Last Refuge Archives

Last Refuge

DOGS THAT DIDN’T BARK

August 11, 2022

WHERE WERE the radical opposition parties when the Government let slip the dogs of war from among their favourite media servants against Sabina... Read more »

NORMA FOLEY’S SCHOOL RUN

August 11, 2022

While Government party leaders and whips worked frenetically to fend off a no-confidence vote just before the Dáil broke for its summer recess,... Read more »

MARTIN’S LOYAL MINISTERS

August 11, 2022

WHAT A curious story the Irish Mail on Sunday published last weekend, headlined “Martin’s loyalists hit back at rebels” and spread over the... Read more »

ANTI-MARTIN CAMP DIVIDES

July 28, 2022

IT’S NOT exactly a split but Micheál Martin will be pleased enough to detect a disagreement about tactics among those members of his... Read more »

Janice Boylan Irish Military Mali Coolock Says No IFP Hermann Kelly Timmy Dooley Aontú Mal O’Hara Fintan O’Toole Josepha Madigan Eoghan Harris Ukraine War Micheál Martin Middle East Philip Ryan Seán Clancy Simon Coveney Hugo MacNeill Mountbatten Neasa Hourigan Green Party Martin NPT Ivana Bacik Independents Limerick Hospital Overcrowding Barry Cowen

CATHAL CROWE’S PLANNING PROBLEM

July 28, 2022

FIANNA FÁIL TD, Cathal Crowe, a key member of the parliamentary party, is embroiled in a planning row over the construction of his... Read more »

FINE GAEL MOONLIGHTERS

July 28, 2022

LEO VARADKAR is incensed with those members of his parliamentary party that have followed the lead of TD, John Paul Phelan, in their... Read more »

MARTIN “DANCES ON LEMASS’S GRAVE”

July 28, 2022

MICHEÁL MARTIN would be foolish to dismiss the most concerted attack on any Taoiseach that has ever emanated from what is effectively the... Read more »

McCONALOGUE TAKES THE MICA

July 14, 2022

JOE McHUGH TD appears to be in the firing line of mica campaigners in his Donegal constituency given that he felt compelled to... Read more »

GEOGHEGAN COMEBACK

July 14, 2022

THE NOTION that James Geoghegan, model Fine Gael candidate and a barrister possessed of an unrivalled judicial pedigree, was going to walk off the... Read more »

RUNNERS AND RIDERS IN NAVAN

July 14, 2022

PARTY DISCIPLINE has gone out the window in both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael when it comes to Our Lady’s hospital in Navan.... Read more »

MARTIN FACES NEW REVOLT

July 14, 2022

JUST WHEN the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin thought things had finally quietened down in Fianna Fail another rising has broken out, and the occupation... Read more »

DON’T MENTION THE WAR!

June 30, 2022

THE MYSTERY surrounding Green Party policy on defence, security and — once that most cherished Green principle of all — neutrality, had, until... Read more »

FRIENDLY, PEACEFUL NATO

June 30, 2022

MANY PEOPLE will have heard of the splendidly titled ‘Nato Partnership for Peace’, which Ireland joined more than 20 years ago amid earnest... Read more »

DARRAGH O’BRIEN V. CLIFFORD LEE

June 30, 2022

THE FIRST signs of just how horrid supporters of current housing minister, Darragh O’Brien, were behaving towards Darragh’s ‘colleague’ and Fianna Fáil running... Read more »

COVENEY ABANDONS HIS CONSTITUENCY

June 16, 2022

FEVERISH SPECULATION about the future political intentions of Simon ‘Covetous’ Coveney, already rife, have greatly intensified due to not only the usual gossip... Read more »

CARDINAL RICHELIEU’S MISSUS

June 16, 2022
A RELATIVELY unknown Green Party councillor, Caroline Conroy, is set to become lord mayor of Dublin as a result of the deal struck with... Read more »

“PERSONAL ANTIPATHIES”

June 16, 2022

rise of Sinn Féin in the polls has unnerved many in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael but some of the more hard-nosed handlers... Read more »

‘NEGLIGENT BEHAVIOUR’

June 16, 2022

NO POLITICIAN in the current Dáil typifies how instant political success can sometimes be followed by rapid decline than Fine Gael’s Josepha Madigan... Read more »

POLLS: LEO V MARTIN AS MARY LOU RISES

June 2, 2022

THE STATISTIC that jumped off the Red C/Business Post page at the weekend was that showing Sinn Féin at 36%, up two points... Read more »

FG’S FACTION FIGHTS IN MEATH EAST

June 2, 2022

JUSTICE MINISTER Helen McEntee certainly came to her ministerial post well equipped with the knowledge of legal and other altercations in her Meath... Read more »

MICHEÁL’S BORDER POLL COYNESS: RICHMOND ET AL POUNCE

June 2, 2022

MUCH CONFUSION surrounds the political parties’ positions on the mooted issue of a border poll and, Fine Gael in particular, is playing a... Read more »

VLAD’S UNHAPPY CREW

June 2, 2022

MY, BUT what a coincidence – and one that will surely have been clocked by Leo Varadkar as well as leadership hopefuls, Simon... Read more »

VARADKAR FACES PARTY CRISIS

May 19, 2022

THE ROW over the maternity hospital has many fathers and chief among the suspects is a certain panic in the ranks of Fine... Read more »

WHITHER STEPHEN DONNELLY?

May 19, 2022

HEALTH MINISTER Stephen Donnelly has become a convenient target again in health controversies, this time at the national maternity hospital. The minister now... Read more »

FF-FG COALITION STRAINS

May 19, 2022

THE OUTRAGED accusations from Fianna Fáil TDs and ministers against alleged dirty tricks by their Fine Gael counterparts over the National Maternity Hospital... Read more »

BLUESHIRT KULAKS REGROUP

May 19, 2022

NOT SINCE Stalin massacred the Kulaks in the USSR did farmers receive such treatment as that meted out to the 11-year-old Fine Gael... Read more »

McENTEE’S SOFT FOCUS MEDIA PITCH

May 5, 2022

JUSTICE MINISTER and Fine Gael leadership aspirant Helen McEntee made a rather obvious sales pitch for the post in the Irish independent last... Read more »

VARADKAR, DPP AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST

May 5, 2022

WHAT A speedy riposte came from the Irish Times last week to the Sunday Independent’s unnerving front page story that said the DPP... Read more »

Micheál Martin Sinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald

COALITION SQUEEZE

May 5, 2022

RECENT POLLS have given some encouragement to Micheál Martin and Fianna Fáil as they draw much closer to Fine Gael. Although the latter... Read more »

ABOLITIONIST SENATOR SHARON KEOGAN

May 5, 2022

INDEPENDENT SENATOR Sharon Keogan is ‘provocative … speaks her mind … tells it like it is’ etc, but despite her feminist and left-wing... Read more »

‘I COME TO BURY NOT TO PRAISE TONY’

April 20, 2022

CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER (CMO) Tony Holohan was effectively buried by Micheál Martin when he ‘paused’ (shafted) his sweet deal at Trinity College Dublin.... Read more »

GALWAY BAY FM BLUES

April 20, 2022

STAFF AT Galway Bay FM and local members of Fine Gael will be hoping that things settle down following turmoil at the station... Read more »

CIAN O’CALLAGHAN V AODHÁN Ó RÍORDÁIN

April 20, 2022

NEW LABOUR leader Ivana Bacik’s dead cat bounce has not deterred Labour handlers from predicting seat gains that will double their complement of... Read more »

MICHAEL D HIGGINS’S NEUTRALITY WARNING TO GOVERNMENT

April 20, 2022

MESSRS MARTIN, Varadkar and Ryan cannot say they were not warned should there be open confrontation between them and President Higgins over neutrality... Read more »

MARTIN’S PACKED AGENDA

April 7, 2022

PAUL CLARKSON is turning out to be the most effective spin doctor that an taoiseach Micheál Martin could have hoped for. In particular... Read more »

‘UPPITY’ BOGUE ET AL VS CORK ‘BOYS’ CLUB’

April 7, 2022

THE CREATION of a women’s caucus on Cork City Council has not been greeted with enthusiasm by their male counterparts and the females... Read more »