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Vol 36 No 08

Date: April 19, 2018 -

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IRFU KEEPS ITS EYE ON THE BALL

Date: April 19, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

THE TERMINATION of the contracts of shamed rugby players Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding was never in doubt from the time the trial ended and the all-important commercial considerations kicked in. The focus of media and sponsors had been on Belfast, where pressure also came from the fans. On March 10, Ulster Rugby posted a… Read more »

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USI SIGNS UP TO Israel boycott

Date: April 19, 2018 - Student Life

USI (Union of Students in Ireland) held its national congress earlier this month in Ballinasloe, where Longford native Síona Cahill was appointed president (see Young Blood, pg 17). The most interesting decision taken by delegates was to support a motion in favour of the boycott, divestments and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli apartheid – a development… Read more »

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EMILY LOGAN KEEPS MUM ON EGYPT

Date: April 19, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

HUMAN RIGHTS campaigning can be a tricky business as the head of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC), Emily Logan, found recently. Logan recently apologised to the other commission members for a lack of transparency in drawing up criteria for the appointment of new members. This followed a complaint from longstanding human rights… Read more »

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HYLAND’S SUITE GUYS

Date: April 19, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

THERE has been rather less hype about Dublin Tech Week – Ian Hyland and Paul Connolly’s attempt to replace Paddy Cosgrave’s web summit – than they would have expected. Perhaps the two boys will improve their communications via a new company they have set up entitled Principal Communications (PC) that has recruited various heavy hitting… Read more »

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THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: April 19, 2018 - The Hot Air Brigade

My Sunday ritual is to go to Alice Tully Hall at the Lincoln Center to hear a chamber orchestra… It’s important not to shuffle or cough. When I went to hear the six Bartok quartets, someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, “I hope you’re going to be quiet.” It was Philip Roth. It… Read more »

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Down Loyalists Dee Stitt and Arlene Foster

LOYALIST GANGS AT WORK IN PLAIN SIGHT

Date: April 19, 2018 - Bird's Eye View

AT NOON last Friday, 200 PSNI officers with members of the British National Crime Agency and Customs and Excise raided 12 premises in greater Belfast including the towns of Crumlin and Glenavy, now nationalist. Armed with search warrants the police were looking for evidence to break up the INLA’s criminal activities: extortion, prostitution and drug… Read more »

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FINE GAEL SIRENS’ SEANAD BID

Date: April 19, 2018 - Last Refuge

THE Newman blue blouse coven – TD Kate O’Connell, her sister and parliamentary aide, Theresa Newman, and third sister, would-be senator Mary Newman – are incensed at Leo Varadkar’s disregard for Mary’s bid in one of next week’s two Seanad by-elections. But they have come up with a cunning plan they believe will usher Mary… Read more »

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MICHEÁL MARTIN’S REPEAL THE 8th RISK

Date: April 19, 2018 - Last Refuge

IS the political media corps so invested in a Yes to repeal the 8th referendum that none of them wants to consider the fall-out from a No vote? Nobody is sure how the referendum will go but the consequences of a No win will shake the leadership of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. When it… Read more »

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SINN FÉIN BLOCKS DUBLIN MAYOR FROM DÁIL

Date: April 19, 2018 - Last Refuge

DUBLIN’S Sinn Féin mayor Mícheál Mac Donncha raised his already high profile stint as mayor with pimpernel activities in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories last week. But if Mac Donncha has provoked the wrath of the Israeli government he appears not to be flavour of the month with his own party leadership either, judging… Read more »

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ANNE HARRIS’S ‘WAR’ CASUALTIES

Date: April 19, 2018 - Fit to Print?

WRITING in the Sunday Business Post recently, former Sunday Independent editor Anne Harris described her “personal testimony of my experience at INM” as “the equivalent of war” and how “democracy itself seemed threatened”. Pouring scorn on those who now claim to be on the side of journalistic standards against ex-INM chairman Leslie Buckley, Harris vented… Read more »

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GAVIN’S DISGUST

Date: April 19, 2018 - Fit to Print?

“It is time for answers at INM, GAVIN O’REILLY EXCLUSIVE”, was emblazoned across the front page of the Sunday Business Post following the ODCE allegations against ex-INM chairman Leslie Buckley and the accessing of journalists’ details. O’Reilly, former INM chief executive and chairman of Red Flag Consulting, expressed his “shock and absolute revulsion” at the… Read more »

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POOR CHILLY SODDEN FARMERS

Date: April 19, 2018 - Fowl Emissions

CRISIS, what crisis? It seems like only yesterday when our media was awash with heart-rending stories of starving cattle and desperate farmers as the fodder crisis swept the land. Agriculture Minister Michael Creed was being berated for “not doing enough” to ease the plight of livestock owners. One or two brave souls even ventured to… Read more »

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Bog Cuttings

Date: April 19, 2018 - Bog Cuttings

‘Fuck off, you’re a sausage’ GARDAÍ received phone calls from residents about youths causing disturbances in the Glanmire area over several months last year. In one incident a youth told a garda: “Fuck off, you’re a sausage.” One youth has now pleaded guilty to the part he played in three of these incidents. Donal Bullman,… Read more »

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WHERE THERE’S MUCK THERE’S BRASS

Date: April 19, 2018 - High Society

A HUGE spread in Delgany, Co Wicklow, featured in the Sunday Times earlier this month, with the price tag for Castlefield House coming in at a cool €4.5m. This is €1m down from 12 months ago, however, when it was put on the market by waste disposal moneybags Michael Noble and his wife, Astra. The… Read more »

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GEORGE MAGAN’S MILLIONS

Date: April 19, 2018 - High Society

THIS YEAR has been rather less controversial than last for George Magan – aka Baron Magan of Castletown – with the news that the splendid Castletown Cox estate, outside Carrick-on-Suir in Co Kilkenny, has been offloaded for north of E20m, around 15% above the asking… Read more »

MICHAEL INSIDE – DIRECTED BY FRANK BERRY

Date: April 19, 2018 - MoviesReviews

PUT MARK Hamill on a familiar rock in the Atlantic, add a few CGI bells and whistles and we’ll readily believe he’s an ascetic Jedi knight marooned on a far-flung planetary outpost. In certain respects science fiction film scenarios are easily rendered because they’re set in unfamiliar worlds. Whereas the story that’s local, contemporary and… Read more »

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FROM A LOW AND QUIET SEA – DONAL RYAN (DOUBLEDAY)

Date: April 19, 2018 - BooksReviews

DONAL RYAN’S novels have focused to date on damaged and distracted characters experiencing lives of quiet misery. Ryan’s latest book echoes both The Spinning Heart and The Thing About December in exploring sorrow and loss in two starkly different settings. The book is divided into three main sections and the first goes beyond Irish provincial… Read more »

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DRAMATIC HAND-OUTS FROM THE BAI

Date: April 19, 2018 - Behind the Scenes

THE LATEST round of the Sound & Vision fund run by Michael O’Keefe’s Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) had €6m of TV licence fee dosh to hand out to the nation’s radio and television producers, the lion’s share going to the telly crowd as usual. The largest beneficiary was Pierce Boyce, Bríd Seoighe and Eileen… Read more »

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MARK FLOOD’S FITZWILLIAM FANS

Date: April 19, 2018 - Sport of Kings

FITZWILLIAM RACING was a name that cropped up a few times in the winner’s enclosure last year and the investment syndicate, set up by venture capitalist Mark Flood, has made a good start to its second season on the track. Johnny Murtagh is the syndicate’s trainer and he delivered Urban Beat to a win at… Read more »

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PHILIP FENTON’S RETURN?

Date: April 19, 2018 - Sport of Kings

COULD Philip Fenton be planning a return to the training ranks? The former champion amateur jockey and multiple Grade 1 winning trainer was handed a three-year ban from training by the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) in 2014, after Department of Agriculture officials discovered animal steroids at his Tipperary training facility. Fenton’s ban came to… Read more »

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BREEZE UPS AND DOWNS

Date: April 19, 2018 - Sport of Kings

BRYAN COOPER’S new venture as a seller of breeze up horses has gotten off to a stuttering start. Cooper – in partnership with his friend Cormac O’Flynn – bought six yearlings last autumn to break and prepare for sale as two-year-old racing prospects at breeze up sales this spring. Their first offering, a colt by… Read more »

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Fat fees at slow growing I-Res Reit

Date: April 19, 2018 - Moneybags

THE ARRIVAL in Ireland of the 50,000-apartment Canadian landlord, Capreit, has fundamentally changed the rental investment market. Its Irish offshoot, Irish Residential Property Reit (I-Res), is now heading for owning 3,000 Dublin apartments. While the rate of share price growth has been slow, the good news for the main players is a most rewarding fee… Read more »

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Providence shareholders holding out for a bonanza

Date: April 19, 2018 - Moneybags

AFTER 37 years of failures at Atlantic/Providence Resources, the company has signed a farm-out and financing deal with the Chinese group, Apex – a consortium made up of the drilling subsidiary of the Chinese oil major, CNOOC, and JIC Capital, an offshoot of the state-owned China Investment Corp. There is a long way to go… Read more »

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Liam Sugrue’s bad timing

Date: April 19, 2018 - Briefcases

SPARE a thought for Kerry builder Liam Sugrue whose construction outfit has gone to the wall. Three of Sugrue’s companies collapsed earlier this month and a quick glance at the accounts reveals his main business was swimming in red ink. Conor Payne and Barry Donohue were appointed joint liquidators to Farnes Construction Ltd and the… Read more »

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Niall Wiseman’s faulty Towers

Date: April 19, 2018 - Briefcases

A LOUTH development company called Towerpoint Properties Ltd faces a winding up petition in the High Court next week courtesy of the dreaded taxman. The outfit turns out to be owned by Dundalk businessman Niall Wiseman, one of the three founders of the Insomnia coffee chain. Wiseman is best known for his time with Redcoral… Read more »

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Cantec’s troubled history

Date: April 19, 2018 - Briefcases

MORE on Click.ie, the Dublin tech retailer that collapsed in early April leaving customers empty handed. The company behind Click.ie is Cantec Office Solutions Ltd (COS), one of two related companies set up by Goldhawk’s old pal, hapless Co Meath businessman Maurice Muldoon. In 1996, Muldoon set up computer and IT retailer Cantec North-East Ltd… Read more »

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Derek Madden’s late filing

Date: April 19, 2018 - Briefcases

GOLDHAWK spotted an interesting little bioenergy company called Prime Energy Power Ltd, where the liquidator has just been called in after it ran out of moolah. The directors here are listed as Galway native Derek Madden and Finnish businessman Rainer Haggblom, an associate of moneybags paper mogul Dermot Smurfit, who at one stage had a… Read more »

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Heavey Exit

Date: April 19, 2018 - Affairs of the Nation

FANS OF Goldhawk will not have been too surprised by news this week that one Dorothy Thompson CBE has been appointed chair of the quoted exploration company Tullow Oil – at one stage worth a whopping €15bn on the stock market but today down to just €3.5bn. Last year, Goldhawk asked what on earth was… Read more »

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Greg Kavanagh and Pat Crean’s agreement

Date: April 19, 2018 - Briefcases

THE honeymoon is well and truly over for Greg Kavanagh and Pat Crean, the duo behind New Generation Homes. After cashing out of New Generation at the end of 2016 in a deal reportedly worth €150m, Kavanagh is now suing firms linked to his former business partner Crean for over E10m in the High Court… Read more »

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Taxing matters

Date: April 19, 2018 - Briefcases

A COUPLE of familiar names popped up recently with tax judgments registered against them. Earlier this month, the Revenue slapped Wicklow businessman Stan O’Reilly Jr – best known as the operator of C&D Recycling – with a hefty €470,000 judgment. O’Reilly made the headlines a few years ago when Wicklow Council brought planning enforcement proceedings… Read more »

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Dom Carney’s court dates

Date: April 19, 2018 - Briefcases

SPARE a thought for brother and sister duo Dom and Niamh Carney who had a tough day in the Supreme Court recently. The Cork entrepreneurs were denied leave to appeal a Circuit Court injunction that restrained Dom Carney from entering properties at the Westview apartments on Washington Street in Cork city centre. The Carneys are… Read more »

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Olga’s cases

Date: April 19, 2018 - Hush Hush

GOLDHAWK’S favourite Russian lawyer, Olga Shajaku, popped up in the news last weekend when her client found himself accused of owing a fellow Russkie €1m. Olga knows a thing or two herself about seven-figure bills. Shajaku’s MS Solicitors represented Sergey Tarutin – editor of Ireland’s Russian-language newspaper Nasha Gazeta – when he was sued in… Read more »

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Haughey’s money

Date: April 19, 2018 - Last Refuge

THE progress of Vincent Browne’s long awaited biog of Charles Haughey has seen the veteran hack appeal recently for information from the public on the former Taoiseach. Goldhawk’s contribution to this quest is a reminder of Browne’s own interaction with Squire Hockey. Back in 1977 when Browne was earning his reputation as a fearless journalist… Read more »

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Brendan and Denis

Date: April 19, 2018 - Fit to Print?

AN INM editorial executive who has thrived despite offering Denis O’Brien perhaps the greatest single provocation is Sindo journalist Brendan O’Connor. In the heat of battle before the fall of the House of Castlemartin O’Connor, fighting alongside Harris against the O’Brien takeover, actually implied that Denis was “corrupt” (see The Phoenix, 6/4/18 and passim). O’Connor… Read more »

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Agri-bucks

Date: April 19, 2018 - Fowl Emissions

WITH the average family farm income in 2016 at a dismal €24,000, and with two in three beef farmers only solvent thanks to CAP transfers from the EU taxpayer, you might think there wasn’t a bob to be made in the sector. Happily, nothing could be further from the truth. As a recent Irish Farmers… Read more »

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