Article Category: Last Refuge

BOYD BARRETT AND CO FACING WIPE-OUT

October 31, 2019

IF SINN FÉIN is worried about dropping six or more of its 23 Dáil seats at the general election, the Trotskyist Solidarity/People Before... Read more »

EAMON RYAN’S MEDIA CRUSADE

October 16, 2019

WHO KNEW what champions of free speech and the media the main Dáil parties are, as exemplified by their leaders’ bold call to... Read more »

BLUESHIRT SURGERY IN SLIGO AND CAVAN

October 16, 2019

THE SPECTRE of former MEP Marian Harkin haunts Fine Gael in Sligo-Leitrim, where the already nervous party members believe that her possible entry... Read more »

FG’S PRODIGAL SON, FLANAGAN

October 16, 2019

GOD LOVES a trier and former Dublin North-East Fine Gael poll topper in the 2011 general election, Terence Flanagan, might well believe that... Read more »

SINN FÉIN DAMAGE LIMITATION

October 16, 2019

SINN FÉIN’S local election plunge to 9.5% from 16% in 2014 (and 13.9% in the 2016 general election) is far more significant than... Read more »

FF FRONTBENCH MEDICATION

October 3, 2019

MICHEÁL MARTIN will not be pleased to see the row between Willie O’Dea and the more ‘responsible’ Fianna Fáil frontbench members spilling over... Read more »

FG WHITEWASH IN BY-ELECTIONS?

October 3, 2019

LEO VARADKAR delivered a decidedly downbeat prediction for Fine Gael in the four upcoming by-elections – “only one of the seats is guaranteed”... Read more »

THE FIRST ITEM

October 3, 2019

INTERNECINE FEUDING within the far Left can be incomprehensible, but two things are clear about TD Paul Murphy’s apostasy and departure from the... Read more »

LABOUR’S ‘NEW GENERATION’

October 3, 2019

‘GENERATIONAL CHANGE’ is how the party has pitched the withdrawal of Labour’s Wicklow general election candidate, Jack O’Connor, with Cllr Paul O’Brien replacing... Read more »

COVETOUS COVENEY LURKS STILL

September 5, 2019

LAST WEEKEND Sunday Independent columnist Eoghan Harris tipped Simon ‘Covetous’ Coveney to take out Leo Varadkar as leader if Fine Gael loses the... Read more »

LEFT-RIGHT FIANNA FÁIL SPLIT

September 5, 2019

EVERY YEAR since the 2016 general election, Willie O’Dea has led a charge to bolster Fianna Fáil’s working-class base, with the parliamentary party... Read more »

POST DEASY CIVIL WAR

September 5, 2019

FRESH FROM feeding off the political carcass of local TD John Deasy, Waterford Blueshirts are now divided into three new factions behind the... Read more »

ISRAELI IRISH OFFENSIVE

August 22, 2019

THE ONSLAUGHT against alleged anti-semitism in Britain is driven by efforts to undermine Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership, while in Ireland the claim that... Read more »

BITCHIN’ BLUESHIRT BARRY

August 22, 2019

WITH ONE Young Fine Gael (YFG) leader, Killian Foley-Walsh, in a spot of bother about his attendance at a right-wing youth conference in... Read more »

LABOUR AND BIG TOBACCO

August 22, 2019

WHAT IS it about the Labour Party and Big Tobacco? Several leading Labour players down the years have been involved in lobbying and... Read more »

TIMMY DOOLEY’S DEMISE

August 8, 2019

TIMMY DOOLEY’S public dressing down by his boss, Micheál Martin, for his unpatriotic remarks on the Taoiseach as he confronted the old foe,... Read more »

JOAN BURTON’S LAST STAND

August 8, 2019

THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT was kind to former Labour leader, Joan Burton, in its recent front page splash about tens of thousands of pensioners... Read more »

JOSEPHA, SHANE, SHAY AND NEALE

August 8, 2019

SHAY BRENNAN’S win at the Fianna Fáil Dublin Rathdown convention last week is but a small step in the party’s seemingly hopeless quest... Read more »

MICHELLE’S MAYO MADNESS

July 25, 2019

FINE GAEL farming members, a mainstay of the party for generations, are not enamoured of their Galway West TD, the fragrant Hildegarde Naughton,... Read more »

CHOPPING MARIA BAILEY

July 25, 2019

FOLLOWING recent adverse developments, Maria Bailey has lost her role as chair of the Oireachtas Committee on Housing, but the axe could fall... Read more »

GENDER IMBALANCE IN CORK FG

July 25, 2019

LEO VARADKAR and Fine Gael general secretary Tom Curran have a serious gender problem in Cork City and County with not a single... Read more »

MARY LOU RESHUFFLES SF DÁIL TEAM

July 11, 2019

SINN FÉIN’S post-election revamp will see the restructure of various layers of the party, but already Mary Lou McDonald’s Dáil reshuffle involves a... Read more »

BLUESHIRTS BATTLE FOR TOP JOBS

July 11, 2019

THE BACK-room machinations by EU states’ leaders in the divvy up of EU top jobs last week were naïve child’s play compared to... Read more »

FINE GAEL BULLIES?

July 11, 2019

REPORTS OF bullying, racist remarks and persecution of female members in Meath East Fine Gael have led to an inquiry by the party’s... Read more »

VARADKAR TO BAIL OUT BAILEY?

June 27, 2019

LEO VARADKAR is again exhibiting a recently observed trait of indecision and prevarication, this time in the Maria Bailey ‘compo’ controversy. This characteristic... Read more »

BRENDAN AND RÓISÍN

June 27, 2019

STRATEGIC ARGUMENTS inside both the Labour Party and the Labour Party Mark II (aka the Social Democrats) concern not only whether to enter... Read more »

SOC DEMS TARGET EIGHT DÁIL SEATS

June 27, 2019

THE MEDIA’s new political love objects are the Greens, but the Soc Dems are also feeling some love, as illustrated by a recent... Read more »