Last Refuge Archives

Last Refuge

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

FF-FG PLAY OFF

April 7, 2022

SOME IN Fine Gael believe the real concern about the next election is not whether Sinn Féin seizes the reins of power but... 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 »

BEST-LAID PLANS OF FF AND FG

March 24, 2022

A FRETFUL Irish Times article last weekend reported (and appeared to agree) that government backbenchers believe the next election will be lost if... 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 »

Budget Jack Chambers Nicki Minaj B’Tselem Phil Hogan UCD IRTA DIGI Katy Brown Rory Godson Pallonji Mistry Shark Hanlon Frances Ruane Taste of Dublin Listowel Writers’ Week Paddy Curran Harvey Norman Anton Savage Paul Hourican Enda O’Coineen PfP Red C Poll IFTA Ben Gilroy Luke Comer Sue Spence Fingleton Aubrey McCarthy Matt Cooper Parker Green Danny McConnell Gayle Killilea Maura Derivan Ed Honohan INS Arts Council EDAF Emuse Rosslare Golf Club Mairead Casey Colm O’Rourke Stephen Connolly Peter Aiken John Malone Tom Barry Anthony Halpin Ian Kehoe Kevin Bakhurst Geraldine O’Leary Dennis Horgan RUSI Gareth McAllister Ryevale House Joe Macken RUC Omagh Patrick Connolly Paddy Cosgrave The Ditch Newstalk Fake Tan Fred Logue Ian Paisley Sean O’Riordan Margaret Sweeney Jay Bourke Ellie Kisyombe Francesca McDonagh Ted Cunningham National Space Centre An Irish Goodbye Oscar Robert Quirke Ciara Kelly Executive Women Gathering Doug Taylor Florian Haufe Robbie Henshaw Bill Shipsey Breaking the Silence L’Ecrivain Ronan McNally National Lottery Michael Roche Energy Action Balls.ie Newspapers VAT Abbey Theatre Patricia Madden Irish Banking Culture Board Randox Aoife Gallagher Book Dalai Lama Trinity Trevor White RTÉ Chairperson Shane Houlihan Noel Smyth IKC Bob Geldof Landlord Ireland Neutrality Ukraine

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 »

STATE PAPERS: JOHN BRUTON’S DIPLOMACY

January 13, 2022
IN ITS coverage of state papers released after 25 years, the Irish Times treatment of the then taoiseach John Bruton’s stewardship of the peace... Read more »

BLUESHIRTS PRESS PANIC BUTTON

December 16, 2021

THE BYELECTION in Dublin Bay South last July should have warned Leo Varadkar and Paschal Donohoe about the way things were going; not... Read more »

LEFT SPLINTER GROUP SPLINTERS

December 16, 2021

THE MAINSTAY for decades of the non-republican left in Ireland – north and south – was the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI), but... Read more »

‘IRISH TIMES’ Q&A POLL REBOUNDS

December 16, 2021

THE IRISH TIMES recently fought valiantly against President Higgins’s refusal to mark the anniversary of partition and also the results of its own... Read more »

FF’S PR BLITZ PAYS OFF

December 16, 2021

THE BIGGEST surprise in recent polls is not Sinn Féin’s ongoing surge but the reversal of positions between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil... Read more »

BIG PHIL AND VLAD TO MAKE UP?

December 2, 2021

THE PROPOSITION that Big Phil Hogan would be amenable to reconciliation with tánaiste and Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar, if the latter would... Read more »

REGINA DOHERTY’S COMEBACK

December 2, 2021

THE COMEBACK campaign of former minister Regina Doherty, who lost her Meath East seat at the last general election, has been revving up... Read more »

LABOUR’S PROSPECTS

December 2, 2021

HOW APPROPRIATE that ‘Austerity junkie’ Brendan Howlin, former public expenditure minister who damaged Labour’s credibility with its working-class base perhaps beyond repair, should... Read more »

NO DESSERT FOR BARRISTERS

December 2, 2021

FURTHER EVIDENCE that throwing money at government party Fine Gael is not only a waste of time but positively counterproductive comes with the... Read more »

FLANAGAN FEUDS WITH COVENEY

November 18, 2021

IT’S GETTING hard to track the number of criticisms that former foreign minister Charlie Flanagan has levelled at his successor Simon Coveney in... Read more »

ANNUAL 2021: GOVERNMENT – WHO BELIEVES THE POLLS?

November 18, 2021

2021 should have been the year that the somewhat artificial coalition – cobbled together to prevent rather than create a change of government... Read more »

Mary Lou McDonald won’t repeat the ‘too few candidates’ error of the last election, but the issue of potential coalition partners is a tricky one.

ANNUAL 2021: OPPOSITION – MARY LOU FOR TAOISEACH?

November 18, 2021

If 2020 was the year of the historic breakthrough for Sinn Féin, when it surpassed all other parties in terms of first preference... Read more »

ANNUAL 2021: LABOUR/INDEPENDENTS/TROTS – BOUTIQUE LEFT IS UNDER THREAT

November 18, 2021

As they strive for re-election, Ireland’s smaller parties and Independents face broadly two sorts of general election: there is the sleepy type of... Read more »