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Amer Abdulaziz

AMER ABDULAZIZ’S EXIT

Date: August 13, 2020 - Briefcases

PHOENIX Thoroughbreds – the so-called regulated fund run by the bolshy Bahrain entrepreneur Amer Abdulaziz that has millions of euro invested in the international racing and bloodstock industry – has announced it is ceasing its racing operations in Britain with immediate effect. This could have a knock-on effect in Ireland. The company, which has always… Read more »

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Kathryn Foley

SLIPPING AND SLIDING IN SLIGO

Date: August 13, 2020 - Briefcases

FOR THE second time in three years, the racing surface at Sligo racecourse has been deemed unfit for purpose, with racing abandoned after four races there last week. This is despite some significant spending as recently as 2017. Happily, there is a few bob in the kitty. Four horses slipped up on the bend past… Read more »

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Pete Queally

PETE QUEALLY’S PET FOOD

Date: August 13, 2020 - Briefcases

WITH THE midlands undergoing lockdown, it is interesting to see that accounts have just been filed for one of the operations that recently succumbed to a Covid-19 outbreak – Irish Dog Foods (IDG) in Co Kildare. This is actually owned by the Queally family’s Arrow Group, where the directors include Pete, Liam and Michael Queally…. Read more »

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John Hume Jnr.

HUME’S PR PROCESS

Date: August 13, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

JOHN HUME Jnr, a public relations and lobbying consultant, is hardly in the same line of business as his late father, to whom he paid tribute at his funeral recently. However, Hume Jnr has certainly made his mark on governments and in the world of corporate affairs using the same honeyed tones as his dad…. Read more »

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Arlene Foster

FOSTER FACES DUP MUTINY

Date: August 13, 2020 - Northwind

The uneasy Covid truce in the north’s executive has survived into the summer recess, but only just. Some in the DUP are unhappy. Disagreements about how to deal with the response to Covid-19 were eventually set aside, mainly because Sinn Féin ministers decided they had made their point publicly and, besides, the ministers running health… Read more »

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John Bateson

DERMOT DESMOND’S BUMPY RIDE

Date: July 30, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

LAST YEAR’S crash-landing of Datalex – a company that supplies ticket-booking software to airlines around the world – was one of the more controversial episodes in the history of the Irish Stock Exchange, with the shares being suspended at the start of May 2019 (see business profile, pg 24). Given the presence of Dermot Desmond… Read more »

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Ivan Yates

YATES, KENNY, COOPER RADIO WARS

Date: July 30, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

NEWSTALK’S PROMOTIONAL blitz for its morning programme, The Pat Kenny Show, reached almost hysterical, OTT proportions recently, as it ramps up for what it hopes will be a more even contest now that Sean O’Rourke has been forced to retire from his am slot on RTÉ. Interviewed by an admiring Sarah Caden in the Sunday… Read more »

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Jack Chambers

PROFILE: JACK CHAMBERS

Date: July 30, 2020 - Pillars of Society

HOW TO explain the rapid elevation of 29-year-old Jack Chambers – already one of the top newly appointed junior minsters (finance) – to the post of chief whip and a super junior minister that attends cabinet? The defenestration of Barry Cowen is the answer, in… Read more »

Kerron O'Luain

YOUNG BLOOD: KERRON Ó LUAIN

Date: July 30, 2020 - The Young Bloods

THE SEDATE world of Irish-language organisations rarely intrudes on the monoglot English-language media in Ireland. A few polite words, the cúpla focal, usually suffice, with the occasional outburst of hostile commentary to set the balance. But a new breed of young activists is making their voice heard and upsetting the cosy consensus that has ruled… Read more »

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Maura McNally

WOMEN BREACH LEGAL CITADEL

Date: July 30, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

WHAT A restrained, non-triumphal article the Irish Times published about a victory for feminists – and indeed all women (if not exactly average, run-of-the-mill women) – as exemplified by Maura McNally’s recent success in winning the chair of the Bar Council. IT journalists, of course, have the greatest respect for members of the legal profession… Read more »

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Bertram Allen

BERTRAM ALLEN’S CLEAR ROUNDS

Date: July 30, 2020 - High Society

WITH SPORT back on the agenda, it didn’t take long for young Bertram Allen to make his mark earlier this month, when he won the first five-star international show jumping fixture (in sunny St Tropez) after the lockdown was lifted. He continues to make significant inroads in a sport where you rely on the deep… Read more »

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DE RENZY’S RETURN

Date: July 30, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

GOLDHAWK spotted one of his old friends is in the middle of a High Court spat with a Cayman Island company. The intriguing case turns out to involve very big bucks and cyber currency. According to court filings, Guardian Coin Inc is suing one Graeme de Renzy and his London company, UK Capital Reserve Ltd… Read more »

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Dermot Desmond

WILLIAM CAMPBELL’S PODCAST

Date: July 30, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

A LITTLE-known podcaster attracted the attention of the super litigious Dermot Desmond recently, although the outcome may not have been exactly what the moneybags anticipated. Last May, William Campbell’s Here’s How current affairs podcast (hereshow.ie) was dealing with Dermo’s encyclical on solving the housing crisis, which the Irish Times had deigned to publish at the… Read more »

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Liam Lonergan

LONERGAN’S FIRST-CLASS TICKET

Date: July 30, 2020 - High Society

IT WAS reported in the Sunday Times at the weekend that securing the UN security council seat cost the taxpayer €850,000, with around €¼m spent by the Department of Foreign Affairs on flights booked through Club Travel. This latter company is owned by the loaded Liam Lonergan, probably worth north of €100m, but it is… Read more »

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Michael Quinn

NIGERIAN BILLIONS

Date: July 30, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

THE QUINN family – Adam and his late father, Michael – have enjoyed extremes of treatment at the hands of the Nigerian government. Currently P&ID, the firm founded by Mick Quinn, is trying to enforce a €8.7bn arbitration award against Nigeria for failing to go through with a gas refinery contract agreed in 2010. Mick… Read more »

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REPLYING TO EOGHAN HARRIS

Date: July 30, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

BRIGHT, NEW, innovative etc Sunday Independent editor Alan English made much of the frightfully courageous decision to interview Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald. But English’s mould-breaking editorial style does not stretch to allowing anyone to cheek or even disagree with resident neo-unionist columnist Eoghan Harris. English recently allowed Harris a full broadsheet page to… Read more »

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MRS BROWN’S BUCKS

Date: July 30, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

WHILE FUNNYMAN Brendan O’Carroll and his missus, Jennifer Gibney, are presumably being very careful when enduring their lockdown in sunny Florida – something of a Covid-19 hotspot – the good news is that the money has kept rolling in. The accounts that have just been filed for Boc-Pix Ltd, the production company behind the juggernaut… Read more »

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Maurice Dockrell

KINGSTOWN FACTION FIGHTS

Date: July 30, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

SUCH HAS been the tumult in Dún Laoghaire Fine Gael in recent months that chairman of the constituency executive, Edward Kennedy, has decided to install an ethics committee to eliminate further outbreaks of disorder and breaches of conduct. This is partly as a result of the rows over deposed TD Maria Bailey last year and… Read more »

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3815-FP

Vol. 38 No 15

Date: July 30, 2020 -

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Helen McEntee

HAS PEGASUS FLOWN TO IRELAND?

Date: July 30, 2020 - Hush Hush

Given the ongoing controversies about personal data tracking this week, reports of an Israeli surveillance app that invades smartphones is surely big news. Not so in Ireland, however, despite the debate about boycotting products from illegal West Bank settlements and government parties’ backsliding on the Occupied Territories Bill. The Israeli cyberwar surveillance app in question,… Read more »

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David McWilliams

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: July 30, 2020 - The Hot Air Brigade

Consumer spending is chatty. It likes to go out, have face-to-face contact and it loves mingling. David McWilliams, Irish Times Only a month into the new leadership and I’m already pining for the Taoiseach who rocked a topless bod in the Phoenix Park. Looking back, Leo the lion was very rock n’ roll. Siobhán O’Connor,… Read more »

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Boris Johnson

WATER UNDER TROUBLED BRIDGE

Date: July 30, 2020 - Northwind

Boris Johnson loves to be loved. That’s why he started talking again last week about a bridge from Scotland to the north. It’s an attempt to win back some of the puppy love the DUP bestowed on him last year when he shouted unionist slogans with them at a party reception. Three weeks later he… Read more »

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Karen Ciesielski

FORK OFF CLIMATE DEFENDERS

Date: July 30, 2020 - Fowl Emissions

The EU Commission’s recently issued bombshell ‘Food to Fork’ strategy amounted to a radical demand for a complete re-think of how agriculture is to develop in the future. Given that the average Irish farmer receives around €12,500 in payments from the Common Agriculture Policy, the EU should have a great deal of leverage here. Agricultural… 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

DARRAGH MCCULLOUGH’S HOT AIR

Date: July 30, 2020 - Fowl Emissions

A few short months ago, as Goldhawk reported, dairy farmer and writer Darragh McCullough in the Farming Indo decried the “dangerous nonsense” being spouted by the three IFA presidential contenders, including their attacks on climate science. The latest wave of dangerous nonsense emanates from McCullough’s own column, in which he launched an attack on a… Read more »

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Olwyn Enright

FINE GAEL HEAD (WO)MAN

Date: July 30, 2020 - Last Refuge

JOHN CARROLL, special advisor to Leo Varadkar when he was taoiseach, was regarded (for this reason, if nothing else) by many as front-runner for the soon-to-be-vacant job of Fine Gael general secretary. But while Vlad did encourage Carroll to go for the position, the backroom policy wonk resiled, leaving the party leader and tánaiste disappointed… Read more »

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Janice Boylan 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

JOHN MAGNER’S RESIGNATION

Date: July 30, 2020 - Last Refuge

THE CHAIRMAN of the Fine Gael Agricultural Affairs Group (FGAAG), George O’Connor, was forced recently to convene a special meeting following complaints from some members that he presented a false picture of FGAAG support for the government programme. The programme had not at that stage (late June) been voted on by FG members. But O’Connor’s… Read more »

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Alex Murphy

FUNDING THE ‘YOUNG OFFENDERS’

Date: July 30, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

THE HYPE machine was functioning in overdrive in the run-up to series three of Peter Foott’s mildly entertaining Young Offenders, which kicked off on RTÉ last week. The low point was probably Áine Lawlor’s fawning News at One interview with cast member Shane Casey, where she told him, “We love you… We all love it…. Read more »

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Bog-Cuttings-Defaul

BOG CUTTINGS

Date: July 30, 2020 - Bog Cuttings

Christmas Doughnuts A Tralee man, who was “caught in the act” doing a doughnut in his car on Christmas Day, had his sentence reduced to careless driving following an appeal to Tralee Circuit Court. Calvin Knightly, of Spruce Court, Ashleigh Downs, Tralee, had been fined €300 and banned for two years for a charge of… Read more »

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Kyriakos Mitsotakis

IRISH WRITER NOT CENSORED

Date: July 30, 2020 - Fit to Print?

DISTINGUISHED AUTHOR, critic and musical director Richard Pine, who currently pens a regular ‘Greece Letter’ for the Irish Times and who studied and worked for many years in Ireland, has inadvertently sparked a row about censorship in the Greek media. This followed his article criticising Greek premier Kyriakos Mitsotakis and two ministers who had supported… Read more »

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

OUT OF REACH

Date: July 30, 2020 - Fit to Print?

THE END of an era was reached recently with John ‘Jumbo’ Kierans stepping down as editor-in-chief of the Irish Mirror after 25 years with the tabloid. In a resignation letter to staff, Jumbo referred to the “sudden death of my father” as having concentrated his mind about the rest of his life, although it is unclear… Read more »

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Aengus Ó Snodaigh

Ó SNODAIGHS’ MOTOR CARS

Date: July 30, 2020 - Fit to Print?

LISTENERS TO Joe Duffy’s Livewhine radio show shortly after the general election would have been taken aback to hear Joe apologising for a slip of the tongue, saying, “I read that piece wrong. It was a relative of Aengus Ó Snodaigh who was fined €150 for a public order offence. It wasn’t Aengus Ó Snodaigh…. Read more »

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Tom Sullivan

IFTA’S VIRTUAL PLOT

Date: July 30, 2020 - Behind the Scenes

FOLLOWING THE announcement of Áine Moriarty’s IFTA nominees for 2020 and, er, 2019 (sort of), there was the inevitable clamour about the omission of female nominees. On this occasion, it is female screenwriters who are notable by their absence. Given Annie Doona’s mission at Screen Ireland to balance gender representation among directors and writers, the… Read more »

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Susan Bergin Marlowe Mullingar Film Studio RTÉ Self-Employment

TAXING TIMES IN CARLOW

Date: July 30, 2020 - Behind the Scenes

FANS of Goldhawk will not be surprised to hear that Carlow County Council has had to bail out the VISUAL arts centre in Carlow. It will be recalled (see The Phoenix 18/10/19) that VISUAL found itself landed with a significant tax bill relating to VAT matters dating back to 2005. At the time, the venue… Read more »

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The Pull of Stars

THE PULL OF THE STARS – EMMA DONOGHUE (PICADOR)

Date: July 30, 2020 -

EMMA DONOGHUE’S much-trumpeted new novel takes place over three days at an understaffed Dublin hospital during the 1918 flu pandemic. At the same time, the city is struggling to cope with returning casualties from the First World War and the everyday ravages of poverty and deprivation. The reader has some ravages to contend with too…. Read more »

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Consuelo O’Connor

PETER SAVILL’S PROPERTIES

Date: July 30, 2020 - High Society

INTERESTING to see that the Sunday Times report that a company called Chelverston Investments is the new registered owner of Gerald Kean’s Drayton Manor. Chelverston is one of a number of Cayman Island-registered entities controlled by the multi-millionaire pillar of the British racing establishment, Peter Savill. Savill made his millions in the publishing business in… Read more »

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Sean Corkery

DATALEX’S CRASH LANDING COULD ATTRACT BUYERS

Date: July 30, 2020 - Moneybags

WHEN THE 15-month-long suspension was lifted earlier this month, Datalex shares collapsed 75% to 22.5c. The suspension was lifted by Euronext Dublin and its supervising authority, the Central Bank of Ireland, on foot of the company issuing what were expected to be audited accounts last month. This was far from the case and there remain… Read more »

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