Article Category: Last Refuge

‘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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »