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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 »

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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 »

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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 »

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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 »

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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 »

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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 »

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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 »

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Seamus Walsh

SÉAMUS WALSH’S STAND-OFFS

Date: April 8, 2021 - Briefcases

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 »

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Noel Smyth

NOEL SMYTH’S LATEST LIQUIDATIONS

Date: April 8, 2021 - Briefcases

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 »

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Noel Kelly

NOEL KELLY’S INVESTMENTS

Date: April 8, 2021 - Briefcases

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 »

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

GERRY MURPHY’S BAD TIMING

Date: April 8, 2021 - Briefcases

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 »

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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 »

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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 »

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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 »

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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 »

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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 »

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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 »

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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 »

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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 »

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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 »

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Tony Wright

LEX GREENSILL’S IRISH CUSTOMERS

Date: March 25, 2021 - Briefcases

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 »

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Vol.39 No.06

Date: March 25, 2021 -

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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 »

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Siobhan Stack

JUDGE HUMPHREYS’ PEERS

Date: March 25, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

THE ELEVATION recently of Siobhán Stack SC to the High Court bench will have been welcomed by her Law Library colleagues and also members of the bench. However, there may be some embarrassing moments among M’luds if or when Judge Stack encounters Judge Richard Humphreys. Now one of his peers, Stack has until now been… Read more »

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Eoghan Harris

EOGHAN HARRIS’S SLEEPERS

Date: March 25, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

THE MOST brazen aspect of the weekend’s Eoghan Harris column in the Sindo was not the cartoon’s sexist barb at the witch-like Mary Lou McDonald, but rather the assertion by Harris that Sinn Féin had “planted sleepers in all branches of the public service – in RTÉ, the gardaí, the Revenue Commissioners and, easiest target… Read more »

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" Photo: https://thewordpoint.com/ "

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Date: March 25, 2021 - Letters to the Editor

GREENS’ NON-POLICY Dear Editor, I would like to draw your attention to several factual errors in your article entitled ‘Unarmed Military Committee’ which – if you will excuse the pun – looked like a case of shoot first, ask questions later. First, your article incorrectly states that our newly established Foreign Policy and Security Group… Read more »

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SLOWLY DOES IT AT TENI

Date: March 25, 2021 - Clerical Errors

THE CULTURE war surrounding self-identification for transgender people continues to stir up strong emotions, most recently in the letters pages of the Irish Times, where a debate has been raging over self-ID legislation. In NUI Galway, a student union motion was drawn up to de-platform groups such as the Irish Women’s Lobby (IWL) on the… Read more »

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Aidan O'Driscoll

‘MILITARY NEUTRALITY’?

Date: March 25, 2021 - Top Brass

THE COMMISSION on the Defence Forces as outlined in the programme for government is to address pay and conditions of the troops. But the real business is to scrutinise and recommend measures for the “effective defence of the country at land and sea” More reassuringly – perhaps – the programme also states that the commission’s… Read more »

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Rosita Boland

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: March 25, 2021 - The Hot Air Brigade

I’d so wanted a Simone Rocha x H&M capsule piece. They weren’t just clothes. They were hope. Rosita Boland, Irish Times, submitted by reader The late and greatly lamented Ballymaloe Literary Festival helmed by Darina and brother Rory O’Connell burned briefly like a glorious comet, playing an unsurpassable ambassadorial role for Ireland’s food culture, its… Read more »

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Michelle O'Neill

NORTHERN ABORTION CHAOS

Date: March 25, 2021 - Northwind

ALL THE parties in the north tied themselves in knots in the past fortnight about abortion legislation, none more so than Sinn Féin. First, the assembly was faced with a DUP bill amending the British abortion legislation imposed on the north in 2019 while the assembly was in mothballs. Second, the northern secretary Brandon Lewis,… Read more »

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Leo Varadkar

MICHEÁL AND LEO v THE MEDIA

Date: March 25, 2021 - Last Refuge

IT MAY be that in the absence of his golden source at the top level of Fine Gael – Big Phil Hogan – that the Irish Independent Ireland correspondent Fionnan Sheahan has become alienated from the party leadership with whom he once enjoyed cordial relations. Whatever the reason Sheahan appears to be less enthusiastic about the leadership of FG… Read more »

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Liadh Ni Riada

SINN FÉIN’S AMBITIOUS PLANS

Date: March 25, 2021 - Last Refuge

ANGUISHED NOISES from Sinn Féin general election candidate Séighin Ó Ceallaigh, about the imposition of a male gender ban in his constituency, Limerick County, are a sign of things to come. As the 40% gender quota kicks in at selection conventions for the next general election all political parties will face tough decisions that will… Read more »

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John McGuirk

MCGUIRK AND RTÉ

Date: March 25, 2021 - Last Refuge

RIGHT-WING commentator John McGuirk railed against RTÉ for paying out €20,000 recently to several charities nominated by left-republican group Éirígí on foot of McGuirk’s incorrect remark that it was responsible for Lyra McKee’s 2019 shooting. But his rant against RTÉ and Éirígí was spurred by a situation that he himself had created. On the Gript.ie… Read more »

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Joe Brolly

SINDO v BOBBY SANDS

Date: March 25, 2021 - Fit to Print?

A RECENT tweet sneering at Bobby Sands’ hunger strike and death from Sindo sports writer Tommy Conlon has caused a furore on social media. But this is just the latest of several provocations from Conlon whose outpourings have drawn angry reactions and more than one libel action down on the Sindo over the years. On March 1… Read more »

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Arthur Beesley

BEESLEY TICKLED PINK BY ‘IT’ RETURN

Date: March 25, 2021 - Fit to Print?

THE Financial Times is looking for an Ireland Correspondent to replace Arthur Beesley who has returned to his editorial alma mater, the Irish Times. Showing an appreciation of things Irish that eludes most British media, the FT job advert says “Ireland has grown into a prosperous, self-confident nation with a strong voice in the EU … with its two traditional… Read more »

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Joe Biden Russian Orwell Road

RYAN BIDENS HIS TIME

Date: March 25, 2021 - Fowl Emissions

JOE BIDEN is enjoying a reputation as something of an environmental hero, and to a degree this is merited – in the opening weeks of his presidency he has been doggedly reversing the assault on the environment perpetrated by Donald Trump; has designated climate change as a national security issue; and has pledged to spend… Read more »

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