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Fearghal O’Boyle

FEARGHAL O’BOYLE’S EXAMINATION

Date: May 18, 2016 - Behind the Scenes

THE PUBLISHING business in Ireland is a tough one and the latest company to feel the heat is The Columba Book Service Ltd, which has just had an examiner appointed. This is the company behind both Columba Press and Currach Press. The Columba Press was established in the 1980s and the principal here is Fearghal… Read more »

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Peter Macon

OTHELLO – ABBEY THEATRE

Date: May 18, 2016 - Theatre

WITH JUST three productions left under his tenure, Abbey boss Fiach Mac Conghail may be understandably concerned about his artistic legacy. In terms of breaking new ground at the Abbey, a 400-year-old writer has topped the list: Mac Conghail has put on Shakespeare nearly every year for the last decade, in many cases bringing the… Read more »

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First Dates

RTÉ 2’s ‘YOOF’ PROGRAMMES

Date: May 18, 2016 - TV

THE homegrown version of the Channel 4 dating programme, First Dates, has been well-received over recent weeks. Romance – contrived or otherwise – is ratings gold, so it’s no surprise that RTÉ has followed the UK format with the imaginatively titled First Dates Ireland. The formula could hardly be simpler – two single people are… Read more »

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MRS ENGELS – GAVIN McCREA (SCRIBE)

Date: May 18, 2016 - Books

SHORTLISTED for this year’s Desmond Elliott Prize, Gavin McCrea’s novel is narrated by Irishwoman Lizzie Burns (an actual historical figure), the longtime partner of socialist philosopher, Frederick Engels. The Dublin-born author weaves factual details from history into the narrative, but has to imagine most of the story as the illiterate Lizzie left no records about… Read more »

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Moya Doherty and John McColgan

RIVERDANCE PAIR’S PENTHOUSE

Date: May 18, 2016 - High Society

RTÉ chairman Moya Doherty and her hubby and Riverdance partner, John McColgan, have put their Howth pile, Dane’s Hollow, on the market for a whopping €9.5m and are downsizing to the seascape apartments on Clontarf Road. Super successful builder Sean McKeon developed the two-block complex last year through his MKN Properties vehicle, which had accumulated… Read more »

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Consuelo O’Connor

JODIE RONAN’S HORSEPLAY

Date: May 18, 2016 - High Society

INTERESTING to see Jodie Ronan, daughter of Johnny ‘Buccaneer’ Ronan, popping up in the High Court in relation to one of daddy’s many legal battles. Jodie has recently scaled back her involvement in the Ronan empire. The 32-year-old Jodie Ronan is listed on her LinkedIn page as chief operating officer of Johnny’s Ronan Group Real… Read more »

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Donal Flinn

IN THE ROUGH AT DRUID’S GLEN

Date: May 18, 2016 - High Society

THE HAPLESS members of Druid’s Glen Golf Club in Co Wicklow got a surprise last week when a vulture fund sought to appoint a receiver to the club, where relations between members and management have been strained in recent times. The threat was postponed, at least, by the installation of an examiner at the club,… Read more »

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bog cuttings

Bog Cuttings (20 May 2016)

Date: May 18, 2016 - Bog Cuttings

CLAIMED ‘KNIFE’ WAS FOR CHECKING TYRES “DO you not know who I fucking am? I’m Hairy Paddy’s son.” So said Terry McDonagh (28), An Sruthán, Castlebar to a garda after the latter was called to the Lidl store, Castlebar, on January 12. Gardaí were alerted by the manager after McDonagh was suspected of stealing a… Read more »

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NAUGHTEN’S SPLIT PERSONALITY

Date: May 18, 2016 - Fowl Emissions

HAVING heard Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary calling for cyclists to be shot and Danny Healy-Rae insisting that climate change is God-made, environmentalists could have been forgiven for thinking they had endured enough bad jokes for one week. Then Enda Kenny stood up in the Dáil, said he was going to “restructure the Government to align it… Read more »

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Lynn Boylan

SF MOVES AGAINST O’BRIEN “MONOPOLY”

Date: May 18, 2016 - Fit to Print?

FANS of The Irish Times and Irish Examiner – but not those of the Irish Independent – will have read recently a report on media monopoly in Ireland (part of the EU’s Media Pluralism Monitor project), which said Denis O’Brien enjoyed a dominant position within the print and commercial radio sectors. The Irish section of… Read more »

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Politically correct?

Date: May 18, 2016 - Fit to Print?

DOES Irish Times columnist and ex-Fianna Fáil back room functionary, Noel Whelan, not believe he should retract and apologise for his entirely erroneous and faintly ridiculous assertion that Sinn Féin holds “no parliamentary meetings in either the Oireachtas or Stormont”? In a most original column Whelan wrote recently that Gerry Adams should resign the SF… Read more »

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Vincent Browne

VINCENT BROWNE’S SUCCESSOR

Date: May 18, 2016 - Fit to Print?

TV3 management is anxiously calculating just how long Vincent Browne will wait before retiring from his late night show and is scouring the media for the very particular type of personality who might fill his slot. Browne’s own timeline and retirement plans are crucial as Ivan Yates year long American sojourn means he will be… Read more »

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LABOUR PARTY FACING CIVIL WAR

Date: May 18, 2016 - Last Refuge

THE trouble with the six Labour TDs’ plot to stop the seventh, Alan Kelly, becoming party leader is that a negative strategy usually leads to negative results. The TDs’ priority has not been who to elect but who not to elect, regardless of the consequences which, in this case, could lead Labour from temporary, if… Read more »

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Janice Boylan Irish Military Mali Coolock Says No IFP Hermann Kelly Timmy Dooley Aontú Mal O’Hara Fintan O’Toole Josepha Madigan Eoghan Harris Ukraine War Micheál Martin Middle East Philip Ryan Seán Clancy Simon Coveney Hugo MacNeill Mountbatten Neasa Hourigan Green Party Martin NPT Ivana Bacik Independents Limerick Hospital Overcrowding Barry Cowen

FINIAN AND CHARLIE

Date: May 18, 2016 - Last Refuge

IT’S Cuban cigars, not fags, that super junior minister Finian McGrath should be smoking. During negotiations for government with Fine Gael’s foreign minister, Charlie Flanagan, Finian wrung two major policy concessions from the stern Blueshirt; one on Israel and the other on the North. McGrath swung his Independent Alliance comrades – Shane Ross included –… Read more »

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Janice Boylan Irish Military Mali Coolock Says No IFP Hermann Kelly Timmy Dooley Aontú Mal O’Hara Fintan O’Toole Josepha Madigan Eoghan Harris Ukraine War Micheál Martin Middle East Philip Ryan Seán Clancy Simon Coveney Hugo MacNeill Mountbatten Neasa Hourigan Green Party Martin NPT Ivana Bacik Independents Limerick Hospital Overcrowding Barry Cowen

Lowry FG ‘deal’

Date: May 18, 2016 - Last Refuge

THE Healy-Rae brothers may be cute, but Michael Lowry is cute out, as they say beyond the Red Cow roundabout. Lowry’s claim that he has an “understanding” with the Fine Gael led government has been denied by a government spokesperson but Lowry is in a much stronger position than he has been for a long… Read more »

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Averil Power

ENDA’S ‘INDEPENDENT’ SENATOR?

Date: May 18, 2016 - Last Refuge

IT’S a good thing Irish Independent editor Fionnan Sheahan is not an arrogant control freak with megalomaniac tendencies, given the embarrassing efforts of senior politicians to curry favour with him. An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, appears to be the latest to try and ingratiate himself with Sheahan, by intending to include Averil Power (aka Mrs Fionnan… Read more »

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Helen McEntee

REGINA Vs HELEN IN MEATH

Date: May 18, 2016 - Last Refuge

ENDA KENNY’S stunt in leading his cabinet women into the Dáil ahead of the lads saw him include his new chief whip and junior minister, Regina Doherty, among them. But Regina was at the tail end of this ministerial catwalk and while she wore a determined smile on her face, the new junior had expected… Read more »

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Feargus Flood

JOE MURPHY JNR VS THE BEAKS

Date: May 18, 2016 - Wigs on the Green

FEW Phoenix readers will have been surprised to see that someone has launched a rocket into the already smouldering wreckage of the hapless Mahon Tribunal. Joseph “Junior” Murphy will next month continue his quest to bring High Court proceedings against the tribunal, seeking to quash its second and third reports and claiming damages for a… Read more »

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Jackie Lavin

The Hot Air Brigade

Date: May 18, 2016 - The Hot Air Brigade

I’m a very different person to when I started The Saturday Night Show. I’m more mature, less full of shit. Brendan O’Connor, Sunday Independent (submitted by reader) I don’t think you can put somebody up there to be absolutely taken to the dogs really, devoured, if they don’t have some sort of massive stage experience…. Read more »

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article default

David Hall’s emergency

Date: May 18, 2016 - Affairs of the Nation

MORTGAGE CAMPAIGNER David Hall was one of the more high profile, non-elected participants in the recent negotiations to form a new government, being regularly photographed or filmed alongside Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice. Maybe this kept Hall too busy to attend to little details associated with his day job, like filing accounts. Certainly, Hall has plenty… Read more »

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Richard Dunne

DUBLIN COLLEGE LINKED TO PANAMA PAPERS

Date: May 18, 2016 - Affairs of the Nation

THE Panama Papers keep throwing up intriguing names. Goldhawk noticed that one David Kennedy Sr – with a registered address at Southcliff House, Les Ruisseaux Estate, St Brelade, Jersey – is named in the papers as a shareholder of an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands, named Beckett College Group Ireland, and a… Read more »

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Mike Nesbitt

UNIONISTS DEMAND ‘NORMAL’ POLITICS

Date: May 18, 2016 - Affairs of the Nation

THERE’s more to Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader Mike Nesbitt moving into opposition in Stormont than meets the eye. Of course, the reasons given are in the usual high moral tone any party leader adopts to justify a controversial decision. In this case, Nesbitt asserts the proposed Programme for Government is not ‘progressive’ and that… Read more »

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Bertie Ahern

BERTIE’S FOREIGN DIPLOMACY

Date: May 18, 2016 - Affairs of the Nation

BERTIE AHERN has recently been talking up again his fabled Mr-Fix-It skills and how these talents have been utilised abroad – by grateful world leaders and peace negotiators. one presumes. The ex-Taoiseach is now a member of no less than 15 global entities, with daunting titles ranging from the Inter Action Council of Former Heads… Read more »

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Helen Boyle

BAILING OUT CORK FILM FESTVAL

Date: May 18, 2016 - Affairs of the Nation

WHILE IRELAND’S movie moguls were schlepping their wares around Cannes market stalls this week, a more mundane financial drama about another veteran film festival was discreetly making its way centre stage at Cork’s City Hall. There has now been some fall-out on the board. It was reported that the 61-year-old Cork Film Festival (CFF), under… Read more »

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Enda Kenny

THE GENTLE BLACK AND TAN

Date: May 18, 2016 - Affairs of the Nation

THE TAOISEACH, Enda Kenny, and foreign minister, Charlie Flanagan, have shown admirable compassion in arranging for victims of the Easter Rising to be commemorated in a special ceremony next Thursday.

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SHANE ROSS’S KEY DEMAND

Date: May 18, 2016 - Affairs of the Nation

THE first test of transport minister Shane Ross’s mettle is not the Luas strike, but the imminent appointment of several judicial appointments to be made under the discredited Judicial Appointments Advisory Board (JAAB) system.

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Justin Carthy

REVIEWING JUSTIN CARTHY AT LADBROKES

Date: May 18, 2016 - Affairs of the Nation

THE REVELATION last week that Ladbrokes is “reviewing” the role of Justin Carthy, who handles the betting giant’s high roller clients, has surprised observers given the sensitive nature of the position.

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PHOENIX APPEAL IN CONTEMPT CASE ALLOWED

Date: May 18, 2016 - Affairs of the Nation

IN a judgment delivered in the Court of Appeal on May 11, 2016, Ms Justice Irvine, Mr Justice Hogan and Mr Justice Sheehan unanimously decided to allow the Phoenix Appeal

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Enda Kenny

Date: May 18, 2016 - Pillars of Society

IS Enda Kenny the luckiest politician in modern Irish politics, or is he Fine Gael’s answer to ‘the most brilliant, the most cunning, the most devious of them all’, as Charles J Haughey once described Bertie Ahern?

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alice-mary-higgins

Alice Mary Higgins

Date: May 18, 2016 - The Young Bloods

THE election of Alice Mary Higgins has been one of the more interesting storylines of the 2016 Seanad elections. The daughter of President Michael D and Sabina Higgins, she translated some activist credentials and name recognition into votes to win a seat on the NUI… Read more »

Pamela Kearns

Pamela’s Letter

Date: May 5, 2016 - Briefcases

WHAT an angry letter The Irish Times published last week from a Pamela Kearns, Templeogue, who railed furiously against the notion of a left alternative government based on Sinn Féin and other left TDs. Pamela argued (incorrectly) that the Left Alliance coalition proposition is based on SF and Paul Murphy’s AAA. Curiously, she was more… Read more »

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Michael Harding

The Hot Air Brigade

Date: May 5, 2016 - The Hot Air Brigade

I looked at the old woman and the man opposite me and wondered when was the last time either of them had been on fire with desire. Which drew me into a small but pleasant remembrance of my own most recent orgasm a few days previously. Michael Harding on passing time in a doctor’s waiting… Read more »

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1993 shankhill-belfast

WHY SHANKILL INFORMER WAS REVEALED

Date: May 5, 2016 - Bird's Eye View

WHY did Belfast republicans reveal to the media recently just one item out of the vast warehouse of intelligence documents the IRA secured in its 2001 raid on PSNI HQ at Castlereagh Barracks? And why that particular item; namely, that the IRA’s Ardoyne commander was an informer who had not only planned the 1993 Shankill… Read more »

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Ferdinand Von Prondzynski

FERDINAND TRUMPS DONALD

Date: May 5, 2016 - Affairs of the Nation

HAVING BEEN the subject of a failed move to have him banned from entering the UK, following his call for a ban on Muslims entering the US, presidential hopeful Donald Trump has come a cropper at the hands of a former Irish university president who has decided to take direct action. A petition to have… Read more »

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stephen-rae

REVIEW – CYPRUS AVENUE

Date: May 5, 2016 - Reviews

PEACOCK THEATRE THE ABBEY decided that O’Casey could wait. For the first full production of its 1916 centenary season, which aims to explore the meaning of Irish identity, it decided to let a less familiar voice take to the stage. Moreover, it has opted for a co-production with London’s Royal Court, directed by that theatre’s… Read more »

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brian-walsh

Brian Walsh’s Next Move

Date: May 5, 2016 - Briefcases

FORMER Fine Gael TD Brian Walsh resigned his seat for Galway West in January on the grounds of ill-health and is presumably taking things at a slower pace these days. Last year, Walsh joined the board of a company called Galway Premier Car Sales Ltd, where his fellow director is Donnacha Finn, who may be… Read more »

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