IssueM Articles

Archives: Articles

articles
Hot Water Brigade default

TAXMAN WOKS RESTAURANT OWNERS

Date: January 10, 2019 - Briefcases

GOLDHAWK spotted two Dublin restaurant owners who have a lot on their plate at the moment. It seems the taxman has worked up an appetite for Belfleur Ltd, the company behind Jazz, a Chinese buffet in Coolock in D5. Belfleur, co-owned and operated by Sai Ming Leung and Yu Po Leung, was slapped with 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

Hot Water Brigade default

PHILIP SMYTH’S LATEST LOSSES

Date: January 10, 2019 - Briefcases

GENPORT Ltd, the company behind Hampton Court Hotel in Donnybrook, D4, has just filed yet another troubling set of accounts. The venture has become a money pit for its owner, businessman Philip Smyth, and it could get worse. A legal action taken against Genport by the landlord is still on the boil in the High… 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 Murphy

LISA MURPHY’S LATE FILING

Date: January 10, 2019 - Briefcases

GOLDHAWK got a blast from the past recently when he spotted that New Lisa Life Ltd was listed for striking off the register of companies for failure to file accounts. This is the company behind the Sandycove beauty salon belonging to Lisa Murphy – star of cult TV3 programme Dublin Wives – which shut up… 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

AL NAEMI’S EXPENSIVE HORSES

Date: January 10, 2019 - High Society

FIVE YEARS after setting up shop in Ireland, Qatari moneybags Mubarak Al Naemi continues to haemorrhage dosh from his County Limerick stud farm. Super wealthy racing fan Al Naemi (chairman of the Qatar Owners and Breeders Association) lashed out €4m for the famous Kilfrush Stud on 300 acres outside Knocklong in 2013 and began spending… 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

Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum

SOFTLY DOES IT WITH THE MAKTOUMS

Date: January 9, 2019 - Affairs of the Nation

GIVEN THE influence of the Dubai ruling Al Maktoum family here, the silence to date of the Irish government on the Sheikha Latifa scandal should come as no surprise. The Maktoums are classified as good friends of Ireland. In 2017, there was no condemnation, mild or otherwise, of the economic blockade of Qatar led by… 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

Deputies and Senators 1918-2018

A DIARY FOR YOUR DATE

Date: December 14, 2018 - Briefcases

FANS OF Goldhawk will be aware of the value he places on the significant source of information that is the annual diary/director published by the Institute of Public Administration (IPA). Everything you need to know about the public service, in particular, in included in the publication. The 2019 edition of the ‘Ireland – A Directory’… 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

Jared Kushner

COVENEY’S CAREFUL CHOREOGRAPHY

Date: December 13, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

ALAN SHATTER’S predictable outburst against Simon Coveney on the Israel-Palestine issue will actually be welcomed by the foreign minister. Far from behaving like a “blundering rhino”, as Shatter put it, ‘Covetous’ is engaged in the most intricate dance routine in the Middle East. Shatter’s jibe makes it look as though he is actually a danger… 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

Gretchen Mol

TROUBLE BREWING AT TROY STUDIOS?

Date: December 13, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

IN FEBRUARY this year, culture minister Josepha Madigan was invited to a ‘do’ in the Merrion Hotel, Dublin, by Kim Harris, general counsel at US studio NBC Universal, to launch the production in Troy Studios, Limerick, of the new series Nightflyers, starring Gretchen Mol. On top of this schmoozing, Harris’s colleague at Universal in New… 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

Eamon Ryan

PROFILE: EAMON RYAN

Date: December 13, 2018 - Pillars of Society

The world is waking up to climate change. The issue finally began coming up on doorsteps in 2018, according to TDs. Fears for our planet’s future and our very survival are now part of the Zeitgeist. The Green Party should be riding a wave of environmentalism to electoral gains, yet their poll ratings trundle along… 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

Lorraine Clifford Lee

YOUNG BLOOD: LORRAINE CLIFFORD LEE

Date: December 13, 2018 - The Young Bloods

FIANNA FÁIL may be stuck consistently several points behind Fine Gael in the polls, but the party is sticking to its plan of pushing forward young, modern candidates to counteract the image of an old, potentially dying political force. Thus the party’s solid backing for 36-year-old solicitor Lorraine Clifford Lee, picked out by Micheál Martin… 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

Hot Water Brigade default

MARY ROBINSON’S ‘GOOD GOVERNANCE’

Date: December 13, 2018 - Briefcases

MARY ROBINSON has decided to step down from the board of her climate change foundation, where she was in situ for many years. The good news, however, is that she will remain in situ as president, which is essentially the chief executive role. According to the 2017 annual report for the Mary Robinson Foundation, Robbo… 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

Tiernan Brady

MARTIN’S UNWILLNG FAVOURITE

Date: December 13, 2018 - Last Refuge

A CONVENTION to select Fianna Fáil’s Dublin candidate in the European elections is likely early in the New Year and is shaping up to be a battle between FF Old and FF Nua. On one side are candidates of pedigree, not to say, dynastic – former ministers Barry Andrews and Conor Lenihan – while on… 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

Gavin O'Reilly

GAVIN O’REILLY’S MALIBU MOVE

Date: December 13, 2018 - High Society

NO DOUBT Independent News & Media’s former CEO, Gavin O’Reilly, was paying close attention to the latest revelations about snooping at the troubled newspaper group, which emerged last weekend in the Sunday business Post. However, he also has other things on his mind having just completed a move to sunny Malibu – albeit only six… 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

Josepha Madigan

BUSY TIMES AT ANNAGH-MAKERRIG

Date: December 13, 2018 - Behind the Scenes

EARLIER THIS year, Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Josepha Madigan spent a week at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre (TGC) artists’ retreat to work on her proposed novel about the Catholic church and adoption – a surprise follow-up to her steamy Negligent Behaviour, which told the story of a “sassy solicitor”. The minister apparently… 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

3624-FP

Vol 36 No 24

Date: December 13, 2018 -

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

Robert Pitt

PITT’S HUNT FOR INM LEAKS

Date: December 13, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

THE SHINE has come off former Independent News & Media (INM) chief executive Robert Pitt – the man who blew the whistle on INM’s trawl of journalists’ computers – as it emerges that he was up to the same tricks himself, albeit for different reasons. Pitt’s… Read more »

Neale Richmond

COMMONWEALTH BLUES

Date: December 13, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

AT THE height of the Brexit crisis, what are Fine Gael senators Neale Richmond and Frankie Feighan up to in their promotion of the Commonwealth? The two senators have organised an “Evening with Dr Greg Munro, chief executive of the Royal Commonwealth Society” in the private members dining room, Leinster House, this week. Frankie has… 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

Dave Harmon

FF MAN TO SAVE MADAM MENG?

Date: December 13, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

FORMER Fianna Fáil spin doctor Dave Harmon will surely be called on to provide political and diplomatic assistance to Ms Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei. Ms Wanzhou has been detained in Canada on foot of an extradition warrant from the United States, which wants to charge her with alleged Iran… 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

Michael Maguire

ARRESTING THE MESSENGERS

Date: December 13, 2018 - Hush Hush

DESPITE WORLDWIDE protests, Belfast-based journalists Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney – arrested by paramilitary units of the PSNI in August – are still under investigation and subject to stringent travel and bail conditions. The two journalists made the award-winning documentary, No Stone Unturned, about the 1994 Loughinisland ‘World Cup’ massacre, which alleges collusion between 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

article-default

DIVIDENDS AT GRAFTON COLLEGE

Date: December 13, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

WHILE THE sudden closure of Grafton College English language school attracted plenty of media attention, little has been said about the operation behind the language school or the fact that the directors were claiming all was well just 10 days before the collapse. The operating company is Grafton College of Management Sciences Ltd (GCMS), where… 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

PHIL HOGAN V FRANCES FITZGERALD

Date: December 13, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

SUCH IS the poll-induced hubris in Fine Gael, especially in Dublin, that party seniors are already divvying up and apportioning potential MEPs and even the EU commissioner’s job among various names. Given the extra seat in Dublin, up to four, the party believes that two seats are on the cards. But while one potential MEP,… 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

Gemma O'Doherty

GEMMA O’DOHERTY’S NEXT MOVE

Date: December 13, 2018 - Hush Hush

HAS JOURNALIST Gemma O’Doherty, who failed to get a presidential nomination, begun planning for another shot in seven years? And has she decided that outflanking Peter Casey on the right is the way to go? Gemma harpooned herself in public when stating as fact that… Read more »

Osal Kelly

UNION FACTION FIGHTS

Date: December 13, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

AN INTRIGUING political quarrel inside the country’s second-largest union, Fórsa, saw its youth wing, Fórsa Youth Network, closed down recently by the union’s bosses, pending its reconstitution (under much tighter control) in the New Year. Surprisingly, the Socialist Party (SP), which had been accused of entryism and factionalism inside the union’s youth wing, welcomed 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

article-default

CHASING MICHAEL HEGARTY

Date: December 13, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

FANS OF Goldhawk may have been a tad surprised to see East Cork Blueshirt county councillor Michael Hegarty pop up on a three-man panel on RTÉ’s Prime Time last week discussing the subject of rural isolation and the role of the Irish pub. It will be recalled (see The Phoenix, 2/11/12) that Hegarty, who has… 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

Shane Ross

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: December 13, 2018 - The Hot Air Brigade

My own experience on the ground, weekly experience on the weekends, is that the fans are very enthusiastic about what the FAI are doing. They think the FAI are doing a very good job. Shane Ross interviewed on Newstalk To me Scrooge, like Bono, is some sort of wise old existentialist soothsayer, there to pass… 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

Jeremy Corbyn

CORBYN AND THE DUP

Date: December 13, 2018 - Bird's Eye View

THERE ARE truly astonishing times in British politics as the Conservative party tears itself asunder. This is not the first time, but it’s certainly the worst time. Ian Paisley Jnr for once got it right last week when he said, “some of the huge issues – whether it’s been the corn laws, imperial preference 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

Freddie Scappaticci

MI5 SNUFF MOVIES

Date: December 13, 2018 - Hush Hush

THE EXTREME porn conviction against Brit spy in the IRA, Fred Scappaticci, is a very public admission of defeat for Operation Kenova. In 2016, the PSNI invited the chief constable of Bedfordshire Police, Jon Boutcher, to set up Operation Kenova, an investigation into “a range of activities surrounding an individual codenamed Stakeknife”. After a year… 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 Chambers

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S MUTINOUS MEMBERS

Date: December 13, 2018 - Last Refuge

FIANNA FÁIL leader Micheál Martin’s March reshuffle was intended to supplement and beef up his senior team, not to replace them. However, divisions about the confidence and supply deal with Fine Gael have since deepened and Martin’s command staff has largely been displaced by younger and more obedient frontbenchers. Martin’s lieutenants since 2016 had been… 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

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

CHARLIE FLANAGAN’S TACTICS

Date: December 13, 2018 - Last Refuge

JUSTICE MINISTER Charlie Flanagan’s passive-aggressive attitude to the Oireachtas in the matter of Shane Ross’s pet project, the Judicial Appointments Bill, seems to have veered towards the aggressive side recently. Charlie has launched swingeing attacks on barrister “insiders” recently and was not afraid to single out senators Michael McDowell and Ivana Bacik for their filibustering… 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

Michael Martin

DE REAL LEADER IN CORK?

Date: December 13, 2018 - Last Refuge

THE UNSP0KEN but very real tension between Fianna Fáil’s leader, Micheál Martin, and his constituency ‘colleague’, party finance spokesperson Michael McGrath, is about to be ignited in the upcoming convention for candidates in the Ireland South constituency. That McGrath is poised to make a bid for the party leadership if or when Martin loses 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

Emmet Oliver

‘BUSINESS POST’ COUNTER REVOLUTION

Date: December 13, 2018 - Fit to Print?

A QUIET coup appears to have taken place at the Sunday Business Post, with a purge of the editorial top brass and their replacement with a new, conservative officer class that has rather more respect for their fellow captains of industry. Even amongst the jealous back-biters in Irish business journalism there is grudging respect 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

Martina Fitzgerald

MARTINA FITZGERALD’S BOOK

Date: December 13, 2018 - Fit to Print?

WAS IT Martina Fitzgerald’s book, Madam Politician, that jinxed the (former) RTÉ political correspondent, who lost her position last week? Certainly, Martina had a mensis horribilis right after the publication of her tribute to female politicians. There is a suspicion in Montrose that Martina’s week of absence to promote the book did her no favours… 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

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

‘IT’ OUTSIDER

Date: December 13, 2018 - Fit to Print?

HISTORIAN and Irish Times columnist Diarmaid Ferriter quoted Irish Times columnist Kathy Sheridan to buttress his Irish Times column heaping hyperbolic praise on Irish Times cartoonist Martyn Turner in the Irish Times recently. Ferriter, normally a rigorously objective historian, opened an exhibition of Turner’s work in the same week and also referred to his “relentless… 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

David Attenborough

IRELAND’S CLIMATE WOODEN SPOON

Date: December 13, 2018 - Fowl Emissions

AS A metaphor for the state of the global ‘response’ to climate change, the choice of Katowice as the venue for the UN’s 24th Conference of the Parties (COP) could not have been more apt. It is located deep in the heartland of Poland’s coal industry. The COP was lucky enough to secure the state-run… 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

MORE HOT AIR

Date: December 13, 2018 - Fowl Emissions

While the young have done the least to cause the ecological crisis, their generation will suffer grievously as the climate hits the fan. In a first of its kind, last week a group of young activists staged a sit-in at the Department of Climate Action in Dublin. While it was a far more polite affair… 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

BOG CUTTINGS

Date: December 13, 2018 - Bog Cuttings

A BRIDGE TOO FAR A MAN who fell off a bridge into the Garavogue river after getting drunk on a night out suffered enough punishment according to District Court judge Kevin Kilrane. Jason O’Mahoney (41) of Maryville Hostel, Sligo, was charged with being intoxicated in public at Rockwood Parade. “I’m very guilty. I fell over… 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