Last Refuge Archives

Last Refuge

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 »

MOVING STATUES AND THE BIG FELLA

November 16, 2021

AN TAOISEACH Micheál Martin’s enthusiasm for the memory of Michael Collins, in particular his support for the erection of a statue commemorating the... Read more »

MARY LOU MCDONALD’S COALITION MUDGUARD

November 4, 2021

POLITICAL CORRESPONDENTS now appear to be in the final stages of grief and are moving from depression towards acceptance that Sinn Féin will... Read more »

NIGHTMARE ON MOUNT STREET

November 4, 2021

ESTABLISHMENT AND media fright at the latest spooky poll figures for Sinn Féin – its highest ever Red C figure at 33% –... Read more »

MILITANT IFA BALL BREAKERS

November 4, 2021

MILITANT FARMER Conor O’Leary, chairman of the IFA (Irish Farming Association) executive in Cork Central, is an articulate and colourful polemicist when agitating... Read more »

ISRAELI PR MACHINE RULES

November 4, 2021

WHAT A curious sequence of events and priorities manifested themselves last week in the abysmal reaction to events concerning Israel and Palestine. On... Read more »

PASCHAL DONOHOE’S CAREER CURVE

October 21, 2021

FINANCE MINISTER Paschal Donohoe is presumed, much like Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar, to be merely marking time before jumping ship to take... Read more »

McDOWELL EYES UP DÁIL — AGAIN

October 21, 2021

AN INTERESTING Irish Times column from Michael McDowell recently dwelled on the former PD leader, AG and justice minister’s obsessive dream of a... Read more »

ANTHONY COUGHLAN’S LATEST BROADSIDE

October 21, 2021

THE EU’S most formidable Irish opponent for half a century is Tony Coughlan, associate professor emeritus at TCD and long-time political campaigner. Five... Read more »

FF: PARTITION ROWS, SEAT BATTLES AND WHAT TO DO WITH MICHEÁL

October 21, 2021

THAT LIST of Fianna Fáil TDs noted in the Sunday Times as being opposed to the government sending ministers to mark the centenary... Read more »

AK47, THE LADY IVANA AND LEFT BATTLES

October 7, 2021

IT WILL be interesting to see just how much prominence Labour leader Alan ‘AK47’ Kelly affords the party’s Dublin Bay South byelection victor... Read more »

FLANAGAN BIFFS COVENEY — AGAIN

October 7, 2021

FINE GAEL ministers and especially Simon ‘Covetous’ Coveney were apoplectic at former foreign minister Charlie Flanagan’s recent remarks criticising the government’s handling of... Read more »

AG GALLAGHER IN AND OUT OF COURT

October 7, 2021

THE CURRENT allegation of a conflict of interest in attorney general Paul Gallagher’s work for a private client is not the first time... Read more »

CHU’S CHAIR: GREENS LOOK RIGHTWARD

October 7, 2021

THREE ISSUES highlighted in the media last week by Green party leader Eamon Ryan and Senator Pauline O’Reilly, among others in the leadership,... Read more »

KATE WRITES FOR HER SUPPER

September 23, 2021

WHAT A mature, non-contentious and carefully calibrated article former TD Kate O’Connell wrote for the Sunday Independent last weekend. In a piece that... Read more »

MARC EYES MICHEÁL … AND MARION

September 23, 2021

MARC MACSHARRY may have resigned the Fianna Fáil whip but he has not lost his penchant for the dramatic soundbite. Expounding on the... Read more »

GREENS’ DEFENCE NON-POLICY

September 23, 2021

MYSTERY SURROUNDS the Green party’s position on defence, neutrality and foreign policy despite the deliberations of a foreign policy and security group for... Read more »

LEO VARADKAR’S AGENDA

September 9, 2021

FINE GAEL is not as convulsed with incipient leadership rumours, plots and heaves as is Fianna Fáil, but everybody knows that Leo Varadkar’s... Read more »

BUS PLAN (DIS) CONNECTS

September 9, 2021

DUBLIN BUS management will have been gratified to learn that the rhetoric from Dublin Bus union leaders about the “gutter based opposition” to... Read more »

MICHEÁL MARTIN AND PLAYING BOTH SIDES

September 9, 2021

WITH SPECULATION about a Fianna Fáil leadership heave almost a constant since the general election, party TDs as well as contenders would do... Read more »

COLLUSION ONCE AGAIN

September 9, 2021

IF DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson was cheeky in demanding that the Dublin government investigate alleged collusion between “gardaí and the IRA” during the... Read more »

MARTIN’S SHRINKING SUPPORT

August 26, 2021

HANDLERS OF An Taoiseach, Fianna Fail leader, Micheál Martin, are busy spreading the suggestion that contender, Jim O’Callaghan, has no bottle. Failure to... 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

MARTIN’S DEFT TIMING

August 26, 2021

THE PREPARATION of Fianna Fåil’s post mortem on the February 2020 general election, its worst ever election result, is now said to be... Read more »

HEATHER’S 1916 AMNESIA

August 26, 2021

IS HEATHER HUMPHREYS trying to start another civil war now that we have begun commemoration of events leading up to the same conflict?... Read more »

VARADKAR TO FACE DPP SCRUTINY?

August 12, 2021

IT HAS been said that former FF agriculture minister Dara Calleary, was not big enough to be given a free pass for his... Read more »