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RTÉ TOLD: DO MORE WITH LESS

Date: July 11, 2024 -

RTÉ’s decision to outsource Fair City and The Late Late Show to outside production companies has been greeted with anger by Montrose trade unions who fear, correctly, that it will lead to job losses and lower wages. Both Siptu and the NUJ have announced that… Read more »

NEIL JORDAN’S EDITING

Date: July 11, 2024 -

AMNESIAC, THE memoir of Neil Jordan, has hit the shelves, accompanied by a predictable glut of author interviews diligently name-checking the likes of Stanley Kubrick, Julia Roberts, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. So far, however, few reviews have bothered to look behind the roll call of luvvies and Hollywood gossip. The film director’s buke is… Read more »

PETER HYNES’S HEADACHE

Date: July 11, 2024 -

STILL NO sign of an advert for the position of CEO of Design & Crafts Council Ireland (DCCI), which is in the process of procuring a recruitment agency. Incumbent Rosemary Steen is exiting after the summer but this is only one of the headaches for the Peter Hynes-chaired board, with the cancelling of jewellery and… Read more »

SARAH’S SHOTS

Date: July 11, 2024 -

SARAH LYNAM, who recently called a premature halt to her own career as a trainer, turned her sights on fellow trainer Paddy Twomey in a radio interview. The recently turned pundit – who, like her sister, Amy, is not too shy about making her controversial opinions known – decided to have a pop at Twomey’s… Read more »

REBECCA MAY’S WINNER

Date: July 11, 2024 -

LIMERICK-BASED corporate events queen Rebecca May finally tasted success as a racehorse owner (and presumably a tasty dividend from the bookies) when the 150/1 shot, Eaglewood, carried her purple and green colours to victory in the Tipperary Fillies INH Bumper. The former Buckingham Palace and Clarence House florist was without a win in over 11… Read more »

CIRCUIT BREAKER

Date: July 11, 2024 -

RACHAEL BLACKMORE’S riding of the Louise Lyons-trained Lady Rita in a Kilbeggan three-mile hurdle last year was presumably on the minds of the directors of the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) when they moved to introduce yet another new sub-rule earlier this month. Having ridden Lady Rita to finish a circuit too early (see The… Read more »

AUBREY’S AWARD

Date: July 11, 2024 -

CONGRATULATIONS TO millionaire and philanthropist Aubrey McCarthy, who has just been awarded an honorary lifetime membership of the RDS. This pat on the back from the Ballsbridge worthies was also extended to another businessman and philanthropist, albeit someone with rather deeper pockets, JP McManus. Besides their relative bank balances, another difference is that McCarthy is… Read more »

JOHN MAGNIER’S MIXED FORM

Date: July 11, 2024 -

IT HAS been a successful but mixed couple of weeks for John Magnier, Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith and the rest of the loaded Coolmore ‘lads’. Having landed the Epsom Derby in no little style, City of Troy scrambled to victory in the Coral Eclipse Stakes last weekend, on what was the 40th anniversary of the… Read more »

CHAOTIC C&C’S PROFITS SET TO GET VERY FIZZY

Date: July 11, 2024 -

THE C&C saga continues to deliver twists and turns. Less than one year after David Forde stepped down with immediate effect as chief bottlewasher at C&C (on foot of the disclosure of a €25m software adjustment charge in one division), his replacement as CEO, Paddy McMahon, has also cleared off. What is it about C&C… Read more »

TONY SMURFIT’S US DREAM COULD BE A NIGHTMARE

Date: July 11, 2024 -

IF THE agreed €7bn takeover of DS Smith group by International Paper (IP) goes through, this could be Tony Smurfit’s worst nightmare, just as he has completed the near $13bn reverse takeover by Smurfit Kappa Group (SKG) of the American WestRock packaging company. There are huge challenges in store for Smurfit, given the state of… Read more »

TWIN OAKS JUDGMENT

Date: July 11, 2024 -

A JUDGMENT has just been registered by Fingal County Council for a paltry €4,500 against a company called Castleknock Hospitality but it seems unlikely that this small rates bill will be settled as the company has ceased trading. Owned by Stephen Donnelly with an address in the Ashleight retail centre, the firm traded as The… Read more »

LUKE COMER’S BLEMISHED RECORD

Date: July 11, 2024 -

MONACO-BASED billionaire property developer Luke Comer is set to begin his lengthy three-year suspension as a racehorse trainer next Monday, although until the last minute it is possible that an application may be made for a judicial review of the ban imposed by the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) on foot of traces of steroids being… Read more »

BECKETT END GAME

Date: July 11, 2024 -

NEXT WEEK the High Court will hear a winding-up petition for a company called Beckett Acquisition Ltd (BAL). This is a company controlled by South Korean investors that owns the Beckett Building on East Wall Road, which had housed social media behemoth Facebook Ireland/Meta. Mark Zuckerberg’s operation, however, has cut short its lease and exited… Read more »

AUBREY MCCARTHY’S B&B

Date: July 11, 2024 -

ELSEWHERE IN this issue (see p18) Goldhawk looks at the awarding by the RDS of honorary lifetime membership to businessman and philanthropist Aubrey McCarthy. He is keeping his fingers crossed that An Bord Pleanála also awards him a prize, in the form of planning permission for a large B&B operation in Dublin’s city centre. Punchestown-based… Read more »

MARY LOU’S POST MORTEM

Date: June 27, 2024 -

FOLLOWING ITS dreadful local election results, Sinn Féin members believed that the outcome of the internal battle over policies and electoral strategy would depend on just who Mary Lou McDonald would listen to: the conservative faction, which stands accused of hollowing out SF policies to prove to the establishment that the party can be trusted… Read more »

PROFILE: BRÍD SMITH

Date: June 27, 2024 -

RECENT ELECTIONS stimulated much discussion about the centre-right, far-right, centre-left, Sinn Féin and so on, but very little about the small but sometimes significant far-left movement, whose main personality for some years now has been former MEP Clare Daly. A favourite trope of right-wing critics… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: LOTTIE RYAN

Date: June 27, 2024 -

When she was announced last month as the new face of afternoon radio on 2FM, it seemed that Lottie Ryan was living proof of the tenet that persistence pays off – or if you hang around somewhere long enough, you’ll finally get your moment in the sun. Gerry Ryan’s eldest child has been knocking about the 2FM building… Read more »

PETER WEDDERBURN’S BARK

Date: June 27, 2024 -

WITH THE Dog Control Stakeholder Group set to meet this week to “prioritise” the issue of restricted dog breeds, the ante has been significantly upped by the minister responsible, Heather Humphreys, who has supported a ban on dangerous breeds. This comes in the midst of an ongoing PR campaign by opponents of a ban, including… Read more »

TREVOR WHITE’S MUSEUM PIECES

Date: June 27, 2024 -

READERS OF the Irish Times last week would have noticed a couple of adverts for Trevor White’s very well-funded Little Museum of Dublin (LMD), inviting people to take one of the establishment’s tours and “discover the Little Museum pop-up around the corner from Stephen’s Green”. Apparently, the pop-up operation on Pembroke Street, D2 – a… Read more »

DERMOT DESMOND’S WINDING UP

Date: June 27, 2024 -

A MYSTERIOUS company called Dies Irae Ltd (DIL) – linked to Dermot Desmond’s International Investment and Underwriting (IIU) investment vehicle – has been quietly wound up. It is hard to tell exactly what the entity ever got up to but what makes it interesting is that in 2021 Liam Collins in the Sindo reported the… Read more »

IAN KEHOE’S ‘CURRENCY’ RATE

Date: June 27, 2024 -

SIGNS ARE that Tom Lyons and Ian Kehoe, joint owners of digital financial publication the Currency, are intent on selling their company, judging by the recent release of its figures for the year to September 2023. Not many publications publicise their subscription numbers but the Currency boasted of 6,200 paying subscribers, although this is only… Read more »

JOHN BYRNE’S BLINKERS

Date: June 27, 2024 -

PROPERTY MONEYBAGS John Byrne – the new chairman of the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) – thanked “all those race-day staff and volunteers who commit to upholding the integrity of Irish horse racing”, when releasing the Bowler Hats’ 2022 annual report earlier this month. Remarkably, he added: “I am encouraged by the real progress we… Read more »

SHARK HANLON’S ROUGH RIDE

Date: June 27, 2024 -

A VIDEO of an uncovered dead horse in an open builder’s trailer, which was being towed by John ‘Shark’ Hanlon’s Boylesports-sponsored horse box to a factory for disposal, went viral recently. While Shark Hanlon duly apologised for any distress caused, he stated that the tarpaulin that had been covering the horse came undone during the… Read more »

FRANCES RUANE’S TIMING

Date: June 27, 2024 -

WHILE THE Abbey Theatre’s most famous Broadway hit of modern times, Brian Friel’s Tony award-winning Dancing at Lughnasa, is about to be produced by the Gate Theatre at the far end of O’Connell Street, the €7m-a-year Abbey, run by Frances Ruane, has been reduced to attaching its name to a New York run by independent… Read more »

VOL 42 NO 13

Date: June 27, 2024 -

KILLARNEY’S GAZA STANCE

Date: June 27, 2024 -

THE ISRAELI government will surely appreciate that it has finally and completely lost the global propaganda war when it receives a report from its ambassador, Dana Erlich, about the goings-on in Killarney, tourist mecca of Ireland and a must-see attraction for high-spending American tourists. Each year Killarney Chamber of Tourism and Commerce organises a Fourth… Read more »

NEW C/S FACES FIGHT

Date: June 27, 2024 -

OUTRAGE AT soldiers’ violence against women and the lenient treatment many have received on conviction will have strengthened the hands of reformists in the Defence Forces. So will the Defence Forces Tribunal, which is hearing complaints from the Women of Honour about abuse of women in the ranks. Alternatively, developments other than the Defence Forces… Read more »

ALL IN GOOD TASTE

Date: June 27, 2024 -

LAST WEEK Merrion Square finally fully reopened to Dublin’s citizens after nearly three weeks of severe restrictions, which were put in place so the Dublin City Council-controlled public space could be given over for a four-day private shindig for foodies, Taste of Dublin. Sponsored by the uber-profitable Danish retail outfit, Jysk, punters were asked to… Read more »

MI6, HAUGHEY AND THE MAFIA

Date: June 27, 2024 -

AN UPCOMING book on British intelligence in Ireland, The Puppet Masters, includes new material on Patrick Crinnion of Garda intelligence, who worked for MI6 in the 1960s and early 1970s. Author David Burke has gained access to papers written by Crinnion, which provide the backbone of the volume and shine new light on a string… Read more »

BIG JOBS FOR BIG IRISH SOLDIERS

Date: June 27, 2024 -

FOLLOWING THE appointment of Defence Forces chief of staff Seán Clancy as the first Irish chairman of the EU Military Committee, Irish ex-officer Seán White was appointed by the European Defence Agency (EDA) as director for industry, synergies and enablers (ISE). Thus, the integration of the top brass of the Irish Defence Forces into joint… Read more »

NEW-RIGHT RIFTS

Date: June 27, 2024 -

FOLLOWING THE recent elections there has been feverish speculation about how Ireland’s new right could have a significant impact on the Irish political landscape if it could just find a common vehicle or platform. But the simplistic mathematics of adding together votes received by the Irish Freedom Party (IFP), National Party (NP), Ireland First (IF)… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: June 27, 2024 -

To travel by train is to see a textbook case of neoliberal capitalism’s endgame. Football hack Ken Early’s, er, interesting take on at Euro 2024 in Germany, Irish Times Like Jonathan [Anderson], Guinness has always seen the world differently, moving beyond life’s limitations and expectations to make a brighter world. Stephen O’Kelly, Guinness global brand… Read more »

TRUMP ‘HATES’ WIND ENERGY

Date: June 27, 2024 -

The EU elections may have been a bad day for the planet, with climate disinformation helping the far right take seats across Europe, but the vista is altogether more appalling in the US, where Donald Trump has casually asked the fossil fuel industry for a $1bn “donation” in return for undoing all of Joe Biden’s… Read more »

THE EARL AND THE ENVIRONMENTALISTS

Date: June 27, 2024 -

Nicholas Ashley-Cooper, 12th Earl of Shaftesbury, has never lived in Ireland but has managed to hang on to a colonial inheritance – ownership of the bed of Lough Neagh. This entitles him to royalties from the industrial dredging of sand, a practice environmentalists say is one factor in the ecological disaster at the lake. The… Read more »

DUP UNDER PRESSURE

Date: June 27, 2024 -

DUP party spokesmen (there is a dearth of women) are displaying a distinct lack of confidence in interviews about next week’s general election. The party, and its new leader, Gavin Robinson, are nervous because, although opinion polls show they retain their position as the main unionist party, a Queen’s University poll on June 21 shows… Read more »

GREEN ENTITLEMENT

Date: June 27, 2024 -

GREEN SENATOR Pippa Hackett and her co-conspirators – senators Pauline O’Reilly (party chair) and Róisín Garvey – will likely be seen off by rival leadership contender Roderic O’Gorman, but the three senators’ ambition is in reverse proportion to their own record in sundry elections. Hackett’s first effort was at the 2019 local elections in Edenderry,… Read more »