IssueM Articles

Archives: Articles

articles
Francie Mackey

WHO IS BEATING THE WAR DRUMS?

Date: April 8, 2021 - Hush Hush

IT MAY seem a little surprising in the midst of a global pandemic and the costly Brexit process that British prime minister Boris Johnson has budgeted an extra £16bn to be spent on the UK military over the next four years, a whopping 10% increase. Do the little Englanders who backed Brexit see themselves setting out… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Eoghan Harris

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: April 8, 2021 - The Hot Air Brigade

Trawl through my past columns and you find my favourite writers are lesbian feminists. Eoghan Harris, Sunday Independent, submitted by reader If there’s anyone on television here or in Britain or the States that’s worth mentioning, they were on it. Twink describing a compilation of video messages she received for her 70th birthday, RTÉ Radio… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Arlene Foster

EXECUTIVE HANGS BY A THREAD

Date: April 8, 2021 - Northwind

ON MARCH 29 Simon Coveney told the Seanad that the north’s institutions were “just about hanging on after a bruising number of years”. Well actually, after one year when Sinn Féin and the DUP signed up to the New Decade New Approach (NDNA) deal and re-established the executive. Since then the north, like everywhere else,… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Jim O'Callaghan

MARTIN SET FOR LONG HOT SUMMER

Date: April 8, 2021 - Last Refuge

THE LATEST polls have concentrated minds in Fianna Fáil in a way they have not done since the general election and this could serve to shorten Micheál Martin’s leadership span and even his time as taoiseach. After FF sunk to a nadir of 10% last September, several successive polls showed a possible revival to the… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Michael Leahy

IRISH FREEDOM PARTY’S NEW CHAIR

Date: April 8, 2021 - Last Refuge

PROF DOLORES Cahill’s resignation from the Irish Freedom Party (IFP) following some whacky – not to say dangerous – statements about face masks and the pandemic, was accepted with some alacrity by the party’s ard chomhairle just days after her resignation last month. Simultaneously, the IFP appointed Michael Leahy, an architect from Corofin, Co Clare,… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Michael Healy-Rae

DANNY V MICHAEL HEALY-RAE

Date: April 8, 2021 - Last Refuge

THE DIVIDE between the Healy-Rae brothers – TDs Michael and Danny – is an open secret in Kerry and it appears to be reflected in two adverts, situated side by side, for their respective services in the Killarney Advertiser recently. In their adverts, the two TDs both proclaim their connection to the cross-border arrangement for… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Richard Bruton

BRUTON DOES STRUMPET CITY

Date: April 8, 2021 - Last Refuge

SOUNDS LIKE Fine Gael chairperson Richard Bruton believes in method acting judging by his performance as William Martin Murphy at a virtual on-screen shoot (or re-enactment of Strumpet City) with SIPTU/Irish Equity organiser Martin O’Rourke recently. O’Rourke responded angrily to an advert from FG seeking two professional actors – one male, one female – to… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Deirdre Heenan

‘BUSINESS POST’ REVISIONISM

Date: April 8, 2021 - Fit to Print?

TIME WAS when the Business Post dissented from the mainstream media in several ways, chief among them being a nationalist interpretation of the north that was not always a simple regurgitation of the SDLP view or that of soft unionism. The Post often differed from the Iveagh House line and claimed to be based on the interests of northern… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Diageo Dana An Garda Síochána IT Trust No Stone Unturned Irish Times Black Friday Vicky Conway

TACKLING ROBBIE KEANE

Date: April 8, 2021 - Fit to Print?

HAS SINDO sports writer Tommy Conlon struck again in the libel stakes as a rather full-on apology to former Irish soccer star Robbie Keane indicated a few days ago? An aggressive article by Conlon last month contained a number of pointed comments about Keane’s relationship with the FAI. A series of remarks and a central… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Charlie Flanagan

AN TAISCE TARGETED

Date: April 8, 2021 - Fowl Emissions

KILDARE FARMER Thomas Reid has fought a long battle against the proposed €3.6bn extension of the Intel computer facility, including against An Bord Pleanála’s (ABP) decision in favour of Intel. Construction on the new plant would involve 6,000 workers, with 1,600 well-paid jobs when completed. Part of Reid’s argument was the risk of accidental pollution… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Climate Disinformation Coillte Climate Action EU Livestock NDC Claude Etchelamendy Ed Brophy Richard Boyd-Barrett Kish Dale Crammond Frank Mitloehner Shell Greenwashing Meta Data Centres Ireland

VERONA MURPHY LETS FLY

Date: April 8, 2021 - Fowl Emissions

COMPETITION to be our whackiest rural TD is intense, with a motley collection of ‘colourful’ characters clamouring for media attention. Independent Wexford TD Verona Murphy this week launched a rant against the new planning regulator, Niall Cussen, accusing him of being “out of control” with “ideological views” that are promoting a “Karl Marx policy of… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Bog-Cuttings-Defaul

BOG CUTTINGS

Date: April 8, 2021 - Bog Cuttings

‘I Am King’ It took four gardaí to arrest a man who was standing in the middle of a Cork road, beating his chest and yelling “I am king”. Garda Niamh Riley told Cork District Court that numerous people had complained about a man shouting and disrupting traffic, and, when asked to desist, he refused,… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Consuelo O’Connor

TOM GLEESON’S BURGERS

Date: April 8, 2021 - High Society

THE COMPANY behind the highly profitable burger chain, Bunsen, has issued High Court proceedings to block Dublin City Council from interfering with its collection point in Ranelagh, which has been the subject of complaints from local residents. As the son of a rather well-known barrister, former attorney general Dermot Gleeson, Bunsen’s controlling shareholder Tom Gleeson… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Annie Doona

ANNIE’S SUCCESSOR?

Date: April 8, 2021 - Behind the Scenes

ALTHOUGH THE board of Screen Ireland (SI) lost three directors a year ago when their terms ended, no replacement cast members were found. Now the terms of the remaining four board members have also concluded. In the absence of any move by arts minister Catherine Martin to ensure continuity, the SI board is now utterly… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Susan Bergin Marlowe Mullingar Film Studio RTÉ Self-Employment

GENDER GAP

Date: April 8, 2021 - Behind the Scenes

NOT MUCH attention has been paid to the latest report churned out by the Merrion Square Mafia, this time concerning the handouts to artists and the role diversity plays. It turns out that blokes (or at least those who identify as such) are being short-changed. Entitled Diversity and Arts Council Awards, the report focuses on… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

We are not in the world

WE ARE NOT IN THE WORLD – CONOR O’CALLAGHAN

Date: April 8, 2021 - BooksReviews

IN THIS follow-up to his 2016 debut, Nothing on Earth, Conor O’Callaghan focuses mostly on one man’s fractured relationships with his family. This curious road trip novel also explores the complicated dynamics between lovers and friends. The journey for the reader, however, while intriguing, involves lurches in tone which may leave some bewildered and frustrated…. Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Dermot Weld

THE FUTURE OF SHADWELL

Date: April 8, 2021 - Sport of Kings

FOLLOWING THE death of Prince Khalid Abdullah a few months ago, racing lost another major benefactor recently when Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum died at the age of 75. A question mark has now been placed over his Irish operation. Hamdan – who acted as a finance minister in the UAE, where his brother Sheikh Mohammed… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Brendan Duke Adrian Murray Mick Bailey

POINTING THE WAY

Date: April 8, 2021 - Sport of Kings

WHILE RACING overall may have been left relatively unscathed by the pandemic, the point-to-point sector has been left reeling in comparison. The return of action ‘between the flags’ in April for a short period will be scant consolation for those trainers who have big bucks invested in young horses who may have missed their place… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

David Dunne

DAVID DUNNE’S DARK HORSE

Date: April 8, 2021 - Sport of Kings

JOCKEY TURNED Racing TV presenter Fran Berry has made a seamless transition to his current career after being forced to retire from the saddle due to a neck injury. Berry has proved himself a thorough and insightful analyst but he may have surprised viewers with his comment after a major gamble was landed at Navan…. Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Rahul Dhir

TULLOW OIL SHARES WORTH MULTIPLES OF CURRENT PRICE

Date: April 8, 2021 - Moneybags

IT WOULD be a real irony should Sam Dossou-Aworet, from whom Aidan Heavey bought Energy Africa for €433m in 2004, end up controlling Tullow Oil. The former is a man of significant influence in Gabon and is married to its justice minister. Over the past 18 months Benin native Dossou-Aworet has been building up a… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Seamus Walsh

SÉAMUS WALSH’S STAND-OFFS

Date: April 8, 2021 - The Hot Water Brigade

MELBOURNE-BASED Irish moneybags Séamus Walsh has been rutting up against Waterford County Council over his latest property venture – beside the beach in Tramore. He is used to disputes, including ones of a legal nature, and is currently involved in a “heated” spat that has ended up in the Four Goldmines. Kilkenny-born Walsh, who emigrated… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Noel Smyth

NOEL SMYTH’S LATEST LIQUIDATIONS

Date: April 8, 2021 - The Hot Water Brigade

THE BAD news keeps coming for solicitor-turned-property-developer Noel Smyth, with another raft of his businesses being the subject of creditors’ meetings next week. Dealmaker Smyth (who was Ben Dunne’s legal eagle when the walls came crashing down around Squire Haughey) is a principal in Santerese Trust Company Unlimited, Barkisland Unlimited and Dodbridge Unlimited, for which… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Noel Kelly

NOEL KELLY’S INVESTMENTS

Date: April 8, 2021 - The Hot Water Brigade

ANOTHER JUDGMENT has just been registered against the Pulse F6 telematics business where a significant backer turns out to be the private investment company controlled by Tipperary moneybags Noel Kelly. Kelly – or Dr Noel Kelly as he prefers, thanks to his honorary doctorate from… Read more »

Castleknock Hospitality BAL Susan Bergin Tixserve EOG Fergal Naughton hot-water-brigade def

GERRY MURPHY’S BAD TIMING

Date: April 8, 2021 - The Hot Water Brigade

A COMPANY called Brightroom Media is being wound up next week after things turned dark. Behind this fledgling online business was experienced exhibition organiser Gerry Murphy, who has been associated with a lot of the bigger annual events in Ireland, including the likes of Showcase Ireland, the Dublin Motor Show and Bloom. Brightroom was only… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Simon Coveney

COVERT SECURITY PLANS

Date: April 8, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

THE YEAR 2021 is supposed to see a strategic review of defence as scheduled in the 2016 White Paper, it being the midterm point of its decade- long cycle. Also under way this year is the Commission on the Future of the Defence Forces. With the clear acceleration of the Defence Forces’ assimilation into an… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Mary McAleese

MARY NOT QUITE SO CONTRARY?

Date: March 25, 2021 - Clerical Errors

MARY MCALEESE’S robust dismissal of a decree from the Vatican Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, (CDF), which forbids priests blessing same-sex couples, constituted an escalation in her crusade to reform Roman Catholicism. For some time, the Lady from Belfast’s Ardoyne has attacked her church’s traditional teaching on sexual ethics on same-sex marriages, gender equality and… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Ken Murphy

KEN’S LONG GOODBYE

Date: March 25, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

THE LIFE and times of retiring Law Society director general Ken Murphy were shared, last Friday, with lucky past presidents of the society “by Zoom in the valedictory event for me”, as Ken put it, in an invitation to share some splendid reminiscences with him. Murphy confessed in his letter that “a great many of… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Gordon Elliott

PROFILE: GORDON ELLIOTT

Date: March 25, 2021 - Pillars of Society

WHEN THAT photograph emerged featuring top trainer Gordon Elliott astride a dead racehorse, the sport – and the Harry McCalmont-chaired Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) in particular – found itself with a big problem. Happily for all concerned, punishment was swiftly dispensed to the Master of Cullentra, whose good friend Denise ‘Sneezy’ Foster stepped in… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Violet Anne Wynne

YOUNG BLOOD: VIOLET ANNE WYNNE

Date: March 25, 2021 - The Young Bloods

SINN FÉIN’S breakthrough in February last year to become the leading party in Irish politics came as a terrible shock to establishment politicians and media commentators alike, not to mention SF itself. But nowhere was the shock bigger than in Co Clare where the virtually unknown Violet Anne Wynne topped the poll. So how solid… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Jim O'Callaghan

O’CALLAGHAN GIRDS HIS LOINS

Date: March 25, 2021 - Last Refuge

THE BATTLE for the Fianna Fáil leadership went transatlantic and even to the southern hemisphere in the last week as Micheál Martin and Jim O’Callaghan laid out their stalls in Washington and Cambridge while the latter even dragged Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro into the frame. But it is recent polling in Ireland that will be… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Leon Black

APOLLO’S QUARANTINE SHOT

Date: March 25, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

WITH THE hospitality sector in tatters, the landing of the state’s quarantine accommodation contract represents a real fillip for the Tifco Hotels group. The big winner is owner US investment giant Apollo Group but some Irish players look set to benefit too. Apollo looks set to make a killing at a time when, globally, the… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Miriam O'Callaghan

MIRIAM O’CALLAGHAN’S HOUSE

Date: March 25, 2021 - Fit to Print?

A PALATIAL pile, combining space and location, is up for sale in Grosvenor Road, D6, where number 45 is – the Irish Times property section hints –perhaps available for a sum not exceeding €1.7 million. The Rathgar/Rathmines location “epitomises the phrase ‘leafy suburb’”, trilled the paper of record journalist which also describes the house as… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

9 Belgrave Square

LADY MARY’S £42M SALE

Date: March 25, 2021 - High Society

ACROSS THE Irish Sea, trouble is brewing for billionaire industrialist Sanjeev Gupta, whose massive steel empire is creaking, with demand for the product having plummeted worldwide courtesy of Covid-19. The British government has been drawing up plans to bail out the troubled Liberty Steel operation that employs 5,000 workers but the good news is that… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Tony Wright

LEX GREENSILL’S IRISH CUSTOMERS

Date: March 25, 2021 - The Hot Water Brigade

THESE ARE nervous times for businesses that have links to the giant UK-based Greensill Capital firm that collapsed into administration earlier this month. Founded by larger-than- life Aussie financier Lex Greensill and featuring one David Cameron as an adviser, Greensill’s collapse has sent out plenty of ripples, including the odd one in Ireland. Greensill’s supply… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Vol.39 No.06

Date: March 25, 2021 -

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

article-default

IAN BLACK’S PAC GRILLING

Date: March 25, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

THERE WERE fun and games at the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) this month, when the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI) faced a grilling. It was set up by the government in 2014 to funnel low-cost money to middleman lenders. Interim chief executive Ian Black faced a raft of questions about Bibby Financial Services… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber