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Arts Council Maureen Kennelly

CATHERINE MARTIN’S €7M HEADACHE

Date: April 18, 2024 - Affairs of the Nation

ARTS AND culture minister Catherine Martin came in for (yet more) criticism this week as a result of her ongoing failure to appoint a chair to the Arts Council, which has a budget this year of no less than €134m. Fans of Goldhawk will be… Read more »

Lyra

LYRA V BEYONCÉ

Date: April 18, 2024 - Behind the Scenes

IT HAS been hard to avoid Irish singer Laura McNamara (aka Lyra) in recent weeks as the hype machine cranks up around her eponymous debut album. Given that she is a protegé of Caroline Downey’s, the media profile she has attained, despite her limited chart success, should not come as a surprise. Certainly, the campaign… Read more »

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Oliver Tatten

OLIVER TATTAN’S NEW VENTURE

Date: April 18, 2024 - The Hot Water Brigade

THE multi-hatted Oliver Tattan is getting back into the health insurance game, in tandem with Aviva, although the name of the new venture remains under wraps. Enniskerry-based moneybags Ollie has been around the block as far as health insurance is concerned, stretching back to his stint as chief executive of VHI, before he jumped ship… Read more »

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Jennifer Carroll McNeill

JOYLESS JUNIOR JENN

Date: April 18, 2024 - Affairs of the Nation

IT’S A long way down from pre-breakfast delusions of becoming taoiseach to not even making it into Cabinet but that has been the career curve travelled by Jennifer Carroll MacNeill recently. Jennifer, however, must have known when she made the first of several early morning phone calls soliciting leadership support within hours of Leo Varadkar… Read more »

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Thomas O’Reilly Herman Kelly

FAR RIGHT SPOILING FOR A FIGHT

Date: April 18, 2024 - Hush Hush

DESPITE THE attention the far right in Ireland has received in recent years, it has had little or no success in elections. However, far-right politicians believe fervently that, in the upcoming local and European elections, their fortunes are about to change. The problem from their perspective is that there are several political parties vying for… Read more »

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4208-FP

VOL 42 NO 08

Date: April 18, 2024 -

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Phil Hogan UCD IRTA DIGI Katy Brown Rory Godson Pallonji Mistry Shark Hanlon Frances Ruane Taste of Dublin Listowel Writers’ Week Paddy Curran Harvey Norman Anton Savage Paul Hourican Enda O’Coineen PfP Red C Poll IFTA Ben Gilroy Luke Comer Sue Spence Fingleton Aubrey McCarthy Matt Cooper Parker Green Danny McConnell Gayle Killilea Maura Derivan Ed Honohan INS Arts Council EDAF Emuse Rosslare Golf Club Mairead Casey Colm O’Rourke Stephen Connolly Peter Aiken John Malone Tom Barry Anthony Halpin Ian Kehoe Kevin Bakhurst Geraldine O’Leary Dennis Horgan RUSI Gareth McAllister Ryevale House Joe Macken RUC Omagh Patrick Connolly Paddy Cosgrave The Ditch Newstalk Fake Tan Fred Logue Ian Paisley Sean O’Riordan Margaret Sweeney Jay Bourke Ellie Kisyombe Francesca McDonagh Ted Cunningham National Space Centre An Irish Goodbye Oscar Robert Quirke Ciara Kelly Executive Women Gathering Doug Taylor Florian Haufe Robbie Henshaw Bill Shipsey Breaking the Silence L’Ecrivain Ronan McNally National Lottery Michael Roche Energy Action Balls.ie Newspapers VAT Abbey Theatre Patricia Madden Irish Banking Culture Board Randox Aoife Gallagher Book Dalai Lama Trinity Trevor White RTÉ Chairperson Shane Houlihan Noel Smyth IKC Bob Geldof Landlord Ireland Neutrality Ukraine

BEN GILROY’S PORTUGUESE POSTCODE

Date: April 18, 2024 - Affairs of the Nation

SURPRISING TO see that, according to filings in the Companies Office for Morrigan Private Settlement Trust Operations (MPST), the colourful Ben Gilroy has changed address from dreary Navan to sunny Albufeira in Portugal, as has fellow director Charlie McGuinness, previously of Tully in Monaghan, albeit to a different address on the Algarve. Many moons ago… Read more »

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Glencree Centre Valerie Bistany

GLENCREE’S NEW FACES

Date: April 18, 2024 - Affairs of the Nation

THREE MONTHS on from the appointment by the Department of Foreign Affairs of consultants to carry out a review of corporate governance at The Glencree Centre for Reconciliation, a final report is awaited. What has arrived is a new-look board, as a result of assorted exits and entrances. It will be recalled (see The Phoenix… Read more »

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John Fitzgerald

JOHN FITZGERALD’S DISMAL FORECAST

Date: April 18, 2024 - Affairs of the Nation

DESPITE ITS headline-grabbing effect, the report by John FitzGerald and Edgar Morgenroth, entitled Northern Ireland Subvention – Possible Unification Effects and predicting that a united Ireland would cost southern taxpayers tens of billions, got a cool response from some of the more discerning critics in this field. This would not be the first time that… Read more »

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Robert Nairac

ROBERT NAIRAC RE-VISITED

Date: April 18, 2024 - Affairs of the Nation

Robin ‘The Jackal’ Jackson, of the Portadown UVF, was the most notorious assassin of the Troubles. Virtually all commentators on those turbulent times believe he was a British agent, run by the RUC special branch. He was a key member of the so-called Glenanne gang…. Read more »

Enda Kenny

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: April 18, 2024 - The Hot Water Brigade

Join the Harris juggernaut. Enda Kenny speech at Fine Gael’s ard fheis I’d read a lot about the ancient Celtic warriors going into battle. There were always rituals beforehand. I remember getting ready for the opening night of Lord of the Dance. I started putting on my face paint. Then a guy showed up with… Read more »

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Climate Change Ursula von der Leyen

FARMERS’ PR CAMPAIGN

Date: April 18, 2024 - Fowl Emissions

For decades scientists have warned of the extreme vulnerability of global food production systems to disruption as climate change accelerates. This is now coming to pass in real time, with farmers across Ireland and Europe feeling the brunt of ever more extreme weather. Last year, torrential rainfall hampered cereal crop production from France to Poland,… Read more »

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DUP Gavin Robinson

DUP ELECTION NIGHTMARE

Date: April 18, 2024 - Northwind

It’s changed times in the north. There’s a reversal of the natural order of politics. Turmoil and confusion in unionism threatens the stability of the Stormont institutions, while Sinn Féin works to steady the ship. With Dáil elections looming, it is in SF’s interest to maintain a working assembly and executive to show the party… Read more »

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Kate O’Connell James Geoghegan

WHITHER KATE O’CONNELL?

Date: April 18, 2024 - Last Refuge

THE RE-ENTRY of Kate O’Connell to national politics via a place on Fine Gael’s general election ticket in Dublin Bay South (DBS) is not a given, despite new Taoiseach Simon Harris’s effusive welcome home for the former TD. The storyline surrounding the period in which La Kate was consigned to a political nunnery since she… Read more »

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Justice Minister Helen McEntee

HELEN OF NAVAN SURVIVES

Date: April 18, 2024 - Last Refuge

MUCH MYSTERY and knowing punditry surrounded the survival of Helen McEntee as justice minister given all the indications that persuaded most people to believe she was a goner. However, it was not so much the political permutations, geography, gender, ideology and so on that proved… Read more »

Irish Military Mali Coolock Says No IFP Hermann Kelly Timmy Dooley Aontú Mal O’Hara Fintan O’Toole Josepha Madigan Eoghan Harris Ukraine War Micheál Martin Middle East Philip Ryan Seán Clancy Simon Coveney Hugo MacNeill Mountbatten Neasa Hourigan Green Party Martin NPT Ivana Bacik Independents Limerick Hospital Overcrowding Barry Cowen

MAL O’HARA’S SEANAD SEAT

Date: April 18, 2024 - Last Refuge

THE COALITION parties have continued the sharing (among themselves) policy of divvying up Seanad seats if and when they become available – a policy that also includes telling northern unionists to feck off. When senators Michael D’Arcy (Fine Gael) and Elisha McCallion (Sinn Féin) resigned in 2020, the two by-elections in 2021 saw FG and… Read more »

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SF Mary Lou McDonald

WILL SINN FÉIN BOUNCE BACK?

Date: April 18, 2024 - Last Refuge

GLEEFUL NOISES from Government parties and media critics at Sinn Féin’s poll slide as well as its political confusion indicate a new confidence among coalition Government members that they can see off the party at the local, EU and, most crucially, general election in the coming months. How does Mary Lou McDonald and the SF… Read more »

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Sunday Times John Mooney

IRISH PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

Date: April 18, 2024 - Fit to Print?

THE IRISH edition of the Sunday Times appears to have corrected its revisionist line on British foreign policy and has been brought to heel by the chaps in the London office, whose tutors in MI5 and Whitehall were aghast at the deviant editorial penned in the new year’s Aawrish edition. Then, a stern editorial castigated… Read more »

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Noel Doran

CROSS (VERY CROSS) BORDER VIEWS

Date: April 18, 2024 - Fit to Print?

IRISH TIMES northern editor Freya McClements wrote extensively and flatteringly about the longest-serving newspaper editor in these islands, Noel Doran, who is retiring after 25 years as editor of the Irish News (IN), the constitutional nationalist paper in the north. But Doran may not have been altogether flattered by the complimentary tone of McClements’s article…. Read more »

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Bog-Cuttings-Defaul

BOG CUTTINGS

Date: April 18, 2024 - Bog Cuttings

WHAT A SPECTACLE Kevin Duffy (34) of Castlecourt, Ballaghaderreen, Roscommon, found himself before Tubercurry District Court charged with two public order offences following an altercation on January 19 last. Gardaí received reports that the defendant was heavily intoxicated on Main Street, Charlestown, Mayo, and was holding a pair of damaged spectacles that belonged to an… Read more »

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Mark Gallagher

MARK GALLAGHER’S €10M MANSION

Date: April 18, 2024 - High Society

THE ADVERTISING by Sherry FitzGerald of a redbrick pile on leafy Ailesbury Road, with a cool €10m price tag, not surprisingly marks the property as one of the most expensive to hit the market in recent years. Given that the near 6,000 sq ft house is the Dublin abode of banker Mark Gallagher, who is… Read more »

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Tony McCoy

AINTREE ANTICS

Date: April 18, 2024 - High Society

WHILE ZILLIONAIRE Geneva tax resident JP McManus won his third Aintree Grand National last Saturday, with the Willie Mullins-trained I am Maximus, it was two former McManus jockeys – now turned pundits – Tony McCoy (sorry Sir Anthony Peter McCoy OBE) and Barry Geraghty who… Read more »

Susan O’Reilly Claremont Road

SUSAN O’REILLY’S ‘APPARITION’

Date: April 18, 2024 - High Society

A “STUNNING beachfront house hovering over the water in Howth” has attracted a lot of attention over the last week. The unusual structure was the subject of a protracted planning process, which ended up proving more expensive than expected by its owner. The Lake House… Read more »

DCCI Crescine Tarka Russell Lara Hickey Reality Check Sarah McInerney Irish Movies Paul Murray Arts Council Dublin Theatre Festival TWU Macdara Kelleher Richard Boyd Barrett DADC Cillian Murphy Terry McMahon Media Commission Ireland Kerlin Gallery Creative Ireland Section 481 Christine O’Donovan RTÉ Storyland NMI Board Vacancies IASCA Ossie Kilkenny RTÉ Original Programmes

LARA HICKEY’S CLOSE-UP

Date: April 18, 2024 - Behind the Scenes

THE FILM and TV business has long been one where ‘who you know’ features high on the lists of credits, even more so since the coinage of the ‘nepo baby’ phrase that gained traction online and has been chucked around with abandon. A recent name firmly establishing a second-generational presence in the film and TV… Read more »

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Tony Martin

TONY’S FAILED APPEAL

Date: April 18, 2024 - Sport of Kings

THE RECENT overturning by the IHRB appeals panel of the referral committee’s findings on trainer Tony Martin is not the first significant setback for the trainer. It will be recalled (see The Phoenix 5/4/24) that, following an appeal by the IHRB on the grounds of “undue leniency”, the panel chaired by retired judge Peter Kelly… Read more »

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Brendan Duke Adrian Murray Mick Bailey

O’BRIEN’S OBSTACLES

Date: April 18, 2024 - Sport of Kings

While trainer Aidan O’Brien supplied three of the five runners in Leopardstown’s Group 3 PW McGrath Ballysax Stakes, it was Adrian Murray who provided the shock 50/1 winner, Dallas Star. It presumably proved very satisfying for newly freelance rider Seamie Heffernan to deliver on Amo Racing’s charge, in what is customary seen as a Derby… Read more »

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Dalton Philips

PHILIPS DELIVERING BLAND TASTE AT GREENCORE

Date: April 18, 2024 - Moneybags

NO DOUBT there were high hopes in Greencore that the new CEO, Dalton Philips, would be able to revolutionise the company. It certainly hasn’t worked out that way and the latest figures are far from reassuring. Moreover, it is hard to see where Philips even… Read more »

Laura Anderson

DENIS O’BRIEN’S ‘LOVE ISLAND’ PRESENTER

Date: April 18, 2024 - The Hot Water Brigade

IN GLASGOW last week, Capital Scotland radio listeners had their first taste of a brand new breakfast show presenter after the station was forced into a change a little quicker than anticipated. For owner Denis O’Brien, the Scottish station represents a high-profile effort to grow his share of the UK radio market, which he entered… Read more »

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VMTV Gráinne Seoige

GRÁ FOR GRÁ AR AN TRÁ

Date: April 18, 2024 - The Hot Water Brigade

AT A time when RTÉ is facing severe budgetary constraints, it is interesting that the latest round of programme funding from the media commission contains only a single project for its main channels among the dozen biggest winners. Virgin Media TV (VMTV) has four shows, including the top three by value, while TG4 also has… Read more »

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Suzanne Gilhooly

SUZANNE GILHOOLY’S JEWELS

Date: April 18, 2024 - The Hot Water Brigade

GOLDHAWK NOTES that the taxman has registered a judgment for a less than blingy €2,400 against a company called C&S Jewellery Ltd, where the principals are husband and wife team Charlie Cullen and Suzanne Gilhooly. While the amount is almost insignificant, this judgment follows a larger €30,000 hit last summer on another entity, the Swiss… Read more »

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Megard Ltd Michael Bane

PURCELL CONSTRUCTION’S €150,000 OFFER

Date: April 18, 2024 - The Hot Water Brigade

ALMOST THREE years on from the liquidation of Megard Ltd, the company involved in the construction of the Hyde Square apartment block in Dublin 8, the residents are still engaged in legal negotiations over compensation. An offer has been put on the table by a subcontractor but it is well short of the potential final… Read more »

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Cathal Berry

GOING NUCLEAR IN IRISH SEA

Date: April 18, 2024 - Affairs of the Nation

In recent years much has been made by various academics, media and politicians about Ireland’s dependence on the Royal Air Force (RAF) for air defence. Independent TD and former Army Ranger Wing member, Cathal ‘Gung Ho’ Berry even went as far as describing the situation as a “national humiliation and embarrassment”. Strange then that the… Read more »

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Justice Minister Helen McEntee

HELEN McENTEE’S FUTURE

Date: April 4, 2024 - Last Refuge

JUSTICE MINISTER (as we speak) Helen McEntee has been pleading via the media and in person with her former rival and now leader, Simon Harris, not to sack her from justice. But while Simon may wish to come across as a magnanimous victor and retain… Read more »

Simon Harris

PROFILE: SIMON HARRIS

Date: April 4, 2024 - Pillars of Society

HOW DID 37-year-old Simon Harris beat off heavyweight contenders Paschal Donohoe and Simon Coveney, as well as Helen McEntee and other ambitious souls, to take the Fine Gael leadership and the job of Taoiseach within 24 hours or so? Harris not only blew away these… Read more »

Mark Mehigan

YOUNG BLOOD: MARK MEHIGAN

Date: April 4, 2024 - The Young Bloods

WHILE HE remains unknown to a large swathe of the country, the multi-talented Mark Mehigan has his fingers in all sorts of pies. He’s an ‘agony uncle’ on Image.ie, where his biography describes a “comedian and podcaster, author, Instagram matchmaker, aspiring Cilla Black, dating series host and dating columnist”. Recently, however, he has been attracting attention… Read more »

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Phil Hogan

DON’T MESS WITH BIG PHIL

Date: April 4, 2024 - Affairs of the Nation

SIMON COVENEY’S flight from Cabinet – before he could be pushed – had as much to do with former EU commissioner Phil Hogan as incoming Taoiseach Simon Harris. Not that Harris needed much persuasion by his unofficial advisor because while Harris was the only Cabinet member to back Coveney against Leo Varadkar in the 2017… Read more »

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