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LEO VARADKAR IN RETREAT

Date: March 9, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

IT’S EARLY days yet but the latest poll showing Fine Gael voters favouring Simon Coveney over Leo Varadkar have unnerved the latter’s supporters and right now the momentum is with the Cork prince. Ten months ago a Red C poll had Vlad on 39% among FG voters compared to 28% for Coveney, a lead of… Read more »

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MARIE COLLINS PUTS IT UP TO ‘IL PAPA’

Date: March 9, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

HOW careless of Pope Francis to lose abuse victim Marie Collins a year after Briton Peter Saunders jumped ship from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. The departure of Collins has highlighted worldwide that Il Papa Francisco is not in full control of the secretive Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, CDF,… Read more »

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HOW WEALTHY IS DINNY?

Date: March 9, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

THERE WAS the usual array of surprise valuations in the latest Sunday Times Rich List, with the likes of Martin Naughton, John Magnier and JP McManus all wildly undervalued, while the €471m guesstimate for Declan Ganley looks like an exaggeration of the Galway man’s coffers. But the biggest surprise is surely the €4.7bn attributed to… Read more »

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CLOCK TICKING AT NATIONAL GALLERY

Date: March 9, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

WHAT ON earth is going on at the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI)? The contract of the director of the institution, Sean Rainbird, expires on April 15 but the job has only just been advertised, in a most unusual manner. As revealed by Goldhawk (see The Phoenix 24/2/17) Rainbird’s five-year contract expires next month and… Read more »

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DUP Gaelgoir

Date: March 9, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

ONE DUP member who survived the party’s slaughter last week was Jim Wells who got help from Dublin Irish language academic Professor Ciarán Ó Coigligh, who canvassed with him in South Down. Wells, who hung onto his seat last week, is a fundamentalist who has spoken out against abortion for raped women and as health… Read more »

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MICHAEL CAREY TAKES THE BISCUIT

Date: March 9, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

WHAT GOES around, comes around. A Drogheda biscuit company called East Coast Bakehouse, which has been heavily promoting its products, is the brainchild of Michael Carey, a man with quite a track record in the biscuit business. Within two years of Fruitfield taking over Jacob’s in 2004, Carey made the bulk of the staff redundant… Read more »

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Letters to the Editor

Date: March 9, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

‘MALICIOUS’ SOURCES Dear Editor, You write (See The Phoenix, 24/2/17) that I, among others, suggested that RTÉ’s Paul Reynolds should reveal his garda sources in relation to his reporting about whistleblowers. But in the relevant Irish Times article I named no journalist. What I wrote was this: “Should crime correspondents generally now cooperate with the Charleton… Read more »

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MAHON TRIBUNAL RIP?

Date: March 9, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

With the settlement of Joe Murphy’s High Court case against the MahonTribunal last week, the taxpayer may now never learn the truth about what really went on in the Flood/Mahon tribunal whose cost — upwards of €160m — and machinations put the genre so much out of favour for so long. And any party faced… Read more »

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INVESTIGATING GALWAY’S ‘PALACE’

Date: March 9, 2017 - Affairs of the Nation

THE STATEMENT issued by the Charities Regulator last week that it has opened a statutory investigation into the €9.5m and counting Solas-Galway Picture Palace Teo won’t have come as much of a surprise to fans of Goldhawk, who are well aware of the successive expensive bailouts at the bijou arthouse where Lelia Doolan chairs the… Read more »

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The Hot Air Brigade

Date: March 9, 2017 - The Hot Air Brigade

And then I thought, I can’t take my girls to a country where abortion is illegal. How could you do that? It’s like having black children and bringing them to apartheid South Africa. It’s that harsh. It’s that negation of being a woman. White feminist Caitlin Moran interviewed by Una Mullally, Irish Times Magazine, Submitted… Read more »

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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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