEDED?

September 21, 2017

WILL Bono pen another hymn to Myanmar leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, pilloried for standing over her government’s brutal persecution of the Rohingya... Read more »

AIR CORPS FAILS TO SHOW IN DONEGAL

September 21, 2017

DURING 2017, exceptional weather conditions have caused widespread destruction in many parts of the globe. In Donegal between 7-9pm on 22nd of August,... Read more »

GANLEYS GO TO COLLEGE

September 21, 2017

BUSINESSMAN Declan Ganley was barely off social media last week, sending numerous tweets about the George Hook situation at Newstalk, railing against the... Read more »

PAUL HOPKINS ON BRITISH AMERICAN

September 21, 2017

WHISTLEBLOWER Paul Hopkins, who learned his trade with the Irish Defence Forces, in particular, the elite, special forces Army Rangers Wing (ARW) has... Read more »