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MARTIN V DPP OFFICIAL

Date: December 12, 2024 -

MICHEÁL MARTIN made law and order one of his election issues and, in a calculated move shortly before the election was called, he made a most unusual initiative when sharply criticising decisions that “blocked the murder trial” in the case of Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s brutal killing in 1996. In an unprecedented initiative for a… Read more »

PROFILE: CIAN O’CALLAGHAN

Date: December 12, 2024 -

BEHIND EVERY great leader, there’s a deputy leader and Social Democrats head Holly Cairns was temporarily replaced by her deputy, Cian O’Callaghan, for most of the general election campaign due to her electorally untimely pregnancy. O’Callaghan is a politician of substance, like his leader, but both of them now stand on the verge of a… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: EMMA DORAN

Date: December 12, 2024 -

Celebs with a good personal back story will always find refuge in the welcoming arms of the Irish media and this year comedian Emma Doran has certainly scored a bullseye in that regard. Her tale of getting pregnant during the school holidays and giving birth 13 days before the Leaving Cert has garnered her copious… Read more »

COLLISON’S COLLISION

Date: December 12, 2024 -

MORE THAN 11 million people have now seen a tweet posted on X last month by Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison that included his photo of the Tel Aviv seafront under the message: “Great to be back in Tel Aviv. I missed this run.” What on earth was he up to? Not surprisingly, Collison, who boasts… Read more »

McENTEE REVIVES LEADERSHIP DREAM

Date: December 12, 2024 -

FIANNA FÁIL’s election strategy selected justice minister Helen McEntee as its prime target but the Fine Gael princess focussed on a game plan inside FG during the campaign in an exercise signalling that she has not yet given up hopes of the leadership. Many party members marvel at the patronage and preference afforded to Helen… Read more »

CONOR McGREGOR’S LOAN

Date: December 12, 2024 -

WITH FORMER MMA superstar Conor McGregor and businessman Paddy McKillen Jr both generating headlines recently – albeit for very different reasons – it is interesting to find that the two boys were doing business together. McGregor’s own ‘brand’ has of course been seriously tarnished by the rape case verdict earlier this month, with significant pushback… Read more »

RIGHT-WING RECRIMINATION

Date: December 12, 2024 -

THE FAILURE of Ireland’s new-right parties and Independents in the general election was always likely to lead to some level of introspection and reorganisation – as well as serious recrimination. While many on the right were keen to advocate unity as a solution to their electoral frustration this, as it turned out, was wishful thinking…. Read more »

LINDA O’SHEA FARREN’S ‘TENACITY’

Date: December 12, 2024 -

YOU HAVE to hand it to the ultra-ambitious Linda O’Shea Farren – she keeps bouncing back. A long-time member of the National University of Ireland (NUI) senate and serial election candidate, Linda has put her name forward again for a tilt at the upcoming Seanad elections, where she will contest for one of the three… Read more »

VOL 42 NO 24

Date: December 12, 2024 -

JOHN MAGNIER’S ROOSTING BATS

Date: December 12, 2024 -

JOHN MAGNIER has been attracting a lot of attention lately and, especially in Co Tipperary, the aggressive acquisition of large tracts of land by the Coolmore group and its owners is increasingly proving contentious as farmers in particular complain of being unable to compete with the zillionaire. Now his plans have potentially been scuppered, by… Read more »

FG SISTERS IN THE FIRING LINE

Date: December 12, 2024 -

A SILENT pall hangs over a deflated and even defeated Fine Gael, which lost the ‘other’ war (apart from the one with Sinn Féin and the opposition), namely that with Fianna Fáil in the historic, even existential, contest for supremacy on the centre right. That’s the reason for the gloom. The reason for the silence… Read more »

GOVT HANDLERS GO PRIVATE

Date: December 12, 2024 -

The Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo) has a pragmatic attitude to red tape when it comes to waiving the rules about certain government officials being subject to a one-year cooling-off period before entering the lucrative private sector. This is to “manage” conflicts of interest that can arise for people that have worked in sensitive… Read more »

FENNELLY’S FIGHT

Date: December 12, 2024 -

THE BORING world of number crunchers sometimes throws up a good old yarn and one that has been running for nearly a decade concerns Chartered Accountants of Ireland (CAI) member Jimmy Fennelly’s attempts to get the body to admit it was wrong. The ante has been upped with the creation of a website last month…. Read more »

HIGH-END REACTIONARIES

Date: December 12, 2024 -

PROMINENT NATIONAL PARTY (NP) member Keith Woods (pseudonym of Roscommon native Keith O’Brien) likes to position himself at the more cerebral end of the new right. His assessment, however, of the NP’s poor performance in the general election is a little wide of the mark. Woods has quite a high profile internationally, having spoken at… Read more »

BBC SMEARS MARTIN McGUINNESS

Date: December 12, 2024 -

THE BBC has launched Stakeknife, a podcast series that looks at the activities of the late Freddie Scappaticci, MI5’s mole in the Provisional IRA. The first episode focused on a 1993 Cook Report (CR) documentary, which featured an incognito Scappaticci decrying Martin McGuinness in the car park of the Culloden hotel on the shores of… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: December 12, 2024 -

It’s becoming even clearer that she’s not just the female voice of a generation, but the humane voice of a century. Lena Dunham waxes lyrical about Sally Rooney, Financial Times Weekend Magazine Even Lazarus could not match the miracle Micheál Martin has pulled off. Justine McCarthy, Irish Times Moana… powerfully demonstrates how human action can… Read more »

TREASONOUS AN TAISCE!

Date: December 12, 2024 -

Shortly before the election, Independent TD Mattie McGrath introduced a bill in the Dáil aimed at stripping heritage charity An Taisce of its status as a “prescribed authority”. An Taisce has had this legal role since the early 1960s, meaning it is formally notified of planning applications that may have an environmental impact. This latest… Read more »

MARTIN’S NEW ALLY

Date: December 12, 2024 -

Micheál Martin spoke to the Alliance party conference in Belfast on March 1 as Tánaiste and Minister of Foreign Affairs. It was part of his policy of distancing himself and Fianna Fáil from northern nationalists, but it was more than that. He endorsed Alliance’s policy of reforming the functioning of the Stormont executive in the… Read more »

SCHULL-DUGGERY UNDERMINES FREE STATERS

Date: December 12, 2024 -

FOR THE second election in a row, Fine Gael has emerged with no seat in Cork South-West (CSW), a notable change of fortune in a constituency that had continuous FG representation from 1961 to 2020 and a reported party membership of 800. According to figures from Ireland Votes, a poll-aggregating website, CSW has emerged as… Read more »

GREEN GLOBAL GLOOM

Date: December 12, 2024 -

‘APRÈS-NOUS, le déluge’ summed up the atmosphere at the European Greens convention last weekend in the cavernous Dublin Convention Centre. The poorly attended event was a tragedy for its hosts, the Green Party of Ireland, following successive routs in June of its two Irish MEPs and in November of all but one TD. It can… Read more »

MARTIN TO KEEP O’CALLAGHAN CLOSE?

Date: December 12, 2024 -

WILL MICHEÁL MARTIN honour his accord and reconciliation with former leadership challenger Jim O’Callaghan or will he welch on a deal that Fianna Fáil members believe has been struck for Jim to be made minister for justice or some other department with a similar title and brief? The near Faustian pact made by the two… Read more »

WHATEVER YOU SAY…

Date: December 12, 2024 -

THE RECENTLY released Disney+ film, Say Nothing, has resurrected the usual controversy about Gerry Adams’s alleged involvement in the killing and disappearance of widowed mother of 10 Jean McConville. One of the main promoters of this story is former Irish-based journalist Ed Moloney, a principal in the Boston College tapes exercise that produced tales about… Read more »

DUBLIN’S KRISTALLNACHT

Date: December 12, 2024 -

DUBLIN HAS become afflicted by “rising antisemitism”, according to a recent headline and article in the Irish Times. The article focused on a reported attack by three men on a Jewish man in a Dublin nightclub at 2 am. The man was wearing a small Star of David necklace and was asked if he was… Read more »

SEÁN O’KEEFFE’S PLOT SPOILER

Date: December 12, 2024 -

INTERESTING TO see that the website for the small Irish publisher established by Seán O’Keeffe, Liberties Press, is still up and running, “seeking new work from new and established authors” and also open to “unsolicited submissions”, which require an up-front payment of €922 (inc VAT). Given that the limited company that registered the business back… Read more »

RICH RICCI’S CENTURY

Date: December 12, 2024 -

FORMER BARCLAYS moneybags Rich Ricci has had a rollercoaster few weeks on racecourses in different parts of the world and achieved a significant milestone on his travels. Following Vauban’s latest flop in the Melbourne Cup last month, the nag’s minted owner sold him for €1.25m to continue his racing career Down Under. Vauban will now… Read more »

VLADISLAV AIMS HIGH

Date: December 12, 2024 -

AGROLEXICA INTERNATIONAL Trading BV – the Dutch agricultural commodity trading entity with interests in Ukraine and owned by Ukrainian Vladislav Pasztirya (see The Phoenix 17/10/24) – was in the racing news here once again when snubbing huge sums for a nag. Having raised eyebrows with its high-profile purchase of a €850,000 Blue Point yearling filly… Read more »

ENDA McEVOY’S INDIGESTION

Date: December 12, 2024 -

MICHELIN-STAR chef Enda McEvoy has moved to wind up the company that was behind his award-winning Loam restaurant in Galway, which closed a couple of years back, as well as another foodie venture that has now also called it a day. McEvoy was one of the poster boys of the upmarket Irish dining scene, with… Read more »

KERRY GROUP DEAL A BONANZA FOR CO-OP SHAREHOLDERS

Date: December 12, 2024 -

AFTER A decade of bickering, Kerry Co-Op Creameries has eventually agreed to a €500m deal to buy the listed Kerry Group’s Irish dairy business. Fans of Moneybags will be aware he has been advocating this move for over a decade but the problem was the difficulty in satisfying both the 9,000-plus dry shareholders in Kerry… Read more »

NEW LOOK AT I-RES REIT, SAME OLD PROBLEMS

Date: December 12, 2024 -

HAVING SURVIVED the attempted ousting of the board by Jeff Olin’s Vision Capital Corp (VCC) early this year, I-Res Reit nevertheless has a rather different look today. But for shareholders, new CEO Eddie Byrne has yet to deliver any improvement to the bottom line. Quite the reverse in fact. With the situation looking gloomy ahead… Read more »

AUBREY’S ELECTION CAMPAIGN

Date: December 12, 2024 -

WITH NOMINATIONS closed for the upcoming university Seanad elections, the battle for the three seats in Trinity College will be more interesting than usual, given the absence from the ballot of long-term shoe-in David Norris, who retired last year. One player eyeing up one of the three seats on offer is millionaire, philanthropist, “visionary leader”… Read more »

DAVID ROCK’S HEALTH EMERGENCY

Date: December 12, 2024 -

TWO OF David ‘RocDoc’ Rock’s companies are to be wound up next week on foot of liabilities built up. This follows last year’s liquidation of RocDoc Health Check Ltd (RHC), which turns out to have owed unsecured creditors just on €1m. Ashbourne-based GP David Rock became something of a pandemic poster boy courtesy of his… Read more »

NOEL FRISBY’S FEISTY FOES

Date: December 12, 2024 -

WATERFORD DEVELOPER Noel Frisby’s plans to build a three-block development of around 79 apartments at a site on the ring road around Waterford city has hit a bit of a snag, with an appeal lobbed in to An Bord Pleanála by some grumpy local residents. Frisby is one of Waterford’s most prolific developers, having set… Read more »

LORETTA DIGNAM’S MENOPAUSE MONEY

Date: December 12, 2024 -

LORETTA DIGNAM will have plenty to celebrate this Christmas, having just secured €¼m in funding for her Menopause Hub operation. There are some interesting names among the backers. The menopause business is an increasingly hot one these days and corporate sponsors have been queuing up to display their credentials, with various parties now vying for… Read more »

MARIAN KEYES’S AMERICAN DREAM

Date: December 12, 2024 -

THE MYRIAD of fans of scribbler Marian Keyes had a collective meltdown online last week when RTÉ announced The Walsh Sisters, a six-part drama based on her series of novels about “a chaotic, dysfunctional but deeply lovable family of five sisters, a devout mother and a bemused father”. Although the author is Irish, the director… Read more »

FINE GAEL: WHAT NEXT?

Date: November 28, 2024 -

THE TRENDS are impossible to dismiss – Fianna Fáil is in the ascendant over Fine Gael and even a battered Sinn Féin looks to have had a better general election campaign than Fine Gael. But while An Taoiseach and party leader Simon Harris is, naturally, shipping most of the blame from party members for the… Read more »

PROFILE: MICHEÁL MARTIN

Date: November 28, 2024 -

YOU HAVE to hand it to Micheál Martin – or to chance – he has presided over the continued, resilient existence of Fianna Fáil and even its place in government since it was nearly wiped out in 2011. This is despite the hollowing out of the party’s long-time political character and membership as well as… Read more »