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Rachael Blackmore

CHELTENHAM GREENWASH

Date: March 25, 2021 - Sport of Kings

THOSE GRIM days in the late 1980s and 1990s, when Ireland might only muster up one or two winners at the Cheltenham festival are long gone, with the Brits now barely getting a look in at their own event. How pathetic then to see only one horse take up the challenge in a steeplechase at… Read more »

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Francesca McDonagh

MCDONAGH FAILS TO CLOSE THE GAP WITH AIB

Date: March 25, 2021 - Moneybags

BANK OF Ireland CEO Francesca McDonagh showed her ruthless side by taking the scalpel’s knife to the group’s branch network, announcing the closure of 36% of the branches, with the network being slashed from 285 outlets to 182 on the island of Ireland. To do this in the midst of the current unemployment crisis caused… Read more »

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Gerry Gannon

JOHN O’SULLIVAN’S CRASH LANDING

Date: March 25, 2021 - Briefcases

A COMPANY that provided car-parking facilities at Dublin airport has just gone into liquidation. Parkfly Ltd, where the principal is John O’Sullivan, has suffered badly during the pandemic while deteriorating relations with its landlord – Goldhawk’s old friend Gerry Gannon – ultimately led to the business’s demise. Parkfly’s problems can be linked to an expensive… Read more »

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

FAILED BID

Date: March 25, 2021 - Briefcases

WHILE THERE has been plenty of grumbling about Dún Laoghaire by local business types in recent years, it seems the best efforts of the local business improvement district (BID) scheme had little enough impact. The company behind it, BID DL Ltd, has now filed a notice to cease trading. (There are no outstanding creditors.) The… Read more »

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Susan Bergin Marlowe Mullingar Film Studio RTÉ Self-Employment

ED GUINEY’S ‘FESTIVAL’

Date: March 25, 2021 - Behind the Scenes

WHILE ALL eyes where on Cheltenham, another festival of sorts was under way in the digital sphere, featuring free Irish films being offered “with the support of Screen Ireland” (SI) on Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe’s Volta platform. The films in the festival were a mixed bunch, some from Guiney and Lowe’s Element back catalogue… Read more »

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Tony Walshe

TONY WALSH’S THEATRICAL EXIT

Date: March 25, 2021 - Briefcases

AN IMPRESSIVE pile off Sweetmount Avenue in Dundrum – Churchtown House – is on the market with a near €3m price tag. There have been some big winners and losers associated with this property. The biggest winner by some way was developer Michael Whelan, who managed to offload the house at the top of the… Read more »

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Dermot Crowley

EXPOSED DALATA BANKING ON TOURISTS’ QUICK RETURN

Date: March 25, 2021 - Moneybags

WITH CEO Pat McCann announcing his intention to resign after “a period of transition” as he reaches the 70 mark, he is leaving Dalata Hotels in a bit of a mess, banking on the future being the same as the past and that in 2022 things will be back to normal. Even with a complete… Read more »

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Paul O'Neill

BETHANY HOME AND THE ‘IRISH TIMES’

Date: March 25, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

TWO MONTHS ago The Phoenix published a special investigation into the Irish Times’ suppression over many years of information about ill-treatment of children in Protestant mother and baby homes, despite being offered a wealth of such information The newspaper was interested primarily in targeting the abuse of children in homes run by Catholic religious orders…. Read more »

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HARVEY BOULTER’S MURDER CHARGE

Date: March 25, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

GOLDHAWK WONDERS what impact a startling development may have on the plaintiff in High Court proceedings faced by his old friend, investor extraordinaire Graeme de Renzy. The case, featuring a claim for $60m from Cayman Islands-based cryptocurrency operation GuardianCoin, has been listed for hearing next November, but Harvey Boulter, the man behind GuardianCoin, has just… Read more »

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Vol 39 No 05

Date: March 11, 2021 -

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BRIAN POLLY’S LEGAL ACTION

Date: March 11, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

HORSES HAVE been in the news for all the wrong reasons recently and another equine row is bubbling away, this time involving Brian Polly, chairman of the Association of Irish Racehorse Owners (AIRO). Last year, relations between Polly and many of his fellow council members deteriorated as he raised a number of concerns he had… Read more »

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DENIS O’BRIEN’S RADIO EXIT

Date: March 11, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

DENIS O’BRIEN was happy to wave goodbye to his Irish radio business when the deal to sell his Communicorp radio group to Bauer Media Audio was announced last month. He clearly has lost faith in radio here and even said, “I just don’t know whether a 12-year-old today who is going to be 15 in… Read more »

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Hermann Kelly

RIGHT-WING SPECTRUM

Date: March 11, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

FOLLOWING THE recent violent anti-lockdown protest in Dublin, justice minister Helen McEntee said she was reluctant “to get caught up in who was involved”. McEntee was helping to furiously backpedal Garda Commissioner Drew Harris’s bizarre assertion that both far right and far left had taken part. Once it was established that the far left weren’t… Read more »

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Ciarán Hancock

DAVY/‘IRISH TIMES’ AND ‘TRUST’

Date: March 11, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

A BEAUTIFUL friendship, partnership even, has been destroyed by the actions of those wheeler-dealers at the Davy Group, which last year had joined in collaboration with the Irish Times to sponsor the paper’s ‘Inside Business’ podcast. The announcement from both partners last April of the partnership agreement between them was like a wedding speech from… Read more »

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FF COMMITTEE CAST

Date: March 11, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

THAT’S AN interesting committee selected to work on a postmortem about Fianna Fáil’s poor general election result last February. Two junior ministers, Seán Fleming (chair) and Mary Butler, are on the committee as is new TD Cormac Devlin along with six members of the national executive committee (NEC). Fleming is respected by supporters and opponent… Read more »

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Brian Kavanagh

BRIAN KAVANAGH’S NEXT RIDE?

Date: March 11, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

INVESTORS IN the revamped Curragh racecourse (who include the likes of John Magnier, JP McManus and one Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum), will be keen to see that a top name is recruited for the track, as the board seeks to appoint its third chief executive in as many years. A familiar name may find himself… Read more »

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Brandon Lewis

MI5 PROVOCATEURS

Date: March 11, 2021 - Hush Hush

NORTHERN SECRETARY Brandon Lewis ought to get a grip on his government’s intelligence apparatus and their activities in his patch before they do some serious – and very deliberate – damage. MI5 spooks recently sought to exploit ongoing loyalist feuds so as to direct anger towards nationalist targets. This is a classic ‘strategy of tension’… Read more »

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Ian Paisley Jr

DUP’S ‘CONCERNED’ BEDFELLOWS

Date: March 11, 2021 - Hush Hush

THE DUP’S connections with loyalist paramilitaries have once again been downplayed by the media, which continues to treat it as a normal political party. Last week’s Loyalist Communities Council (LCC) statement announcing its withdrawal of support for the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) came only days after it met with Arlene Foster and other senior DUP… Read more »

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Brendan O'Connor

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: March 11, 2021 - The Hot Air Brigade

I discovered the other day that they have a fully chocolate-coated Hobnob. I was excited, but I was on my own at the time so I had no one to share the good news with. Brendan O’Connor, ‘People and Culture’, Sunday Independent The latest wellness trend is a Mayan cacao ceremony, which involves imbibing a… Read more »

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Nigel Dodds

LOYALIST PARAMILITARIES’ HUSH MONEY

Date: March 11, 2021 - Northwind

RECENT WEEKS have provided a perfect demonstration of the ambivalence of the Northern Ireland Office and unionist politicians towards the north’s still armed and active loyalist terrorist groups. These gangs – UVF, UDA and the UVF’s violent tiny adjunct, the Red Hand Commando – are engaged in murder, assault, bombings, arson, extortion, drug dealing and… Read more »

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Philip Brennan

UNARMED MILITARY COMMITTEE

Date: March 11, 2021 - Last Refuge

IF CETA, the EU Canada trade deal, threatens what remains of Green Party unity, then just wait until its position on Irish neutrality and defence is debated in the near future. The party’s security and foreign policy is the responsibility of a committee on which a most distinguished member of Ireland’s top brass – now… Read more »

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Diarmuid O'Cadhla

REBEL CORK POPULISM

Date: March 11, 2021 - Last Refuge

LEADER OF the Cork People’s Convention (CPC) Diarmaid Ó Cadhla made an effort to break out of the marginal political ghetto he has been in for the last decade with his organisation of the not-so-monstrous meeting against Covid lockdowns last weekend. Standing under various banners – housing, water charges, democracy, the banks etc – Ó… Read more »

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Brid Smith

SWP TOP OF THE TROTS

Date: March 11, 2021 - Last Refuge

THAT MERGER of TD Paul Murphy’s Rise movement – he had previously been part of Solidarity – with TD Richard Boyd Barrett’s People Before Profit (PBP) needs to be decoded to make sense to voters. PBP is really the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in disguise while Solidarity is a front for the Socialist Party (SP)…. Read more »

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Judge Smithwick

SMITHWICK TRIBUNAL REVISITED

Date: March 11, 2021 - Fit to Print?

WHAT AN intriguing notice the Sunday Times published last weekend – buried underneath a panoply of outraged letters about perfidious journalist Roy Greenslade – under the heading “CORRECTION”. It read: “In an article last month, ‘Sinn Féin needs to apologise for IRA, warns Taoiseach’, it was incorrectly stated the Smithwick tribunal found that a garda… Read more »

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

PAUL CLARKSON’S RECORD

Date: March 11, 2021 - Fit to Print?

SO ANXIOUS was Micheál Martin to acquire the services of former Irish Sun editor Paul Clarkson that he had to rearrange staff at both the government press apparatus and that of Fianna Fáil. Now, after Clarkson organised a country-wide media blitz by Martin the judgment from Martin’s supporters is that at least the country now… Read more »

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Denis O'Brien

DENIS O’BRIEN’S SUBTLETY

Date: March 11, 2021 - Fit to Print?

“O’BRIEN’S PERSONAL editorial influence within the media organisations in which he invested was hard to quantify – including at Independent Newspapers … influence is often exerted subtly rather than by a crude diktat or phone call from the top”. Thus did the esteemed professor emeritus of DCU and former board member of the Broadcasting Authority… Read more »

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Michael Creed

AGRI-ANGER

Date: March 11, 2021 - Fowl Emissions

HELL HATH no fury like an agri-committee scorned. The recent decision by the Environmental Pillar (EP), representing 26 eNGOs, to withdraw from the industry-dominated Agri-Food 2030 strategy group has triggered pantomime-grade outbursts of hysterical over-reaction. Former agriculture minister Michael Creed TD lyrically decried how what he called: “the echo of their parting shot is tirelessly… Read more »

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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

LIFESTYLE CHOICES

Date: March 11, 2021 - Fowl Emissions

A NEW round of state grants has been announced totalling almost €500,000 for research titled, “a healthy diet for a healthy lifestyle”. What’s unusual is that the funding agency is the Department of Agriculture, which is not exactly a noted repository of health expertise. In the small print, it states that in order to be… Read more »

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Bog-Cuttings-Defaul

BOG CUTTINGS

Date: March 11, 2021 - Bog Cuttings

‘Fucking Wanker’ Thomas Coffey (42) of 9 Cahereens West, Castleisland, failed to appear before Killarney District Court, sitting in Tralee, as he was “wandering around and drinking” according to his solicitor. Coffey had been charged with engaging in threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour during an incident outside Killarney bus station in December. Sergeant O’Connell told… Read more »

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Consuelo O’Connor

BILL SHIPSEY’S ART WORK

Date: March 11, 2021 - High Society

CAMPAIGNING BARRISTER Bill Shipsey, long associated with the Irish section of Amnesty International (which he chaired at one stage,) got a few things off his chest last week in an article he penned for the Irish Times. It followed a kicking Amnesty International had received for dishing out its respected ‘prisoner of conscience’ tag to… Read more »

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Paul Ward

WARRING WARD FAMILY’S PLOT TWIST

Date: March 11, 2021 - High Society

THE WEALTHY Ward family, which owns Dublin’s Savoy cinema among many others, is engaged in another legal wrangle that sees the principals named as defendants in an action lodged by their own company. The main player in Irish Multiplex Cinemas (IMC) is Blackrock-based moneybags Paul Ward, who owns by far the largest chunk of the… Read more »

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Susan Bergin Marlowe Mullingar Film Studio RTÉ Self-Employment

MORE MOVIE MOOLAH

Date: March 11, 2021 - Behind the Scenes

WITH THE running time for the Screen Ireland (SI) board appointments process approaching epic length, the film and TV biz’s favourite cash dispenser has at least got around to divulging the names of the lucky ‘loan’ recipients in the final quarter of 2020. A TV drama development loan of €25,000 went to SI board member… Read more »

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James Nesbitt

BLOODLANDS – BBC ONE

Date: March 11, 2021 - ReviewsTV

SET IN contemporary Northern Ireland, the four-part thriller stars James Nesbitt as PSNI detective Tom Brannick. Produced by Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio, this stylish crime series follows familiar plotlines and well-worn character tropes – ageing traumatised cop, endangered daughter, the dodgy chief inspector who seems to be hiding dark secrets. It also delivers… Read more »

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Charlie McConalogue

KAVANAGH’S COUNTDOWN

Date: March 11, 2021 - Sport of Kings

FIVE YEARS ago, when Brian Kavanagh entered into his controversial third term as chief executive of Horse Racing Ireland (HRI), he insisted this five-year stint would be his last. Now, 20 years on from his original appointment to the role in 2001, Kavanagh refused to confirm his exit strategy this year when grilled recently before… Read more »

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Brendan Duke Adrian Murray Mick Bailey

CHELTENHAM CAST

Date: March 11, 2021 - Sport of Kings

CHELTENHAM WILL be a different beast this year. Apart from no spectators, no atmosphere, no socialising and no Guinness Village, the name GE Elliott, the festival’s leading trainer two years in a row, will not feature on any race card, despite a number of star horses formerly associated with him taking part, including the brilliant… Read more »

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Gordon Elliott

BRITS POUT

Date: March 11, 2021 - Sport of Kings

The furore surrounding the Gordon Elliott controversy shone a light on the lack of faith the British Horse Racing Authority (BHA) has in Denis Egan’s Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) to manage its own affairs. To describe Elliott as a high-profile player in national hunt racing would be a gross understatement. Certainly, it would be… Read more »

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