IssueM Articles

Archives: Articles

articles
David Whelan

VRE SHAREHOLDERS BANKING ON BUY-OUT

Date: September 10, 2020 - Moneybags

IT IS certainly surprising that a tiny company, with sales of less than €½m and losing money at a rate of knots, could possibly float off on the stock market, but this is what Waterford-based VR Education (VRE) did just over two years ago. In April 2018, it floated on the Dublin ESM and London… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Edmond Scanlon

KERRY GROUP’S SHARE RATING LOOKS TOO HIGH

Date: September 10, 2020 - Moneybags

KERRY GROUP is now worth over E19bn, having floated off at IR£0.52 in the early 1980s, with the shares now at U114. Over the years Kerry Co-Op’s original 51% shareholding in the group has gradually been reduced, mainly courtesy of share spin-offs to the co-op members, although its current 12.7% stake is still worth an… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Noel Meade

NOEL MEADE’S CLAIMS

Date: September 10, 2020 - Sport of Kings

SINCE RACING resumed in June, Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) has been viewed as having done a decent job in rescheduling important races that were lost during the lockdown and amending the programme to cater for as many horses as possible while observing protocols. One casualty from that restructure, however, was claiming races and Noel Meade… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Brendan Duke Adrian Murray Mick Bailey

KEVIN BLAKE’S INTERFERENCE

Date: September 10, 2020 - Sport of Kings

RACING HACK and broadcaster Kevin Blake is not shy about airing his opinions and he has been on a campaign over the summer to highlight both the inconsistency and the leniency of the rules when it comes to sanctioning jockeys for causing interference during a race. While Blake claimed that he was simply trying to… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Franky Wright

FRANKY WRIGHT’S RENT HOLIDAY

Date: September 10, 2020 - Briefcases

WITH IRISH tourism businesses having benefitted from the boom in stay-at-home holidays, Goldhawk presumes that Franky Wright’s Lilliput Adventure Centre on the banks of Lough Ennel outside Mullingar did pretty well for itself in recent weeks. Remarkably, Wright, who set up his business in 1998, has been in situ at the historic Lilliput House for… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Bernard Brogan

BERNARD BROGAN’S PERFORMANCE

Date: September 10, 2020 - Briefcases

DUBLIN FOOTBALL ace Bernard Brogan is back in the newspapers thanks to his new autobiography, which was released this month. Cynics might carp that he had never really left them, given his impressive level of self-promotion, but Goldhawk had noticed a subtle shift from the sports pages to the business pages, where it was the… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Marcus Carne

KEATING’S LEGAL ISSUES

Date: September 10, 2020 - Briefcases

SURPRISING TO see that construction and marine/civil engineering powerhouse Keating construction on the wrong end of a judgment for €92,000. The high-profile company behind Keating construction was founded back in 1987 by Clare man Louis Keating, who exited as a director last year. This followed the earlier sale of a majority stake in the company… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

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

ZOE KELLY’S WEDDING WOES

Date: September 10, 2020 - Briefcases

ACCOUNTS for the impressive-sounding MBZ International caught Goldhawk’s eye recently, but the figures on the balance sheet were a good deal more modest than its name might suggest. Fans of Goldhawk will recall (see The Phoenix 4/11/16) that Gillian Kelly (aka Gillian Ronan, sister of builder Johnny) is a backer of the wedding and party… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Jim O'Callaghan

O’CALLAGHAN LURKS

Date: August 27, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

PERSONALITIES IN the news and in crisis are EU Commissioner Phil Hogan and ex-attorney general Séamus Woulfe, but the real political crisis is the progressive deterioration of Fianna Fáil and Micheál Martin. Some pundits may dismiss FF’s 11% rating in last weekend’s poll (Ireland Thinks/Mail on Sunday), but the figure is in line with the… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Phil Hogan

BIG PHIL AND VLAD

Date: August 27, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

THE BARELY noticed but distinct difference between statements about EU commissioner Phil Hogan’s fate from Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar last weekend reflects the long-standing bond between Vlad and Big Phil. Nevertheless, it did not save Hogan from perdition. With howls of indignation reaching a crescendo, both Martin and Varadkar stated last Saturday… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Michelle O'Neill

PROFILE: MICHELLE O’NEILL

Date: August 27, 2020 - Pillars of Society

On January 23, 2017, Gerry Adams announced Michelle O’Neill’s appointment as Sinn Féin leader in the north to succeed Martin McGuinness who had stepped down as his terminal illness took hold. O’Neill chose for her first public outing after her elevation to speak at the 25th anniversary of the SAS killing of four IRA men… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Noel Kelly

NOEL KELLY’S GANG

Date: August 27, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

WITH POOR Sean O’Rourke’s planned return to the airwaves scuppered by ‘Golfgate’, a prime Saturday lunchtime slot has just opened up on RTÉ radio. One man keeping an eye on developments here will be the so-called ‘agent to the stars’ Noel Kelly, who has seen his clients landing a number of big radio gigs recently,… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Aisling Dolan

YOUNG BLOODS: AISLING DOLAN

Date: August 27, 2020 - The Young Bloods

BUOYED BY consistent strong opinion poll standings, Fine Gael is intensifying its efforts to win extra seats in the next general election, especially in those constituencies where it currently has no representation. Among these is Roscommon Galway, where party hopes are on healthcare project advisor Aisling Dolan, who got Leo Varadkar’s nod as one of… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

article-default

HUMANISTS AT WAR

Date: August 27, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

ALTHOUGH THE Humanist Association of Ireland (HAI) boasts an “informal, friendly and inclusive environment”, major changes are afoot in the relationship between the organisation and its celebrants that are to be implemented in October. But not all the new regulations are being welcomed. The HAI’s change of direction dates back to January 2019 and, although… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Fintan O'Toole

FINTAN GET’S IT WRONG!

Date: August 27, 2020 - Fit to Print?

MOST IRISH TIMES readers and certainly those who work in the IT editor’s office would dismiss the notion of Papal infallibility, but they do expect Fintan O’Toole to always get it right. So there was much confusion when former climate action minister Richard Bruton tore shreds off Fintan for getting it fundamentally wrong in his… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Theo Dorgan

THEO DORGAN’S ‘GREAT BOOK’

Date: August 27, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

NO DOUBT University College Cork president Patrick O’Shea was delighted with the programme broadcast last week on RTÉ about the university’s acquisition of The Great Book of Ireland (TGBI), the brainchild of poet Theo Dorgan and artist Gene Lambert back at the start of the 1990s. The programme was commissioned by UCC and happily there… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Patricia Quinn

PATRICIA QUINN’S APPRAISAL

Date: August 27, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

A CHARITY database fronted by Patricia Quinn is about to undergo an appraisal process that could end up with its funding being cut. Based on her previous experience, Quinn might be getting a little nervous. The former head of the Arts Council previously founded the Irish Nonprofit Knowledge Exchange (INKE) to establish a database of… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Consuelo O’Connor

JACKIE HAIGH’S HOUSES

Date: August 27, 2020 - High Society

INTERIOR DESIGNER and art collector Jackie Haigh and her hubby, Adrian, have just put their Anglesea Road pile on the market, with an asking price of €2.5m, having picked it up for €2.2m just three years ago. The hike in price in part reflects the input from the tireless Jackie, who also has an interesting… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

VOL.38 NO.17

Date: August 27, 2020 -

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Séamus Woulfe

LOBBYING AG SÉAMUS WOULFE

Date: August 27, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

THE BELEAGUERED former attorney general, Séamus Woulfe, has been a long-time supporter of former climate action minister, Richard Bruton (as well as a long-standing Fine Gael member), who was crucial to his appointment as AG in 2017. Woulfe lives in Bruton’s Dublin Bay North constituency and has accompanied him at various election counts. Few party… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

article-default

COVID FILM PLOT THICKENS

Date: August 27, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

HEARING ABOUT concerns in filmmaking circles regarding a small Covid-19 outbreak on a production, Goldhawk sent a series of queries to so-called ‘stakeholders’ in the sector in an attempt to establish the extent of any outbreak and measures adopted to contain it. The film producer in question neither confirmed nor denied that crew members had… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Roisin Garvey

STICKS AND STONES

Date: August 27, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

IT HASN’T been the most auspicious start to a parliamentary career for new Green Party senator Róisín Garvey. “Fuck her,” the former Clare county councillor wrote about deputy leader Catherine Martin in an internal party Whatsapp group – a comment that found its way into the Irish Examiner. An apology to Martin followed and a… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Colum McCann

EXODUS CHAPTER 11

Date: August 27, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

IF Colm McCann’s book, Apeirogon, wins the Booker Prize or even makes it on to the short list next month, the murmurings of debate that can already be heard will reach a crescendo. This is not just because of the fatuous message in the book – its two emblematic characters, one Palestinian, one Israeli, both… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Brian Nelson

ANOTHER BRIAN NELSON VICTIM

Date: August 27, 2020 - Hush Hush

The abduction and torture of a registered blind, Belfast Catholic in the 1970s lends a new twist to the story of Britain’s top agent in the UDA, Brian Nelson – the man responsible for multiple assassinations, including that of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane. In 1973 Nelson was the ringleader of a UDA gang that severely… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Pippa Hackett

HACKETT UNDER FIRE

Date: August 27, 2020 - Hush Hush

While two high-profile ministerial casualties at Agriculture have grabbed the headlines, the Greens junior minister for land use and biodiversity, Pippa Hackett, is also now in the firing line. Hackett was propelled from the Seanad to try to broaden the Greens’ electoral appeal beyond the Pale, but she has drawn heavy NGO fire for pushing… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Phil Hogan

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: August 27, 2020 - The Hot Air Brigade

All of us must display solidarity as we try to stamp out this common plague. Phil Hogan, Twitter, submitted by reader “What would happen RTÉ if half the newsroom was struck down? I told RTÉ I was prepared to do anything to help. Be a driver. I will clean toilets if I have to. Charlie… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Flann O'Brien

FLANN O’BRIEN LOGIC

Date: August 27, 2020 - Fowl Emissions

Joy was unconfined in dairy circles with the recent exciting news that good old-fashioned cows’ milk was “better for the environment” than those das-tardly soy-based alternatives. No less an authority than the Daily Telegraph stated that vegans “should abandon soy milk if they want to save the planet”. A slew of similar headlines followed in… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Boris Johnson

A SHARED CONFUSION

Date: August 27, 2020 - Bird's Eye View

IT WAS probably just as well that Boris Johnson made off as soon as he could from his meeting at Hillsborough Castle on August 13, leaving Micheál Martin to do the press conference on his own. Had he stayed he would have exposed the gaping hole that yawns where Martin’s policy on the proposed centenary… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Norma Foley

SCHOOL MARM FOLEY IN HOT SEAT

Date: August 27, 2020 - Last Refuge

FROM LOWLY councillor to the cabinet in one fell swoop, education minister Norma Foley has the political weight of the Kingdom and the country on her shoulders. If the schools don’t open the economy won’t function and Norma has looked anything but confident so far as the opposition went for her throat over the reopening… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Billie Sparks

ALAN KELLY’S GHQ STAFF

Date: August 27, 2020 - Last Refuge

NEW LABOUR party leader Alan ‘AK47’ Kelly heads up a party of six TDs. The party has enjoyed a consistent poll rating of around 5% throughout 2020 but has been eclipsed in the Dáil by Sinn Féin with 37 seats. However, the mood in the party and media movement by Kelly suggests that SF will… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Micheál Martin

TAOISEACH’S NEW PERSPECTIVE

Date: August 27, 2020 - Last Refuge

AN INDIGNANT Micheál Martin gave the then taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, quite a ticking off in June last year when quizzing him on the soaring cost of the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) commission of investigation. However, now that he is taoiseach, Martin appears to have developed a more mature and considered approach to what he… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Bog-Cuttings-Defaul

BOG CUTTINGS

Date: August 27, 2020 - Bog Cuttings

Sin Bin Seamus Treanor (34) of 13 Burnside, Lower Main Street, Letterkenny, appeared at Letterkenny District Court charged with three counts of criminal damage. Judge Paul Kelly heard that, in the early hours of October 24, 2019, the defendant was caught on CCTV kicking the wing-mirror of a patrol car at Milford Garda Station. He… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire

SHINNERS V JOE DUFFY

Date: August 27, 2020 - Fit to Print?

TO INADVERTENTLY provoke a defamation action from one Sinn Féin TD could be regarded as misfortune, but to do so against another SF TD on the same programme looks like carelessness. But Cork TD Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire has followed his colleague, Aengus Ó Snodaigh, by suing RTÉ and one “Joseph Duffy” for remarks made in… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Susan Bergin Marlowe Mullingar Film Studio RTÉ Self-Employment

VALUING LOUIS LE BROCQUY

Date: August 27, 2020 - Behind the Scenes

NEXT MONTH’S auction by Sotheby’s of 19 works owned by Mick Smurfit should shine some light on the current perceived worth of a painting by Louis le Brocquy, which has been on a downward slide in recent years, despite the efforts of his son and former agent, Pierre le Brocquy. The price guide for Travelling… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Strange Flowers - Donal Ryan

STRANGE FLOWERS – DONAL RYAN (DOUBLEDAY)

Date: August 27, 2020 - BooksReviews

SINCE The Spinning Heart was longlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize, Donal Ryan has been winning consistent praise for his slight but assured “recession-lit” novels. Much of his fiction focuses on the traumatic experiences of marginalised individuals who have been mauled by the Celtic Tiger. It’s not altogether surprising that these tortured souls succeed… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Lisa McGowan

LISA MCGOWAN’S NEW VENTURE

Date: August 27, 2020 - High Society

THIS WEEK, the case featuring influencer Lisa McGowan of Lisa’s Lust List and Facebook Ireland was back in court, with McGowan seeking the identities of anonymous online posters who, she claims, have damaged her business. Interestingly, the case coincides with a brand new venture from the blogger. McGowan is claiming that her business – the… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber