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Leo Varadkar

LEO VARADKAR’S PR DANGER

Date: September 7, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

WITH exquisite irony Leo Varadkar has managed to turn a concerted PR initiative into a PR disaster with the distinct image now emerging of a Taoiseach obsessed with style rather than political substance. There are real dangers here for Varadkar, electorally and inside Fine Gael. Voters will not be impressed with a Taoiseach cavorting in… Read more »

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Fintan O'Toole

Profile: Fintan O’Toole

Date: September 7, 2017 - Pillars of Society

IRISH Times writer Fintan O’Toole is regarded as the media’s pre-eminent political intellectual and literary critic. Globally he is certainly the best known Irish critic, if only because of the platforms provided by approving Transatlantic editors and an Irish intelligentsia whose prejudices are comforted by this most prolific and civilised of Irish writers. Brexit and… Read more »

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Ken Murphy

BIG TOBACCO, BIG LEGAL THREATS

Date: September 7, 2017 - Wigs on the Green

IT will be interesting to see if Big Tobacco now proceeds to carry out its threats of shock and awe legal action against the government when plain packaging legislation takes effect at the end of next month. The cigarette companies had the very best legal advice when they said they would protect their intellectual property… Read more »

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Frankie Gaffney

Young Blood: Frankie Gaffney

Date: September 7, 2017 - The Young Bloods

IS NOVELIST and academic Frankie Gaffney (36) his own worst enemy? Recently landing himself in the centre of a high profile and toxic row about feminism and class, the Dubliner has been digging himself into holes on social media for the past few months and stoking the ire of the Irish sisterhood in the process…. Read more »

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TV3 Ireland's Got Talent

SCHEDULES WAR – RTÉ v TV3

Date: September 7, 2017 - ReviewsTV

OUTDATED IDEAS, over-familiar faces and second-hand formats dominate the autumn schedules recently unveiled by RTÉ television and TV3. A shortage of fresh thinking is par for the course among domestic broadcasters but the complacency of these offerings seems remarkable at a time when the future of traditional terrestrial TV is under unprecedented threat. Trouble is… Read more »

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Pat Doherty

PAT DOHERTY’S PAINTINGS

Date: September 7, 2017 - High Society

WHILE PROPERTY developer Pat Doherty is probably best known for his ambitious Titanic Quarter scheme in Belfast and for being one of Nama’s biggest clients, the Donegal man is also something of an art aficionado. It turns out Doherty’s collection is held by one of the subsidiaries of his Harcourt Developments group – Discretionary Art… Read more »

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Pearse Phelan

Pearse Phelan’s prescription

Date: September 7, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

THE LIQUIDATION of the Fitzwilliam Private Clinic Ltd has just been completed and it turns out there is not a cent for the unsecured creditors, who were owed around €½m. The good news is that the plush clinic remains in rude health and is up and running in Dublin 2, albeit with a different operating… Read more »

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Mary Hanafin

Mary Hanafin’s last shot

Date: September 7, 2017 - Last Refuge

THE mother of all Fianna Fáil faction fights is gearing up in Dún Laoghaire where ex-minister, now humble councillor, Mary Hanafin, is preparing to run in her sixth general election in 20 years. But like last time out, she will probably need the backing of Micheál Martin and HQ to secure a nomination as the… Read more »

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Niall O'Connor

Niall O’Connor’s political bombshell

Date: September 7, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

JUNIOR finance minister Patrick O’Donovan is still wiping egg off his face after his blunder in naming the IRA as perpetrators of the Dublin-Monaghan bombing. But did Irish Independent political reporter Niall O’Connor – who published the minister’s remarks without criticism, comment or question – and his editor, Fionnan Sheahan, not realise what a scoop… Read more »

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Vol.35 No.18

Date: September 7, 2017 -

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Tomas O Ruairc

TOUGH LESSONS FOR TEACHING COUNCIL

Date: September 7, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

FUN AND GAMES at the Teaching Council of Ireland (TCI) where the chief executive’s reappointment has caused ructions and has led to the chairman stepping down. Tomás Ó Ruairc was appointed council director in May 2012 for a five-year term. When queried by Goldhawk, the council said it had “commenced the process of appointing a… Read more »

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Fiona McLoughlin Healy

FINE GAEL’S TRANSPARENCY ROW

Date: September 7, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

THE Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has launched an inquiry into the procurement of contracts at the Kildare and Wicklow Education and Training Board (KWETB) following an audit of its finances recently. This will come as something of an indirect vindication of Fine Gael councillor Fiona McLoughlin Healy, who recently lost the party whip on… Read more »

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WB Yeats

The Yeats Family Collection

Date: September 7, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

NEXT WEEK, over 200 items from the Yeats Family Collection will go on display at Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin before being shipped to London for the Sotheby’s auction that could scoop U2m for members of the Yeats family. Bizarrely, there has been no concern expressed by cultural vultures about the exporting of so much… Read more »

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Theresa May

BRITISH AGENTS IN IRELAND

Date: September 7, 2017 - Hush Hush

THE meeting in the European Parliament hosted by Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan this week about the activities of British undercover police in Ireland and across Europe is partly an attempt to stir a wider political and media interest in Ireland. Outrage from a variety of governments at revelations of undercover British police working as… Read more »

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TJ McINTYRE’S SETBACK

Date: September 7, 2017 - Hush Hush

WHILE the ID cards issue has pushed the State’s use (or misuse) of personal data to the front pages in recent weeks, the overall matter of data retention by the State continues to be a subject that attracts only sporadic attention. For example, there was no reporting of last month’s ruling by Judge Caroline Costello,… Read more »

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Laura Kennedy

The Hot Air Brigade

Date: September 7, 2017 - The Hot Air Brigade

I as a philosopher am qualified to say that her argument isn’t well reasoned. Tweet by Irish Times scribe and “philosopher” Laura Kennedy Mr Buckley who ran the AGM with the seamless skill of a chirpy if steely ringmaster. Indo Business Editor Dearbhail McDonald on Leslie Buckley’s performance at the INM AGM, Irish Independent Still… Read more »

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Destruction of Mosul

THE DAESH STORY IS NOT ENDING

Date: September 7, 2017 - Foreign Frolics

By Ramzy Baroud IRAQ’S second largest city, Mosul, has been reduced to rubble. It has been finally conquered, snatched back from the notorious group, Daesh, after months of merciless bombardment by the US-led war coalition, and a massive ground war. But victory can hardly be the term assigned to this moment. Mosul, once Iraq’s cultural… Read more »

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Simon Coveney

COVENEY BOWS TO THE DUP

Date: September 7, 2017 - Bird's Eye View

SIMON COVENEY was in Belfast on Tuesday listening to the local parties to assess whether there was any point in convening a new round of talks. It was another opportunity for Sinn Féin to voice its frustration with this Fine Gael government in its various incarnations since 2011. Foreign affairs ministers in the past six… Read more »

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Regina Doherty

CABINET PENSION CALCULATIONS

Date: September 7, 2017 - Last Refuge

THE delicate political calculations about when Leo Varadkar might call the next general election will be determined by a number of fluctuating circumstances – the budget, the polls, the opposition’s mood and fortunes etc. But some Fine Gael cabinet members will be less objective on the economic and political electoral factors than others. Of the… Read more »

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Roisin Shortall

SOC DEMS ‘NO’ TO LABOUR

Date: September 7, 2017 - Last Refuge

THAT recent two fingers from the Social Democrats to the Labour Party’s pleas for unity was especially hostile and was accompanied by withering denunciation of Labour’s record and its current performance in opposition. But there are rumblings behind the scenes in the Soc Dems that have made Mesdemoiselles Roísín Shortall and Catherine Murphy a little… Read more »

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Liam Kavanagh

WHO WILL BUY ‘IRISH EXAMINER’?

Date: September 7, 2017 - Fit to Print?

THE Sunday Business Post’s recent report that a bid by The Irish Times Ltd to buy the Irish Examiner is virtually a done deal indicates that Post owners Key Capital are now definitely out of the bidding. But there is still confusion about who is buying which titles. The IT is only interested in buying… Read more »

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John Burns

John Burns’s Hard Neck

Date: September 7, 2017 - Fit to Print?

IS Sunday Times associate editor John Burns beyond embarrassment? Just a wet week or so after ST columnist Kevin Myers – whose outpourings he used to edit – was defenestrated for sexist and anti-semitic remarks about female journalists, Burns has taken to lecturing other media for gender bias against the same species. The ironies don’t… Read more »

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UKIP’s Anne Marie Waters

Date: September 7, 2017 - Last Refuge

A PECULIAR spin-off of Brexit has been the implosion of UKIP, the militant Little Englander group that now sees Irish woman Anne Marie Waters bidding for its leadership. But Anne Marie is proving too racist for many UKIP members and has even been accused of “neo-fascism” by UKIP MEP Bill Etheridge, who led an unsuccessful… Read more »

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Christy Loftus

RINGER’S WESTERN SPIN

Date: September 7, 2017 - Fit to Print?

MINSTER for Rural Development Michael Ring is at least as conscious of PR and media manipulation as his new boss, Leo Varadkar, and his latest appointments to the Western Development Commission (WDC) reflects this sensitivity. Ringer has just appointed the new WDC board and while that body is supposed to look after seven western counties,… Read more »

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Paddy McKillen’s Hotel Headache

Date: September 7, 2017 - High Society

BAD NEWS for Irish entrepreneur Paddy McKillen whose involvement with the Qatari-owned Maybourne hotel group in London (made up of Claridge’s, the Berkeley and the Connaught hotels) has dragged him into the row between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt. McKillen’s long-running battle with David and Frederick Barclay after he had… Read more »

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Noella Beaumont

TAX RELIEF AT HARRISTOWN DEMESNE

Date: September 7, 2017 - High Society

LAST WEEKEND the Sunday Business Post published a feature, “Houses fit for the sport of Kings”, that examined the stud farm market in Ireland in light of the recent €8m sale of Ballymacoll Stud in Co Meath (see The Phoenix 14/7/17). The most spectacular property featured was surely Harristown House in Co Kildare, which sits… Read more »

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Married Quarters

MARRIED QUARTERS – SHANE CONNAUGHTON (DOUBLEDAY IRELAND)

Date: September 7, 2017 - BooksReviews

SET IN the fictional border town of Butlershill, this sequel to Connaughton’s 1989 short story collection, A Border Station, offers a revealing portrait of rural life in the late 1950s. Narrated primarily through the voice of Danny, teenage son of the local police sergeant, chapters are named after seven individual guards. Each man has his… Read more »

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HUNT ON AT the HUNT MUSEUM

Date: September 7, 2017 - Behind the Scenes

AT LONG last, the job of director of the Hunt Museum in Limerick has been advertised (in the Limerick Leader). This process has somehow taken 15 months to put in train following the surprise exit last year of Hugh Maguire, who now describes himself as a cultural heritage consultant. The job advert states that the… Read more »

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Breege O'Donoghue

NEW FACES AT CRAFTS COUNCIL

Date: September 7, 2017 - Behind the Scenes

THE MINISTER for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Frances Fitzgerald, has just appointed two new members to the board of the Design and Crafts Council of Ireland (DCCI). The two new ministerial appointees are Toby Scott and Andrew Bradley. Scott, a Sligo-based Brit, is described as, er, “a catalyst in the creative industries” and is a… Read more »

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Morgan O'Sullivan

MORGAN O’SULLIVAN’S GERMAN PROBLEM

Date: September 7, 2017 - Behind the Scenes

THE PUBLICATION of the 2016 accounts for Octagon Films Ltd reminded Goldhawk of the ongoing legal tango in the Four Goldmines between Octagon directors Morgan O’Sullivan and James Flynn, and German shareholder W2 Film Filmproduktion und Vertriebs, who are looking for a bigger slice of the action. Octagon, which showed accumulated profits of €300,000, was… Read more »

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Sean Mulryan

SEAN MULRYAN’S SECOND ROUND

Date: September 7, 2017 - Sport of Kings

SEAN MULRYAN’S tentative move back into racehorse ownership has got off to a positive start. His City Ballerina, which runs in the colours of Mulryan’s wife, Bernardine, made a pleasing debut at the Curragh recently, finishing third. Jessica Harrington trains the two-year-old filly for the property developer and although the nag showed potential, she has… Read more »

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Music Box at Dundalk

BALLYDOYLE’S TROJAN WORKERS

Date: September 7, 2017 - Sport of Kings

WITH ALL the media focus on those overworked hapless grooms in Ballydoyle, it is perhaps surprising that nobody has mentioned any of the horses. Readers might spare a thought for the fillies in training there which are barely back in the stable after a race before being carted off to the next gig. Case in… Read more »

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Bryan Cooper

BRYAN COOPER’S DILEMMA

Date: September 7, 2017 - Sport of Kings

BRYAN COOPER is experiencing a bad run of luck that has seen him struggling badly to pick up rides. Will he cross the Irish Sea? In the last two weeks of August, Cooper rode in just seven races when the average number of rides taken by a sample of five of his peers numbered 22…. Read more »

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Breon Corcoran

Paddy Power Betfair no sure thing

Date: September 7, 2017 - Moneybags

IN The Phoenix 20/5/2016 Moneybags warned that Paddy Power shares at €113 were trading on a pro forma p/e multiple of 50 – “a rating that is simply unsustainable”. Breon Corcoran had been running the merged group for 18 months and the delayed platform integration of these two companies is only now being completed. The… Read more »

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Ivan Menezes

Frothy Diageo shares set to go flat

Date: September 7, 2017 - Moneybags

SHARES IN Diageo are flying high following a nice bounce courtesy of the recently published June 2017 results. But the truth is, the lofty share rating is misleading, with much of the froth on the drinks giant’s shares attributable to sterling’s collapse. To date, chief executive Ivan Menezes has proved a poor successor to Paul… Read more »

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David Ingram

Stressful times for David Ingram

Date: September 7, 2017 - The Hot Water Brigade

MORE on Galvanic Ltd, the intriguing Dublin company that successfully petitioned the High Court to appoint an examiner last month. Fans of Goldhawk will recall that the outfit makes a device called The Pip, which measures stress levels by tracking changes in “electrodermal activity” through the pores on a user’s fingertips (see The Phoenix 11/08/2017)…. Read more »

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