IssueM Articles

Archives: Articles

articles

DR VARADKAR’S DILEMMA

Date: June 2, 2017 - Last Refuge

LEO Varadkar has received favourable commentary for his work ethic in his chosen profession of medicine in early life – “a young man who gave over his life to medicine” said the Sunday Independent. And The Irish Times described him as a “hard worker”, reporting how “almost everyone remembers his capacity for work”, and quoting… 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

Frances Fitzgerald

FRANCES FITZGERALD’S FINESSE

Date: June 2, 2017 - Last Refuge

TÁNAISTE and justice minister, Frances Fitzgerald, has degenerated from being a potential Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach to a minister fighting for her political life within a matter of months. But will her shameless support for Leo Varadkar be enough to save Fitzgerald’s senior position as justice minster or even her cabinet seat? Fitzgerald’s opportunist… 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

Simon’s Tactics

Date: June 2, 2017 - Last Refuge

SIMON COVENEY was congratulated for his plucky and gentlemanly fight back against Leo Varadkar’s Conor McGregor type assault in the first days of the leadership campaign. But Simon’s side was not above fighting dirty and signs of desperation were evident in James ‘Bottler’ Reilly’s speech in Cavan last week. Reports of his speech in 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

leo-varadkar

Leo’s Headache

Date: June 2, 2017 - Last Refuge

LEO VARADKAR’S troika in the South-East of Kilkenny TD, John Paul Phelan, Wexford junior defence minister, Paul Kehoe and his constituency rival, Michael D’Arcy TD, gives the new leader a real cabinet headache. These three were in the front line of Varadkar’s storm troopers as they over-ran Simon Coveney’s forces in the first day or… 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

martin baulks at action on vulture funds

Date: June 2, 2017 - Last Refuge

Micheál Martin appears to have developed a Hamlet complex. The conservatism and fear of a premature election that has seized the party over the last few months has paralysed Fianna Fáil and currently they are unable to decide whether to move a bill confronting vulture funds and their seizure of distressed homes mortgages. Last February,… 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

COVENEY’S INDO CHOIR GIRLS

Date: June 2, 2017 - Fit to Print?

THE Irish Independent made a desperate attempt to rally support for its favoured Fine Gael contender Simon Coveney last Saturday while also lauding Simon’s siren Kate O’Connell, one of just two Dublin-based, female TDs on the Corkman’s team. The Indo published four photos of O’Connell and several articles on her in the weekend edition and… 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

Eoghan Harris

Harris’s Pendulum Swings Again

Date: June 2, 2017 - Fit to Print?

THE straight-talking, no-nonsense Eoghan Harris told Sindo readers and Newstalk’s Ivan Yates recently that if he were a Fine Gael member he would vote for Leo Varadkar as leader. This, Bertie Ahern’s former Senate choice explained, was because he was no “ fence-sitter”. Harris may believe that being a political revisionist allows him to ignore… 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

Israeli Intervention?

Date: June 2, 2017 - Fit to Print?

THE Irish Times appears to be the target of a cyber attack from Israeli supporters as a concerted attempt has been made to reverse its poll on support or not for Dublin City Council’s flying of the Palestinian flag above City Hall. After councillors voted to fly the flag on May 8, the IT’s poll… 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

Leslie Buckley

Date: June 2, 2017 - Pillars of Society

THESE ARE testing times for the chairman of Independent News and Media (INM), Leslie Buckley, trusted lieutenant and boardroom representative of the group’s biggest shareholder, Denis O’Brien. Unusually for the chairman of a listed company, Buckley (a one-time tax exile it turns out) has been beset by corporate governance issues in recent months and finds… 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

VICTIMISED CLIMATE DENIERS

Date: June 2, 2017 - Fowl Emissions

FROM the moment Claire Byrne uttered her sulky opening question – “Climate change: should anyone dare to debate the fundamentals?” – it was clear this would be RTÉ at its underdog-championing best: giving a platform to a victimised minority (climate contrarians) battling the tyranny of scientific fact. RTÉ television is a serial offender when it… 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: June 2, 2017 - Bog Cuttings

‘Your shirt is too pink’ Kerry county councillors have voted in favour of a motion calling for a dress code to be introduced for TDs and county councillors. Fine Gael councillor Pat McCarthy tabled the motion after listening to three tourists in Dublin who were “shocked and appalled” by how some deputies were dressed. Independent… 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

Cllr John Lyons

Date: June 2, 2017 - The Young Bloods

ODDS on an early general election have shortened with the advent of a new Fine Gael leader and Leo Varadkar has already outlined part of his electoral strategy, namely, target Sinn Féin and the hard left. Once insignificant and confined to college debating societies, the organised far left now has six TDs (not including such… 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

THE TAN WAR

Date: June 2, 2017 - High Society

LAST WEEK, the Oirish Mail on Sunday highlighted a move by make-up/lifestyle blogger and cosmetics phenomenon, Suzanne Jackson “into Marissa’s patch” – claiming that the launch of a new tanning brand “will pitch [Jackson] against award-winning tan queen” Marissa Carter. As fans of Goldhawk will be aware, Marissa Carter, the woman behind the popular Cocoa… 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

JAMIE to cut the FAT

Date: June 2, 2017 - High Society

THESE ARE unhealthy times for Jamie Myerscough, grandson of the late Vincent O’Brien (whose daughter Jane is married to former auctioneer Philip Myerscough of Colbinstown Stud). While Jamie has generated endless publicity for his chain of gyms – thanks to working at one stage with former fatty Robbie Williams as well as golfer Darren Clarke… 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

BAD DREAMS IN CASTLE DURROW

Date: June 2, 2017 - High Society

THE OWNERS of Castle Durrow outside Abbeyleix – Peter and Shelly Stokes – will have been delighted with the puff piece in the Sunday Times last weekend highlighting their adventures in the “dream hotel”. Happily, there was no mention of a few headaches on the horizon. The couple met back in 1992 and a bowled-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

SKINTOWN – CIARÁN McMENAMIN (DOUBLEDAY)

Date: June 2, 2017 - BooksReviews

THIS DEBUT novel touches on well-trodden aspects of yoof culture, with themes of male friendship and the prospect of redemption running the length of the book. Occasionally echoing Irvine Welsh and Rob Doyle’s frenzied narratives, McMenamin structures the plot around several extended sequences that take place mostly in Enniskillen. The story focuses on 18-year-old Vincent… 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

ITHACA – ALAN McMONAGLE (PICADOR)

Date: June 2, 2017 - BooksReviews

THE DEBUT novel from Galway-based Alan McMonagle is set in the summer of 2019 in an unnamed Irish Midlands town “miles from anywhere, and built inside a hole made out of bog”. With so much recession fiction already doing the rounds, it’s a well-worn dystopian setting (“ghost estates, empty spaces, idle offices, unfinished apartments, 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

IN VIEW – DIRECTED BY CIARAN CREAGH

Date: June 2, 2017 - MoviesReviews

WHEN IT comes to film pitches, a story about a suicidal Garda officer is not exactly Pirates Of The Caribbean. It is much to the credit of the writer-director of In View, Ciaran Creagh, then, that he has produced such a compelling and powerful piece of work. Indeed, the movie is virtually anomalous among Irish… 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

Selina-Cartmell

NO PIZZA FOR SELINA CARTMELL

Date: June 2, 2017 - Behind the Scenes

AS SHE gets started as the new director at the Gate Theatre, Selina Cartmell seems intent on doing all she can to break with the Michael Colgan-stamped past. In recent years, the theatre hasn’t run programmes at all, instead announcing each show shortly before it opened. Cartmell instead launched a seven-show series – for one… 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

hugh-maguire2

STILL ON THE HUNT

Date: June 2, 2017 - Behind the Scenes

STILL NO sign of white smoke at the Hunt Museum in Limerick, where the former Director, Hugh Maguire, exited exactly one year ago. Maybe the arrival of a new director on the Hunt board might encourage some activity from the other directors and the high profile chairman, John Moran, former secretary general at the Department… 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

Amy Huberman

MICHAEL O’KEEFFE’S €5M

Date: June 2, 2017 - Behind the Scenes

THERE WAS good news for assorted producers last month when Michael O’Keefe’s Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) dished out over €5m in grants to the independent TV luvvies under its Sound & Vision programme. Fans of Amy Huberman will be delighted but there was bad news for the Mary Black fan club. Among the handful… 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

ENGLISH LESSON

Date: June 2, 2017 - Sport of Kings

UP AND COMING young Dublin trainer, Damien English, has carved out a well-earned reputation for buying cheap cast-offs from other trainers and developing them into winning machines. But he must be thinking of the one that got away. The trio of Tribal Path, Geological and Blues Breaker were picked up by English at different horse-in-training… 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

horses

MOOLAH FOR McCARTAN

Date: June 2, 2017 - Sport of Kings

JIM McCARTAN has been having a stellar season at the breeze up sales (see The Phoenix 5/5/17) and he landed another almighty touch in France a couple of weeks ago. McCartan had bought another yearling at Keeneland in Lexington last year in partnership with fellow breeze up supreme, Willie Brown, for only $15,000. The colt… 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

horses

Tatts v Goffs

Date: June 2, 2017 - Sport of Kings

With two strong Irish companies operating in the small market of Irish bloodstock sales there is always going to be attempts to get ‘one over’ on the opposition. Recently Goffs landed a jab at Tattersalls Ireland when signing up a well-connected international agent but Tatts has fired one back across Goffs’ bows when they announced… 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

COMER CASE CLOSED?

Date: June 2, 2017 - Sport of Kings

THE TURF CLUB certainly finds itself in an awkward position with moneybags Luke Comer these days. After handing out another €2,500 fine plus €5,000 costs to the wannabe trainer, Denis Egan and his stewards will be hoping this will be the last time they will have to intervene in what has proved a most delicate… 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

Glanbia farmers sold down the river

Date: June 2, 2017 - Moneybags

SIOBHÁN TALBOT has now been group managing director of the Glanbia plc group for four years and, in that time, she has turned on its head the whole purpose of the development of the dairy co-operative. With her now flogging off all of the listed group’s remaining Irish dairy interests (the so-called ‘Dairy Ireland’ segment)… 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

Why Heavey must exit undervalued Tullow

Date: June 2, 2017 - Moneybags

IT IS not often Irish companies are covered in the agenda-setting Lex column of the Financial Times but at the beginning of March, on the announcement of Aidan Heavey’s retirement, the headline read “Tullow Oil: Hitting pay dirt”. This did not refer to a big oil discovery but rather Aidan Heavey’s bonanza retirement arrangements. However,… 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

Aussie BBQ burns the taxman

Aussie BBQ burns the taxman

Date: June 2, 2017 - The Hot Water Brigade

WELL done to south Dublin businessman Barry Sheehan whose company Rathmond Ireland Ltd had a good day in the High Court recently courtesy of Judge Caroline Costello. Rathmond is the company behind trendy Dublin restaurant The Aussie BBQ and last month – much to the chagrin of the taxman – it managed to successfully petition… 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

Niall McGarry

Niall McGarry’s apology

Date: June 2, 2017 - The Hot Water Brigade

FANS OF Goldhawk are well aware of the ups and downs at Niall McGarry’s Maximum Media group – the entity behind Her.ie and Joe.ie. In recent times, there have been plenty of staff turnover and also a rather embarrassing cock-up that could have proved very costly. Among the comings and goings at Her.ie was 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

Gerry Adams

Gerry Adams’s Actions

Date: June 2, 2017 - The Hot Water Brigade

hoping to build up his pension pot before retiring later in the year. The SF president is suing the BBC for its Spotlight programme’s ‘exclusive’ on the Donaldson murder last year in which an anonymous British agent claimed that Adams had sanctioned the killing of Donaldson, a claim widely ridiculed by other media at 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

Frank Walsh

Stormy weather for wind farm investors

Date: June 2, 2017 - The Hot Water Brigade

SPARE a thought for investors in Sunflower Design Ltd who claim they are still getting short shrift from the directors of the company. The exasperated backers have been given a ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ offer for their shares after an independent valuation, which they allege is far below the market value for their stake in the company. Regular… 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

Murray’s Twitter Index

Date: June 2, 2017 - The Hot Water Brigade

READERS will recall an article a few weeks ago about the Murray Tweet Index, an annual ranking of Irish journalists on Twitter by PR agency Murray Consultants. The index assesses the journos across six categories including most retweets, most favourites and most tweets per day (See The Phoenix 21/04/17). Another category is most followers, which… 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

Blooming Success

Date: June 2, 2017 - The Hot Water Brigade

PHOENIX PARK is again set to be choc-a-bloc with garden enthusiasts, foodies and assorted day trippers for the annual Bloom Festival run under the auspices of Bord Bia. While the state food body is the lead organiser of the sprawling five-day event, the good news for some bloomers is that Garden Events Ltd (GEL) won… 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

3510

Date: May 17, 2017 -

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

FINE GAEL: THE DRINKS PARTY

Date: May 17, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

THE recent appointment of former TD and FG health spokesperson Dr Liam Twomey as chief medical officer of the laughably entitled Drinkaware, is a sign that the alcohol industry is limbering up again to further delay the enactment of the Public Health (Alcohol) Bill – pledged in the Programme for Partnership Government. Drinkaware is funded… 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

Richard-Grogan

No Gong for Grogan

Date: May 17, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

CONGRATULATIONS to the likes of former Chief Justice Ronan Keane (Lifetime Achievement Award) and Ronan Daly Jermyn (Law Firm of the Year) who picked up gongs from Miriam O’Callaghan at last week’s AIB Private Banking Irish Law Awards in the Clayton Burlington Hotel. There was, however, no joy for multiple nominee Richard Grogan. Presumably this… 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