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The Hot Air Brigade

Date: May 5, 2016 - The Hot Air Brigade

A rare painting of a sporting event by Louis le Brocquy. The fluid depiction of the entangled limbs and the highly expressive faces of the players convey the complexity and skill of the game of hurling. UCD’s Dr Roisin Kennedy on the fake Le Brocquy that was withdrawn from auction (submitted by reader)   We both… Read more »

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David Pratt

David Pratt’s Bad News

Date: May 5, 2016 - Briefcases

THERE WAS a setback last month for David Pratt, the squire of Hampton House, when one of his main operations was placed into receivership by vulture fund Lone Star. He still operates the high profile Hamilton Park nursing home in Balbriggan but there have been setbacks here too. Although he is most closely associated these… Read more »

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stuart-doyle

Stewart Doyle’s Pen Pal

Date: May 5, 2016 - Briefcases

WHILE ex-Nama executive Enda Farrell is awaiting sentencing for leaking confidential information from the bad bank to companies, one name that keeps popping in relation to the ‘bad banker’ is Stewart Doyle. Doyle was one of Farrell’s pen pals at QED Equity Ltd, the Dublin investment firm founded by Dermot Desmond and former IIU director… Read more »

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Scruffy Murphys

Scruffy’s Feeling A Bit Rough

Date: May 5, 2016 - Briefcases

SHUTTERED Dublin boozer Scruffy Murphy’s was the subject of a morning raid by the Dublin Sheriff’s Office two weeks ago. The after-work favourite is on the market for €1m, but Goldhawk understands that the pub has only been open for lunch for the last number of weeks. And its parent company, Beauvard Ltd, is no… Read more »

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Nicholas O’Connor

Nick O’Connor’s Knack for Trouble

Date: May 5, 2016 - Briefcases

IT will be three strikes and you’re out for a Wexford accountant, who in 2015 pleaded guilty to four counts of theft against a client. Last week, Nicholas ‘Nick’ O’Connor, of Troon Lodge, Ballycrane, found himself before the disciplinary tribunal of the Chartered Accountants Regulatory Board (CARB), but the board declined to revoke his membership… Read more »

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francesca-de-cataldo

Francesca’s De Cataldo’s Accounting Troubles

Date: May 5, 2016 - Briefcases

GOLDHAWK’S favourite Italian import Francesca De Cataldo might be in another spot of bother. New accounts filed by the glamorous interior designer’s Sundogs Rock Productions company show that the business is firmly in the red. There’s also an intriguing reference to some new legal proceedings. Sundogs risked being struck off the register after failing to… Read more »

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Frank Daly

Vultures profit from Nama strategy

Date: May 5, 2016 - Moneybags

WITH Nama about to flog off two further Irish portfolios – Project Emerald and Project Ruby, with a nominal value of €4.7bn – Nama’s end game is now clearly in sight. Along with the big Project Arrow and Project Jewel portfolios sold off just before Christmas, which brought last year’s sales up to €7bn, this… Read more »

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Dick Huntingford

Tuning in and out of Wireless Group

Date: May 5, 2016 - Moneybags

FANS OF Moneybags will recall (see The Phoenix Annual 2015) that the launch of the new TV station, UTV Ireland, at the beginning of last year has been the undoing of UTV Group’s CEO, John McCann. He is stepping down from all positions inside the company at this month’s AGM on May 12 after a… Read more »

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David Power

POWER TO THE PEOPLE

Date: May 5, 2016 - Sport of Kings

SOME PEOPLE clearly love their job. Take, for example, bookmaker David Power, one of the founders of Paddy Power and father of the company’s spokesman of the same name. The recent merger of the two betting giants, Betfair and Paddy Power, have created a gambling leviathan and in the process made some very wealthy people… Read more »

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Ger Lyons

LYONS ROAR

Date: May 5, 2016 - Sport of Kings

DUNDALK Racecourse is largely viewed as a well run, progressive enterprise that has become a useful cog in the racing wheel, especially to middle-tier trainers and jockeys, as it provides a much needed flat racing venue in the winter months. At the recent Irish Stud And Stable Staff awards at the Dunraven Arms, the track,… Read more »

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John Osborne

PROFITS UP, STALLIONS DOWN

Date: May 5, 2016 - Sport of Kings

IT’S BEEN a rather mixed month at the Irish National Stud. Barely a week after announcing significant revenue and profit increases for its 2015 business, chief executive John Osborne had to announce the death of one of their earning stallions, Big Bad Bob. The 16-year-old died in a freak paddock accident and will be a… Read more »

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Paul McCann

DECLARED RUNNERS?

Date: May 5, 2016 - Sport of Kings

A COUPLE of names of ‘runners’ were on the lips of members of the board of Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) for similar reasons this month. First up is the name of Brian Kavanagh, chief executive of HRI since its inception in 2002. He has managed, to date, to have his contract renewed without complication, but… Read more »

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Mary Black

DISHARMONY FOR ROYALTY AGENCIES

Date: May 5, 2016 - Behind the Scenes

INTERESTING to see two of the music royalty agencies facing off over the proper amounts due to performers and record labels. Record Artists Actors and Performers (RAAP) has struck a note of discord with Phonographic Performance Ireland (PPI). RAAP describes itself as ‘Ireland’s performers collection agency – created by artists for artists’. It was set… Read more »

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Jaume Balaguero

FILMMAKERS FOLLOW THE MONEY

Date: May 5, 2016 - Behind the Scenes

WHOEVER LANDS the arts gig in Enda Kenny’s limbo government will be faced with plenty of begging bowls and nowhere more so than the movie sector, where, for example, the cap on Section 481 tax-relieved funding continues to edge upwards. Then there’s James Hickey’s Irish Film Board (IFB), which will be demanding increased backing on… Read more »

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TRIAL OF THE CENTURY – TV3

Date: May 5, 2016 - ReviewsTV

SHOWN LAST weekend over three consecutive nights (to coincide with the anniversary of Pádraig Pearse’s execution), TV3’s take on the centenary commemoration imagined an Ireland in which the rebel leader wasn’t executed, but instead stood trial for his supposed crimes. Generic courtroom drama is framed for unexpected reversals, surprise witnesses and theatrical confrontations. In this… Read more »

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Wrecking The Rising

WRECKING THE RISING – TG4

Date: May 5, 2016 - ReviewsTV

WITH centenary programmes now linking arms across the schedules, this three-part bilingual series (produced by Tile Films) was a TG4 project to mark the Easter Rising. Among the familiar ‘TV faces’ were Peter Coonan (Love/Hate), Owen McDonnell (Singlehanded) and Seán T. Ó Meallaigh (Charlie). The humdrum lives of three ineffectual Dublin men (Ernest, Seán and… Read more »

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Who's Afarid of Virginia Woolf

WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? – GATE THEATRE

Date: May 5, 2016 - ReviewsTheatre

OF ALL Irish theatres, the Gate boasts the most predictable programme, keeping its dedicated clientele entertained with a stable of reliable revivals. Now director Michael Colgan has broadened his mid-century American repertoire beyond Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, to the riskier territory of Edward Albee. The results are spectacularly explosive. Albee’s breakthrough masterpiece, Virginia Woolf,… Read more »

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Annette and Gay O’Callaghan

GAY O’CALLAGHAN’S WINDFALL

Date: May 5, 2016 - High Society

IT LOOKS like big congratulations are in order for former banker Gay O’Callaghan, whose Morristown Lattin Bloodstock operation looks to have netted nearly €8m thanks to the purchase of a leg of a horse by one Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum. O’Callaghan (a brother of hotelier Noel O’Callaghan) is most closely associated with Yeomanstown Stud outside… Read more »

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Martin Naughton

THE OTHER RICH LIST

Date: May 5, 2016 - High Society

THERE WAS plenty of fun reading through the Sunday Times annual ‘Rich List’, but Goldhawk was struck by some of the names not there and some of the odd valuations. For example, there is no sign of the Geaney family where John Geaney, son of Donal ‘Elan’ Geaney, is worth a truckload of millions by… Read more »

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bog cuttings

Bog Cuttings

Date: May 5, 2016 - Bog Cuttings

HAD BOLT CUTTERS IN TROUSERS A MAN who was found with a bolt cutters hidden down his trousers appeared in Naas District Court. Gavin Breen, aged 21, pleaded guilty to being in possession of the bolt cutters for the intention of it being used in the commission of a crime on July 10 2014. The… Read more »

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Brendan Gleeson

BRENDAN GLEESON’S PIPELINE TO RTÉ

Date: May 5, 2016 - Fowl Emissions

WITH gas flowing through Shell’s contentious refinery in northwest Mayo since December 30 last, one of the legacies left by the demonisation of those who resisted the multinational’s activities is an oily slick of untouchability on all things related to the politics of oil and gas. RTÉ in particular seems to have a let’s-not-go-there attitude… Read more »

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Kevin O’Sullivan

DENIS O’BRIEN Vs IRISH TIMES

Date: May 5, 2016 - Fit to Print?

DAYS before the end of the one year period within which a defamation action can be taken, Denis O’Brien has lodged a writ for libel against The Irish Times for its coverage of the controversial Siteserv deal that erupted last year. The IT had reported in its usual sober fashion in April 2015 that O’Brien… Read more »

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brendan-mahony

Pig-Headed Litigant

Date: May 5, 2016 - Fit to Print?

THE jury in a looming High Court libel case against the Sunday World will be presented with a catalogue of crime – some of it proven and some of it alleged – if and when plaintiff Brendan Mahony proceeds with his action. Mahony hit the headlines last year when he was convicted of sending a… Read more »

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Brendan O’Connor

O’CONNOR AIRBRUSHES DENIS O’BRIEN

Date: May 5, 2016 - Fit to Print?

A SELECTION of 100 defining moments in the last century by Brendan O’Connor in the Sunday Independent was more interesting for what was omitted than included. In middlebrow, Sindo mode, deputy editor O’Connor explained that post colonial Ireland had liberated itself from the enemies within ie the Church, politicians, bankers and the elite and in… Read more »

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Tony Coughlan

TONY COUGHLAN EXCORIATES SINN FÉIN

Date: May 5, 2016 - Last Refuge

IRELAND’S most enduring and intellectually powerful opponent of the EU for nearly half a century is Tony Coughlan, associate professor emeritus at TCD. That Sinn Féin should now find itself at the receiving end of an eviscerating polemic from Coughlan for selling out on its former opposition to the EU will surely embarrass Gerry Adams,… Read more »

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article default

HANG DOWN YER HEAD TIM DOOLEY

Date: May 5, 2016 - Last Refuge

SENATE director of elections for Fianna Fáil, Timmy Dooley, is taking some flak inside the party over a poor result with a lower than expected tally. With 265 councillors to Fine Gael’s 228 and with more than double its 2011 number of TDs, it should have pulled off a better ratio than 14 to FG’s… Read more »

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Katherine Zappone

WHEN ZAPPONE ZAPPED LONE PARENTS

Date: May 5, 2016 - Last Refuge

KATHERINE ZAPPONE’S bid for a cabinet seat with her early vote for Enda Kenny as Taoiseach was tastefully dressed up as a childcare deal for young children with, of course, de rigueur secularist and LGBT issues added on. But despite her claims about childcare and the plight of lone parents in her sweet deal with… Read more »

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Gerard Diver

SF FIGHTS FOR 30 SEATS IN ASSEMBLY

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

THE traditional economic fumble which afflicts Sinn Féin in election campaigns in the Republic seems to be infectious. Last week the virus spread North and hit both the SDLP and Sinn Féin in the assembly elections campaign. First the SDLP succumbed in a detailed setpiece interview on their manifesto, which the party proudly proclaimed was… Read more »

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Leo Varadkar

ALCOHOL BILL KICKED TO TOUCH

Date: May 5, 2016 - Affairs of the Nation

WILL Leo Varadkar – if he is still health minister by at the end of this week – make his long awaited Public Health (Alcohol) Bill a priority? This was published before Christmas and debated in the Senate in January but then postponed, the government pleaded, because of the general election. The intensity of the… Read more »

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kieran-wallace

Kieran Wallace’s Fees

Date: May 5, 2016 - Affairs of the Nation

GOLDHAWK has to hand it to accountancy firm KPMG, and in particular its star liquidators, Kieran Wallace and Eamonn Richardson. It seems that the licence to print money that is the IBRC liquidation continues to deliver handsomely to the firm’s bottom line. It is well known that Wallace and Richardson and the KPMG suits have… Read more »

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jim-downey

Downey’s Legacy

Date: May 5, 2016 - Affairs of the Nation

THE Irish Independent engaged in an unseemly and competitive effort to claim the late Jim Downey as its very own and downplay his quintessential Irish Times persona and association with the latter newspaper following his death recently. The IT cleverly quoted the late Vinnie Doyle – himself a former Indo editor – whose apposite comment… Read more »

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James Heffernan

HEFFERNAN SHUNNED BY SOC DEMS

Date: May 5, 2016 - Affairs of the Nation

FORMER Labour senator and SD candidate in Limerick, James Heffernan, must be feeling a little unloved by his new comrades in the Social Democrats, given his reported €16,000 contribution to the party. In fact Heffo’s €16,000 was a commercial loan, which the Limerick man expects to be returned to him fairly pronto now that the… Read more »

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Mary-Robinson

Robbos Accounts

Date: May 5, 2016 - Affairs of the Nation

MARY ROBINSON’S Victoria House Foundation (VHF) has just published its first accounts and all seems to be going swimmingly. However, there is still one big question mark hanging over the whole Mayo ‘shrine’ project. The accounts for the VHF (chaired by legal eagle Emer Gilvarry) state that the proposed Mary Robinson Centre is to be… Read more »

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Feargal Quinn

FEARGAL QUINN’S €200 MILLION

Date: May 5, 2016 - Affairs of the Nation

AN ANNOUNCEMENT last month that Swiss bank Lombard Odier was awarded a mandate valued at €200m “for an established international family” went unnoticed by the Irish media. Happily, Goldhawk can reveal that the established international family is none other than former senator Feargal Quinn, wife Denise and assorted scions – Stephen, Eamonn, Donal, Zoe and… Read more »

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Tony O’Reilly

STRIKING OFF TONY O’REILLY

Date: May 5, 2016 - Affairs of the Nation

THE LATEST chapter in the commercial demise of Tony O’Reilly unfolded last week when the Companies Registration Office listed a company called Columbia Investments for striking off, as a result of a failure to lodge returns. It is perhaps easy to understand why the filing requirements might be overlooked given that there hasn’t been too… Read more »

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juerg-von-geitz

INVESTIGATING ROTHSCHILDS BANK

Date: May 5, 2016 - Affairs of the Nation

GOLDHAWK spotted an interesting report on Bloomberg recently, which said that the Swiss unit of Edmond de Rothschild SA is the subject of a French probe regarding a former business relationship managed by a former employee. The Geneva-based bankers noted that they are “actively participating in the criminal investigation under way. The bank denies all… Read more »

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