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TRIUMPH FOR SF IN NORTH

Date: March 9, 2017 - Bird's Eye View

UNIONISTS are still coming to terms with the new electoral landscape in the north after last week’s Assembly election. It’s worth having a look at that landscape. Out of 15 Assembly seats in Fermanagh and Tyrone, unionists have four. In Foyle, mainly Derry city, they have one. It’s not rosy east of the Bann either…. Read more »

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Shane Ross

LORD ROSS TO CURB JUDGES?

Date: March 9, 2017 - Last Refuge

THAT recent report about “leading judge” George Birmingham proposing a watering down of transport minister Shane Ross’s judicial appointments bill omitted one small detail, namely, that Birmingham is a former Fine Gael minister. And despite the bill’s provision for a lay majority in the new judicial appointments body being part of the programme for government,… Read more »

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SOC DEMS: STICKIES IN DISGUISE?

Date: March 9, 2017 - Last Refuge

ARE Social Democrats TDs Catherine Murphy and Roísín Shortall along with Irish Times ideologue Fintan O’Toole trying to recreate the Workers Party? It recently emerged that the DUP had received half a million euro from a shadowy group, the Constitutional Research Council (CRC), to disseminate pro-Brexit propaganda across Britain and the north. This was initially… Read more »

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O’Brien backs Simon

Date: March 9, 2017 - Last Refuge

LEO VARADKAR’S campaign team is getting jittery and it is not just because of that Irish Times poll showing Fine Gael members swinging over to Simon Coveney in the leadership contest. More to the point, Denis O’Brien is openly stating his preference for Coveney because he is “good for business”. Michael McDowell suggested recently that… Read more »

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WILL AOIBHINN SUCCEED ENDA IN MAYO?

Date: March 9, 2017 - Last Refuge

THERE is much fretting among Mayo Blueshirts about the future without An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, and even more anxiety about the possibility that Michael Ring might also bow out. A highly speculative leak to the Sunday Independent last weekend told readers that Kenny was in line to succeed Donald Tusk as President of the European… Read more »

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DENIS O’BRIEN’S BOSWELL

Date: March 9, 2017 - Fit to Print?

IS Denis O’Brien’s enthusiastic apologist, John J May, deliberately trying to provoke a libel writ from one or more principals in the Moriarty Tribunal? Or is he trying to usurp James Morrissey’s role as O’Brien’s personal spokesman? May has spent years since the Moriarty Tribunal writing letters to the media denouncing the “malicious, false allegations”… Read more »

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Cop Culture

Date: March 9, 2017 - Fit to Print?

WITH exquisite timing the current edition of Garda Review, organ of the Garda Representative Association (GRA), was published the day before the Policing Authority held its latest public meeting on “matters in the public domain”. And the Review’s editorial denounced the authority in advance for its alleged capitulation to “government direction”. There was much media… Read more »

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Regina Doherty

Regina Doherty

Date: March 9, 2017 - Pillars of Society

GOVERNMENT chief whip Regina Doherty is the most ambitious woman in the Dáil and sees herself as a future Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach. She comes across as intelligent, feisty and articulate on radio and TV but is accident prone and often too quick to… Read more »

NAUGHTEN’S FUTILE ‘AMBASSADORS’

Date: March 9, 2017 - Fowl Emissions

DENIS NAUGHTEN is appointing “climate action ambassadors” in every county as part of a new “national dialogue on climate change” he launched in Dublin’s Mansion House last week. The climate action and environment minister and his department are getting ever better at launching initiatives, dialogues and the like, but are as weak as ever on… Read more »

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Bog Cuttings

Bog Cuttings

Date: March 9, 2017 - Bog Cuttings

Periwinkle picker pickled in public A TUAM periwinkle picker was told by Judge James Faughnan at the local District Court that he would get one chance but wouldn’t get a second one from him. Patrick O’Toole with an address at Galway Road, Tuam was sitting on a bench in town on July 30 last in… Read more »

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Al Porter

Date: March 9, 2017 - The Young Bloods

HIGH profile Dublin comedian Al Porter (24) copper-fastened his status last month when he took over the reigns of his very own Today FM radio show. The self-professed camp lad from Tallaght has enjoyed a meteoric rise in the past few years, with the press lining up to compare him to Graham Norton. Porter, whose… Read more »

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IN SYNC WITH SAMANTHA LESLIE

Date: March 9, 2017 - High Society

SAMANTHA LESLIE, the woman who is the face of the impressive Castle Leslie in Co Monaghan, popped up in an Irish Times series on mindfulness last month to discuss her tools for dealing with life’s obstacles, of which she has had a few in recent years. One that looms large is the red ink at… Read more »

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Peter Gaynor’s Club

Date: March 9, 2017 - High Society

THE entry for Monte Carlo-based Olivia Gaynor-Long and hubby Brian Long in the latest Sunday Times Rich List guesstimates their wealth at an impressive enough €71m. The main source of the lolly here is Brian Long’s Atlantic Bridge Partners fund, which invests in tech-related ventures. As fans of Goldhawk’s will be well aware, rather less… Read more »

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SHANE RYAN’S MANSIONS

Date: March 9, 2017 - High Society

AT LAST Shane Ryan has got around to lodging a planning application for his latest abode – the former French consulate on Ailesbury Road. Not surprisingly, the property hungry moneybags has attracted a couple of objections. It will be recalled (see The Phoenix 2/12/16) that last year, Shane Ryan’s Palladian mansion on Kilboy estate outside… Read more »

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ABOUT BEING NORMAL – DES FENNELL (SOMERVILLE)

Date: March 9, 2017 - BooksReviews

“THE ‘ECONOMIC foundation of independence’ cannot be built in a context of decreasing independence … It can be built … only in an independent nation which is reliant primarily on itself … [Our] comprehensive ‘modernisation’ … was comprehensively denationalising because it occurred in conditions of dependence.” Such fighting talk about the political and intellectual failure… Read more »

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DANIEL AND MAJELLA’S B&B ROAD TRIP – RTÉ ONE

Date: March 9, 2017 - ReviewsTV

FOLLOWING their initial success on UTV Ireland, the Donegal crooner and his wife have been nabbed by RTÉ for the new series of their laidback travel show. The format could hardly be simpler. Majella drives her rather famous partner through picture postcard landscapes to various upmarket B&Bs where they receive royal treatment. Along the way,… Read more »

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THE GOOD PEOPLE – HANNAH KENT (PICADOR)

Date: March 9, 2017 - BooksReviews

HANNAH KENT’S second novel follows her internationally successful debut, Burial Rites, the disquieting account of a young wife executed for her role in a murder that happened in Iceland in 1829. It also continues her preoccupation with real historical cases of women forced by dreadful circumstances into life-and-death decisions. Set in Co Kerry in 1825,… Read more »

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A TAXING MATTER FOR IAN JOYCE

Date: March 9, 2017 -

A VISUAL arts centre and artists retreat in a remote part of Donegal on the outskirts of Gortahork, which closed down in 2015, is now the subject of a High Court winding up petition by the Revenue no less. The operation has previously attracted bucket-loads of taxpayers’ dosh. Cló was established by local artists Ian… Read more »

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GARRY HYNES FEELS THE HEAT

Date: March 9, 2017 - Behind the Scenes

WITH Druid Theatre’s artistic director Garry Hynes coming in for fierce criticism over the lack of female playwrights in the company’s latest programme, one man who may have permitted himself a wry smile is former Abbey boss Fiach Mac Conghail. Hynes was quick to lock and load when Mac Conghail found himself under fire in… Read more »

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AND THE AWARD GOES TO …

Date: March 9, 2017 - Behind the Scenes

THE ANNUAL gong show season is upon us again and after the Oscars debacle, Áine Moriarty and Deirdre Hopkins at the IFTAs will also be looking to restore their own profile in light of the negative media coverage in recent years. Given how James Hickey’s Irish Film Board (IFB) has got rather more picky about… Read more »

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PHILIP’S CHELTENHAM HOPES

Date: March 9, 2017 - Sport of Kings

PHILIP REYNOLDS, son of former Taoiseach Albert, had a day to remember in March last year when he saw his own silks in the winner’s enclosure at Cheltenham for the first time. He is looking for more of the same this year but the handicapper has not been kind. Reynolds’s Mall Dini, trained in Galway… Read more »

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RACE ON FOR NEW STUD BOSS

Date: March 9, 2017 - Sport of Kings

OUTGOING Irish National Stud (INS) chief executive John Osborne certainly won’t be paying Brian Kavanagh a debt of gratitude any time soon. Meanwhile, the runners and riders are lining up for the race to succeed Osborne at the INS. Osborne is not permitted to seek another reappointment as chief of the state-owned stud even by… Read more »

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Tough Turf Club Tactics

Date: March 9, 2017 - Sport of Kings

The Turf Club’s stewards are not shy about implementing the new rules for alleged “non-triers”, particularly so when it comes to the smaller yards. They showed no leniency to the female duo of jockey Rachael Blackmore and trainer Ellmarie Holden when they appealed their respective five-day ban and U2,000 fine over the running and riding… Read more »

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SHEIKH FAHAD’S JUMPER

Date: March 9, 2017 - Sport of Kings

QATARI SHEIKH Fahad Al Thani has a good chance of adding a Cheltenham Festival win to his international haul of big race wins, which includes a Melbourne Cup and an Irish 1000 Guineas. Looks like he is developing a taste for the jumps. Fahad, who is a first cousin to the Emir of Qatar, has… Read more »

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UDG’s accounting manoeuvres

Date: March 9, 2017 - Moneybags

OVER THE past 16 years, Liam Fitzgerald dramatically transformed United Drug from being the biggest Irish wholesale drug and distribution company supplying most hospitals and 60% of Irish retail pharmacies to a company today that is not involved in drug distribution. Instead, it has turned itself into a marketing and promotion subcontractor to the drug… Read more »

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DCC shareholders sitting pretty but party is now over

Date: March 9, 2017 - Moneybags

TOMMY BREEN’S €270m acquisition of Esso’s retail petrol network in Norway last month and, even more so, last week’s decision to sell off DCC’s environmental division contradicts the group’s so-called strategic review, conducted at then chairman Michael Buckley’s request, after Jim Flavin had to stand down following the Fyffes insider trading scandal. Today DCC is… Read more »

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Jerry Carey’s pals in China

Date: March 9, 2017 - Briefcases

MORE on Jerry Carey, the Cork businessman who has been a godsend for the political career of Fine Gael junior minister Dara Murphy. It will be recalled that Carey was a long-time pal of Murphy’s father and that his influence around Blueshirt HQ was a key factor in Murphy being added to the general election… Read more »

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Niall McGarry’s high standards

Date: March 9, 2017 - Briefcases

CONGRATULATIONS are in order to hard-necked “new media” mogul Niall McGarry whose company, Maximum Media Network Ltd – the outfit behind the Joe.ie website – filed healthy looking accounts recently. However, the picture is very different for McGarry and his biggest investor, former Ireland and Munster rugby player Jerry Flannery, at their UK operation, Joe.co.uk…. Read more »

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End of the line for Noel McFeely

Date: March 9, 2017 - Briefcases

SPARE a thought for Derry builder Noel McFeely who has been declared bankrupt in the north. McFeely follows in the footsteps of his brother, cowboy builder Tom McFeely, who was declared bankrupt in 2012 and who, as it happens, had a bad day in the High Court recently. Once upon a time Noel was a… Read more »

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‘Cloud bleed’ hits Captains?

Date: March 9, 2017 - Briefcases

STRANGE that a recent major internet security breach went unreported in the Irish media recently. The phenomenon known as “cloud bleed” affected over four million web domains including a host of popular websites and apps, forcing a lot of people to change their passwords. In February, Google discovered a big mistake in something called Cloudflare,… Read more »

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Familiar names feature on defaulters list

Date: March 9, 2017 - Briefcases

GOLDHAWK spotted some familiar names on the Revenue’s latest list of tax defaulters. Disgraced former District Judge Heather Perrin was hit with a tax judgment for close to €¼m in relation to under-declared income tax. It will be recalled that Perrin was handed a two-and-a-half year sentence in 2012 after she conned an elderly client… Read more »

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More tax trouble for Michael O’Leary

Date: March 9, 2017 - Briefcases

SPARE a thought for Michael O’Leary (not that one) who has just had yet another judgment registered against him by the dreaded taxman, this time for €87,000. Wexford accountant O’Leary will be familiar to fans of Goldhawk for the various scrapes he’s been involved in and he mostly recently appeared in these pages as a… Read more »

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3504

Vol.35 No.04

Date: February 23, 2017 -

February 24 – March 9, 2017

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BRUTON LURKS WITH INTENT

Date: February 23, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

THE studied but pregnant silence of Richard Bruton in the fevered Fine Gael leadership war could yet presage a surprise bid from the man that nearly unseated Enda Kenny seven years ago. Bruton has already executed the calculated and successful tactic of refusing to declare any leadership intentions while Kenny remains in situ. “There is… Read more »

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WHO editor Lisa Gaughran and Publisher Mike Hogan

LISA GAUGHRAN’S SETTLEMENT

Date: February 23, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

HAVING weathered a high profile legal action from top magazine publisher Norah Casey of Harmonia (the company behind the likes of Irish Tatler, Woman’s Way and U magazines), Lisa Gaughran is busy making money in her latest incarnation. Meanwhile, figures just filed show that Gaughran and hubby Garret Whelan have avoided a potentially ruinous outing… Read more »

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EUGENE McDERMOTT’S €7M REPRIEVE

Date: February 23, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

THERE WAS a surprising ruling in the High Court earlier this month when Judge Max Barrett threw out a €7m judgment against former high profile Kildare stud farm owner Eugene McDermott. The case, which attracted national attention at the time, will now have to be reheard. The appointment of a receiver by IBRC to McDermott’s… Read more »

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