Article Category: Last Refuge

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 »

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 »

VARADKAR: FOLLOW ME UP TO MALLOW

March 24, 2022

PREPARATIONS FOR the replacement of the Fine Gael Agriculture Affairs Group (FGAAG) (see The Phoenix, 25/2/22) have not been running smoothly. This is... Read more »

LABOUR AND SOC DEMS TO UNITE?

March 24, 2022

UNITY OF the left – or the Labour/Social Democrats part of the left – is highly prized by the former of these two... Read more »

PRINCESS IVANA TAKES THE CROWN

March 10, 2022

GOLDHAWK AS well as the few remaining old Labour types in the party were surprised at the omission of Ged Nash TD from... Read more »

BIG PHIL AND FINE GAEL’S NEXT LEADER

March 10, 2022

CONTRADICTORY POLL messages indicating that Simon Coveney is still the favourite to take the Fine Gael leadership will have surprised the media cognoscenti,... Read more »

LABOUR’S FEMINIST ALBATROSS

March 10, 2022

JUSTIFICATION FROM Alan Kelly’s assassins relied greatly on the view that the former minister’s role in government hung like an albatross around his... Read more »

FG’S ‘GENDERGATE’ PAY-OFF

March 10, 2022

IT IS indeed heartening for Goldhawk to know that senior Fine Gael persons not only read his scribblings but, from time to time,... Read more »

IS MARTIN’S REVIVAL FOR REAL?

February 24, 2022

‘IRISH TIMES’ readers could almost smell the strong odour of relief wafting from political editor Pat Leahy’s analysis of Micheál Martin’s apparent comeback... Read more »

TRINNERS LOVES INDEPENDENTS

February 24, 2022

ALMOST EVERY candidate in the Trinners (Dublin University) byelection is standing as an Independent but some are more Independent than others. While four... Read more »

FG MUCKS OUT FARMERS’ GROUP

February 24, 2022

A SIGN of Leo Varadkar’s fear at the decline of his party’s future election prospects came recently with an email from Vlad to... Read more »

CARROLL MACNEILL REVIVES FRIENDS OF ISRAEL CLUB

February 24, 2022

EFFORTS TO revive the cross-party oireachtas Friends of Israel group begin with an invitation to a pro-Israel speaker – who has served in... Read more »

CALLEARY TO BE REINSTATED?

February 10, 2022

THE APPARENT acceptance by media following the freeing of the Golfgate Four that former minister Dara Calleary could be reappointed to cabinet by... Read more »

COMRADES GREALISH AND MCDOWELL

February 10, 2022

IT WAS only right and fitting that Michael McDowell should travel west to tell Judge Mary Fahy to dismiss the ‘golfgate’ charges against... Read more »

GENDERGATE PANICS BLUESHIRTS

February 10, 2022

OH DEAR, Goldhawk’s predictions two years ago that a simmering row within Fine Gael over mandatory staff retirement at 65 would bubble over... Read more »

WHO WILL SF COALESCE WITH?

February 10, 2022

SUNDAY INDEPENDENT pundit Jody Corcoran appears to have given up at last on both Fianna Fáil and taoiseach, Micheál Martin in his latest... Read more »

‘CHE’ VARADKAR

January 27, 2022

FORMER FIANNA Fáil handler and Sunday Times columnist Gerry Howlin put it well at the weekend when calling Fine Gael under Leo Varadkar... Read more »

O’CALLAGHAN’S ELECTION MANIFESTO

January 27, 2022

JIM O’CALLAGHAN’S offering to Fianna Fáil’s commission on the party’s “aims and objectives” – the title says much about the party’s problems –... Read more »

SINN FÉIN APPEASES FIANNA FÁIL

January 27, 2022

IT HAS taken Micheál Martin, or should that read Leo Varadkar (with help from Simon Coveney), the best part of two years but... Read more »

MEATH MATTERS

January 27, 2022

WEXFORD COUNTY councillors may love their chief executive Tom Enright despite (or perhaps because of) him leaning heavily on the local radio station,... Read more »

IS PASCHAL RECONSIDERING?

January 13, 2022

THE CONCLUSION reached many months ago by many of his own Fine Gael colleagues is that finance minister Paschal Donohoe – and more... Read more »

REPUBLICAN BOWEL MOVEMENT

January 13, 2022

THE REACTION from Charlie Flanagan, Michael McGrath and Ged Nash to Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald’s remarks on a “constipated” civil service... Read more »

COMRADE MCCOURT

January 13, 2022

IRISH-AMERICAN BILLIONAIRE David McCourt is a master of spin and soft PR, but revelations in December about the murky corporate structure and questionable... Read more »