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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Date: May 6, 2021 - Letters to the Editor

SARAH McINERNEY ‘hitjob’ Dear Editor, I am disgusted and saddened by your misogynistic ‘hitjob’ on the journalist Sarah McInerney. You also managed to discredit and demean Mary Wilson, Claire Byrne and Miriam O’Callaghan in the same article. In a nutshell, you tried to reduce all of these highly accomplished, intelligent, articulate and popular women by… Read more »

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Caolan Robertson

IT’S A LONG WAY FROM KILKENNY

Date: May 6, 2021 - Hush Hush

WELL-TRAVELLED Kilkenny emigrant, young Caolan Robertson, has also had some interesting ideological journeys over the past decade as his recently launched media campaign explains. It has seen him interviewed by Cade Metz for the Irish Times, Sian Norris on Byline TV, Sean Moncrieff on Newstalk and Liveline’s Joe Duffy. Robertson acknowledges that he worked for… Read more »

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Jamie Dornan

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: May 6, 2021 - The Hot Air Brigade

And I think it’s easy to say this about work when you’re promoting it, that you’ve never read anything like it before, but I really hadn’t read anything like Wild Mountain Thyme before, and I think I speak for Emily [Blunt] when I say that too. Jamie Dornan on Wild Mountain Thyme, Irish Independent Gone… Read more »

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Edwin Poots

DUP EVANGELICALS RULE, OK?

Date: May 6, 2021 - Northwind

REGARDLESS OF whether it’s Edwin Poots or Jeffrey Donaldson who becomes DUP leader the result signifies a lurch backwards: the only difference between them is how far backwards. Donaldson is merely better at concealing his socially conservative, pro-Brexit, hardcore unionist sentiments than Poots. That’s why Donaldson is RTÉ’s favourite unionist. There’s no doubt Poots and… Read more »

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Kate O'Connell

KATE O’CONNELL COMEBACK?

Date: May 6, 2021 - Last Refuge

THERE IS a perception abroad that former Fine Gael TD Kate O’Connell is a busted flush and that any residual delusions of ministerial power or even a return to the Dáil backbenches that she once harboured had been consigned to the dustbin of history. The commonly held opinion is that Cllr James Geoghegan is a… Read more »

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Claire O'Connor

DUBLIN BAY SOUTH FF SHOOT-OUT

Date: May 6, 2021 - Last Refuge

THE REAL battle in the Dublin Bay South byelection will be the effort by Micheál Martin’s favoured candidate, barrister and councillor Claire O’Connor, to assert herself with a credible performance; especially as it will take place in the back yard of party leadership challenger Jim O’Callaghan TD. Winning the seat in DBS is out of… Read more »

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

BATTING FOR MOUNTBATTEN

Date: May 6, 2021 - Fit to Print?

MI5’S FAVOURITE newspaper, the Sunday Times, certainly confirmed its reputation recently with a story about Lord Mountbatten’s assassination, written by Andrew Lownie – author of The Mountbattens: Their Lives & Loves – shortly after the death of Prince Philip. The ST story, ‘Who really killed Mountbatten’, mentions various conspiracy theories about who was responsible and… Read more »

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Hans Kung

‘BACKWARD SECULARISM’

Date: May 6, 2021 - Fit to Print?

LETTERS TO the editors of the three main Irish newspapers from Brendan Butler, the well-known progressive Catholic activist, deploring their lack of coverage of the recent death of Hans Küng, the controversial Swiss theologian, went unpublished last month. Butler’s heartfelt tribute to Küng, who in earlier decades was the rebel hero of the Irish Catholic… Read more »

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Ciaran Fitzgerald

‘NATIONAL’ DAIRY COUNCIL’S PR FROTH

Date: May 6, 2021 - Fowl Emissions

IS IT a sign of growing confidence or blind panic that Ireland’s dairy industry has just unveiled yet another major marketing blitz to woo and reassure the increasingly wary public that its produce is wholesome and environmentally friendly? In 2017, the National Dairy Council (despite the official-sounding title, it is “a private, farmer-funded marketing agency”)… Read more »

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Bog-Cuttings-Defaul

BOG CUTTINGS

Date: May 6, 2021 - Bog Cuttings

‘KISS MY HOLE’ A young man who dropped his trousers on a snowy night, bared his backside to a garda and told him “you can kiss my hole” was told by Judge James Faughnan that he’d better have €500 with him the next time he appeared in court if he wanted to avoid going to… Read more »

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Wissam Al Mana and Janet Jackson

WISSAM’S GOOD PANDEMIC

Date: May 6, 2021 - High Society

QATARI MONEYBAGS Wissam Al Mana’s case against Facebook Ireland and a number of other defendants is back in the High Court next week. Meanwhile, Covid-19 turns out to have been good for one of his Irish businesses. Back in 2018, Al Mana’s name featured prominently in the celebrity gossip columns worldwide as a result of… Read more »

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Consuelo O’Connor

JOHN MALONE’S BREEDING BILLS

Date: May 6, 2021 - High Society

THE BREEDING of thoroughbred horses is an expensive business, though this is not the sort of thing to concern the excruciatingly wealthy owner of Ballylinch Stud, ‘Cable Cowboy’ John Malone. The American billionaire picked up the stud in 2014, having also acquired Tony O’Reilly’s Castlemartin Stud. Malone retained Ballylinch operations manager John O’Connor to oversee… Read more »

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Catherine Martin

CATHERINE MARTIN’S COLLECTION

Date: May 6, 2021 - Behind the Scenes

THE ARTS minister Catherine Martin has added a “significant body of artworks” to the national collection, having allocated €1m to IMMA and the Crawford Art Gallery to fund purchases directly for artists here. The moolah has been allocated to 70 artists; significantly, two-thirds are female. In total, 422 works have been acquired between IMMA and… Read more »

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Susan Bergin Marlowe Mullingar Film Studio RTÉ Self-Employment

ARTS COUNCIL TIGHTENS UP

Date: May 6, 2021 - Behind the Scenes

THE CHARITIES Regulatory Authority (CRA) has just published a notice relating to a move by the Arts Council to combine nine trust funds where it acts as trustee (having received bequests). This combining of trusts is known as a Cy-Pres scheme. In 2018 – the last year for which the Arts Council published an annual… Read more »

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Rock of ages

RO’CK OF AGES – ROSS O’CARROLL KELLY

Date: May 6, 2021 - BooksReviews

LAST MONTH, Paul Howard did a very clever thing. He beat his critics to the punch. In an article in the Irish Times, he wrote about his near quarter century of writing as Ross O’Carroll-Kelly, the fictional south Dublin rugby jock. The author chided himself over “a false beat” in a storyline from 2007, and… Read more »

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Amer Abdulaziz

ABDULAZIZ’S IRISH FRIENDS

Date: May 6, 2021 - Sport of Kings

THE CONTROVERSIAL Phoenix Thoroughbreds CEO Amer Abdulaziz has quite the neck and the Bahraini came out fighting again after the group saw all the prize money it earned in Australia frozen by the different racing authorities Down Under. Australia has been where Abdulaziz has pumped most of his cash over the past two years, following… Read more »

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MAHON’S HEAVY GOING

Date: May 6, 2021 - Sport of Kings

IT LOOKS like Stephen Mahon’s often turbulent career as a trainer may be coming to the final fence. Now based in Galway, it has been reported that the trainer has had his licence suspended by the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) with immediate effect after a number of issues arose following an inspection at his… Read more »

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Regina Byrne

OWNERS ON THE OUTSIDE

Date: May 6, 2021 - Sport of Kings

WITH THE country gradually opening up, there seems to be only radio silence when it comes to the matter of getting racehorse owners back onto the racecourse. Having made a brief return to tracks last autumn, owners have since been confined to watching television when their horses run, unlike in Britain where up to six… Read more »

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Betting ring at the Curragh

PLACE YOUR BETS

Date: May 6, 2021 - Sport of Kings

WHEN THE pandemic recovery gets going, it is clear that some things may never return to the old ways. The betting landscape has already changed drastically in the past 10 years with both on-course bookmakers and the Tote struggling to maintain dwindling relevance and market share in a sector dominated online by a few betting… Read more »

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Rita Rose Gagne

HAMMERSON SHARES GROSSLY UNDERVALUED

Date: May 6, 2021 - Moneybags

THE GIANT British Hammerson retail property group – the largest such investor in Ireland, controlling the biggest shopping centre here (Dundrum Town Centre) – has been blitzed by the impact of the pandemic of closures on rent collections and increasingly jittery investors. The new management has adopted a predictably conservative debt reduction approach that will… Read more »

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Michael Carvill

KENMARE RESOURCES NOW A CASH MACHINE

Date: May 6, 2021 - Moneybags

THE NEW Sultan of Oman, Haitham Bin Tarik Al Said, must be pleased with Kenmare Resources, which was saved from going under in July 2016 when the State Reserve Fund of the Sultanate of Oman acted as the lead investor in a $255m equity raise for an effecting controlling 29% stake at €2.40 a share…. Read more »

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Matt Mullenwegg

POLLDADDY RETIRES

Date: May 6, 2021 - Briefcases

SO IT’S farewell then to Polldaddy Ltd, which is being officially dissolved, 13 years after it was bought over by the Yanks, who, it turns out, have been spending quite a few bob this side of the Atlantic. David Lenehan and his partner, Jonathan Hill, set up the Polldaddy business in Sligo in 2006, with… Read more »

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

JOHN WYSE’S HOUSE

Date: May 6, 2021 - Briefcases

AN IMPRESSIVE pile on Rathgar’s Bushy Park Road has just gone on the market with a price tag of €2.1m. This is the abode of one-time well-known hotelier and restaurateur John Wyse, who was probably most closely associated with the famous Grey Door restaurant on Pembroke Street, D2, back in the day. Wyse, who turns… Read more »

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Elaine Geraghty

STUDIOS’ LATEST BLOCKBUSTER

Date: May 6, 2021 - Briefcases

THERE’S NOTHING the film and TV business likes more than a good story. And so we have The Film/TV Industry & Ireland’s Economy, the second iteration of what is starting to look like an annual, industry-sponsored summary of how wonderful everything could be, if only the government would fully open the public purse. Ion Equity… Read more »

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Mary Lou McDonald

MARY LOU’S NON-APOLOGY

Date: April 22, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

THE WORLD’S press, including most of the Irish media, rushed to poor judgment about Mary Lou McDonald’s non-apology last Sunday for the IRA’s 1979 killing of Lord Mountbatten. But if that seriously mistaken impression – it is unthinkable that Sinn Féin will apologise for the ‘armed struggle’ any time soon, if ever – was partly… Read more »

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Eoghan Harris

MICHEÁL’S FOURTH ESTATE DESERTERS

Date: April 22, 2021 - Fit to Print?

AN ALARMING development for beleaguered taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader, Micheál Martin, is that his long-time media champions have begun to desert him with the biggest, or loudest, loss appearing to be that of Sunday Independent columnist Eoghan Harris. Harris was seriously miffed at the ingratitude of Martin in the face of a cartoon accompanying Eoghan’s regular… Read more »

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Sarah McInerney

PROFILE: SARAH MCINERNEY

Date: April 22, 2021 - Pillars of Society

IS SARAH McINERNEY really a cross between Martha Gellhorn and Kate Adie? Or is she a competent journalist who struck it lucky by being, as she described herself, in “the right job at the right time for me and for the country” when filling in on Sean O’Rourke’s RTÉ morning show last summer? That gig,… Read more »

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Tom Gleeson

YOUNG BLOOD: TOM GLEESON

Date: April 22, 2021 - The Young Bloods

TOM GLEESON’S burger joint Bunsen recently issued High Court proceedings to block Dublin City Council from interfering with its food collection point in Ranelagh, which has been upsetting the local D6 residents. It marks a rare outing in the media spotlight for Tom, who has managed to become rather wealthy while keeping his head down…. Read more »

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Gerry O'Brien

GERRY O’BRIEN’S SEQUEL

Date: April 22, 2021 - Behind the Scenes

IT IS safe to say that the ‘Irish Film Agreement’ inked by Irish Actors Equity and Screen Producers Ireland (SPI) won’t be winning script awards anytime soon. The spear-carriers of the acting trade, and some of their better-known colleagues, blew a collective raspberry at the deal that was signed off by Irish Equity president Padraig… Read more »

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Mario Rosenstock podcast

THE MARIO ROSENSTOCK PODCAST

Date: April 22, 2021 - PodcastsReviews

LAST AUTUMN saw the cancellation of Mario Rosenstock’s Today FM show, Mario’s Sunday Roast, due to – in the comic’s own words – “circumstances beyond my control”. The “circumstances” appeared to be quite straightforward – the show did not have a sufficiently high listenership. Naturally, there was only one answer. Like virtually every other Irish… Read more »

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JAMES GOUGH’S LIBEL ACTION

Date: April 22, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

BUSINESSMAN, BLUESHIRT and racehorse owner James Gough is building up quite a track record in the litigation stakes, with his most recent target being the Sunday Times. The latest legal action featuring the bolshie Gough follows on foot of an article published in the ST in February relating to references that had been provided for… Read more »

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Lars and Caroline Bjoerk

LARS BJOERK’S LIECHTENSTEIN LOANS

Date: April 22, 2021 - High Society

THE FORMER owners of Dollanstown Stud in Co Meath have moved to strike off the company behind the operation. It is clear that running the sprawling estate was an expensive endeavour, which was bankrolled by an offshore entity. The impressive Dollanstown Stud outside Kilcock was owned by Swedish moneybags Lars and his Irish wife, former… Read more »

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Helen McAlinden

HELEN McALINDEN’S BOTTOM LINE

Date: April 22, 2021 - High Society

EVERY SO often, Irish fashion designers pop up in the media with some words of wisdom for the locals. The latest to take a pop is Helen McAlinden, who “provides wardrobe solutions for the contemporary woman”. Maybe she should cast a critical eye over her own less than attractive figures. McAlinden’s views on Irish style… Read more »

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25 Wellington Road

PAUL HOURICAN’S RENT ROLL

Date: April 22, 2021 - Briefcases

LAST YEAR a little noticed legal row over the sale of a €3m pile on Wellington Road D4 was quietly settled. The plaintiff here turns out to be a company owned by the low-profile Paul Hourican, who has become a major landlord in Dublin through Period Door Properties Ltd (PDP). In recent times, the company… Read more »

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VOL 39 NO 08

Date: April 22, 2021 -

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RICHARD CORRIGAN’S DIVIDENDS

Date: April 22, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

MOUTHY CELEBRITY chef Richard Corrigan has plenty to shout about as customers flock back to expensive restaurants in London. Accounts for 2019 signed off at the end of last month reveal that Corrigan and his fellow investors have shared a bumper £2.9m (€3.4m) dividend. Presumably, this pay day helped to ease them through the dark… Read more »

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