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ANNUAL 2024: PAPAL RULE OK!

Date: November 14, 2024 -

THE MARATHON Synod on Synodality convened in Rome recently by Pope Francis to update world Catholicism ended in the anticipated anti-climax. In his closing homily on Sunday October 27, the first Jesuit Pontiff extolled the participants on their prime duty of evangelising the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Amid glorious autumnal sunshine in St Peter’s Basilica,… Read more »

ANNUAL 2024: KNOWLEDGE KNOWS NO PRICE

Date: November 14, 2024 -

LOSING ONE university president may be regarded as a misfortune but losing two… as Oscar Wilde nearly said. But even he would have been bemused by how well Ireland’s lost academic leaders are doing career wise since they fell on their presidential swords a few months ago – only to rise again. Professor Kerstin Mey’s… Read more »

ANNUAL 2024: PEACE BREAKS OUT IN FOUR COURTS

Date: November 14, 2024 -

As the world around us descends not-so-slowly into a veritable state of chassis, it must have been a source of great comfort to the lords and ladies of the legal obsession to go to work each day and bask in the warm glow of friendship and collegiality. As the Middle East and the US tear… Read more »

ANNUAL 2024: MICHEÁL MARTIN’S UNIVERSE

Date: November 14, 2024 -

“What planet are you living on?” is Tánaiste Micheál Martin’s response to questions on the state facilitating US arms deliveries through Shannon Airport in Nato’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. If the state was not officially militarily neutral and had we more than one planet on which to survive, not answering the question might… Read more »

ANNUAL 2024: GENOCIDE, ROBOTS AND TAYLOR SWIFT

Date: November 14, 2024 -

THIS YEAR the cultural arena was dominated by two rather different personalities – Taylor Swift and Benjamin Netanyahu – both of whom managed to cause mayhem, albeit for very different reasons. The issue of Israel’s war in Gaza was rarely far from the surface for artists but, more often than not, the more familiar names… Read more »

ANNUAL 2024: GOVERNMENT – SAME OLD GOVERNMENT AGAIN?

Date: November 14, 2024 -

LAST YEAR ended and this year began with a chorus line that said then taoiseach and Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar would be going for a snap general election. Goldhawk also noted in last year’s annual that should Vlad fall – or be pushed – under a bus, Simon Harris would easily elbow aside his… Read more »

ANNUAL 2024: OPPOSITION – CAN SINN FÉIN RECOVER?

Date: November 14, 2024 -

HOW THE mighty have fallen! A year ago, Sinn Féin was riding high in the opinion polls at 35% and confidently expected to be in with a real chance of leading the next government. Now all that is in tatters. The latest Red C poll puts the party at 17%. SF’s support fell in opinion… Read more »

ANNUAL 2024: INDEPENDENTS/TROTS – DIVIDED LEFT TO STAY IN OPPOSITION

Date: November 14, 2024 -

DESPITE THE decline in Sinn Féin’s vote, the minor left parties have failed to capitalise on SF’s drop in support and joining in the media frenzy against SF – as Labour and the Social Democrats did – has done nothing to lift them either. Support for People Before Profit (which opposed the blitz against SF),… Read more »

LEST WE FORGET…

Date: November 14, 2024 -

HAS SIMON HARRIS dropped his first clanger in Anglo-Irish matters with a deliberate failure to attend the annual Remembrance Sunday Commemoration in Enniskillen – a failure made infinitely worse given Sinn Féin vice-president Michelle O’Neill’s attendance at a commemoration in Belfast? Harris told the Sunday Independent that he was giving the event a miss because… Read more »

SARAH NEWMAN’S BARON

Date: November 14, 2024 -

GOLDHAWK IS delighted to report that businesswoman-turned-celebrity-turned-bankrupt Sarah Newman has had a fairytale ending to 2024, marrying her titled beau, Lord Henry Digby, aka the Baron of Offaly. Having experienced some pretty bruising media scrutiny after she turned up on this side of the Irish Sea, it is likely that the new Lady Digby will… Read more »

ANNUAL 2024: 2024 GETS BOOMIER … FOR SOME

Date: November 14, 2024 -

WHILE AROUND the world there were warning signs of the brakes being applied to the economy and a slowdown in spending at the luxury end of the market was becoming evident, in Ireland the party has continued as the rich and (increasingly) the super rich spend like there is no tomorrow. Property prices at the… Read more »

ANNUAL 2024: MONEYBAGS – SHARES SET TO THRIVE IN UNCERTAIN 2025

Date: November 14, 2024 -

FOLLOWING ON from a decade of low interest rates running at nil or even negative percentages – the predictable fallout from the 2008 global economic crash – business has recently had to get used to a less hospitable environment. Along with a reversion of the interest regime, there is the ongoing impact of the war… Read more »

ANNUAL 2024: MONEYBAGS – WINNERS AND LOSERS IN 2024

Date: November 14, 2024 -

THE BEST performing stock for 2024 is something of an outlier, Ovoca Bio, with its stock doubling, albeit from a really low 1c price. It is noteworthy that Ovoca fell from a recent high of 13p, which it hit in August last year on the back of Australian trials for its drug, Orenetide, designed to… Read more »

ANNUAL 2024 – MONEYBAGS: TONY SMURFIT

Date: November 14, 2024 -

NOW 60, it is gobsmacking that Tony Smurfit finds himself as the boss of the largest packaging company in the world, Smurfit Westrock, after pulling off a deal on a scale few thought him capable of. It is a bit of a head-scratcher though, given… Read more »

ANNUAL 2024: FROM LOADED ADVERSARIES TO FLEEING RUGBY STARS

Date: November 14, 2024 -

IN 2024 there was no shortage of excitement in the business world, with company collapses and expensive court outings aplenty. While some of the usual suspects popped up in a spot of bother, it was perhaps surprising to see media shy billionaire John Magnier dragged into a high-profile scrap over a multimillion-euro estate in Co… Read more »

ANNUAL 2024

Date: November 14, 2024 -

HEALTH CHECK

Date: November 14, 2024 -

DOCUMENTS FILED in the Companies Office reveal that the grandly titled Institute of Health Sciences (IHS), which closed its doors last year, owed unsecured creditors €¾m when its own health finally gave in. The institute was incorporated here back in 2008 and the main listed players were Suzanne Laurie, a lecturer at the institute, and… Read more »

SLOWLY DOES IT

Date: November 14, 2024 -

IN THE last edition of The Phoenix it was noted that Sinn Féin has for some years been guided by a comprehensive, 40-page child protection document with protocols and links to procedural guidelines of the HSE and gardaí, as well as the PSNI and social care trusts in the north. Given the intense media and… Read more »

HONEY TRAP: RUSSIAN OR BRITISH?

Date: October 31, 2024 -

THE SUNDAY TIMES may have unintentionally opened a can of worms with recent articles claiming that the Russian secret service was running an agent dubbed ‘Cobalt’ in the Oireachtas. The real scandal more likely relates to a British secret service asset operating inside Garda intelligence, who was responsible for the leak of the fishy allegation… Read more »

PROFILE: MARY LOU MCDONALD

Date: October 31, 2024 -

IN MAY 2023 Goldhawk asked whether Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald could face down a hostile media and maintain SF’s unity and political cohesion as it looked like heading for government. We also asked if coming over as the essence of sweet reason and moderation was the way to deal with the media. The… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: SARAH RYAN

Date: October 31, 2024 -

Increasingly on Gript Media’s weekly podcast, The Week That Really Was (TWTRW), which Sarah Ryan co-hosts with John McGuirk, you can sense their shared frustration at the failure of Ireland’s new right-wing political projects to have an impact. And there is something deeply ironic in the fact that Ryan, who abandoned what seemed like the… Read more »

JP McMANUS’S ANNUS HORRIBILIS

Date: October 31, 2024 -

THIS YEAR has turned out to be a forgettable one for Geneva-based zillionaire JP McManus. Hot on the heels of a ruling by a Barbados coroner that cocaine use played a role in the tragic death of his daughter-in-law, Emma McManus (wife of John McManus), one of JP’s more high-profile charitable concerns, the International Rugby… Read more »

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S U-TURN

Date: October 31, 2024 -

WHAT A rollicking Micheál Martin gave to coalition ‘partners’ Fine Gael last weekend, with justice minister Helen McEntee in particular and Taoiseach Simon Harris also getting politically assaulted in the process. The last refuge of the politician is often law‘n’order and it looks as if Martin has entered the electoral battle prematurely, judging by the… Read more »

LESLIE BUCKLEY’S HON DOC

Date: October 31, 2024 -

JUST LIKE Goldhawk’s favourite former EU Commissioner, Big Phil Hogan, former Independent News and Media (INM) chairman Leslie Buckley had to wait rather a long time to collect his cap and gown for an honorary doctorate of arts from his alma mater, UCC. It will be recalled (see The Phoenix 6/9/24) that the controversial Hogan… Read more »

HIGH-FLYING KITE

Date: October 31, 2024 -

IT HAS BEEN an eventful month for Darren Smith’s Kite Entertainment TV production outfit. Last weekend, its new series for RTÉ of Ireland’s Fittest Families was postponed following the tragic death of one of the young participants. A week earlier, however, Kite had landed the gig for an Irish version of the hugely popular BBC… Read more »

SHARON KEEGAN’S ‘EMPOWERMENT BRAND’

Date: October 31, 2024 -

GOLDHAWK IS sad to see that the leisurewear company set up by his favourite “inspirational leader”, Sharon Keegan, is being wound up next week. The liquidation is bad news for those who bought into the female empowerment blather that was the cornerstone of Keegan’s marketing spiel for her Peachy Lean brand. Among the backers are… Read more »

DOG FIGHT CONTINUES

Date: October 31, 2024 -

FOR THE last week or so the Facebook page of animal welfare group Working Animal Guardian (WAG) has been choc-a-bloc with emotional rhetoric following the euthanising of two bull breeds who had been surrendered into the system. Now the group is planning a protest against Heather Humphreys’ legislation, which bans the import, sale and rehoming… Read more »

VOL 42 NO 22

Date: October 31, 2024 -

BIZ POST BLUNDER

Date: October 31, 2024 -

READERS OF last weekend’s Business Post will have spotted a grovelling apology to one Ronan Minahan. But it looks like the issue has not gone away, with a High Court outing still pencilled in for November 11 as part of legal proceedings that kicked off in 2019. The Post’s mea culpa related to a December… Read more »

CHILD SAFETY POLITICAL DEBATE

Date: October 31, 2024 -

GIVEN THE recent public debate about child safety and the allegations made against Sinn Féin and party leader Mary Lou McDonald by Government parties, Goldhawk assumed that the latter would have voluminous material on the subject. This would include codes of practice, protocols and the necessary measures to respond to – as well as pre-empt… Read more »

CHAWKE AND CHEESE

Date: October 31, 2024 -

SOLICITOR MICHAEL FINUCANE has taken a High Court defamation action against thejournal.ie following its coverage of his clients’ appearance in court on charges of violent assault. Gardaí told the District Court in Newcastle West recently of distressing scenes at the Dunraven Arms, Adare, late at night when Bill Chawke and his sister, Alison Chawke –… Read more »

LOUISE RICHARDSON’S DEFENCE

Date: October 31, 2024 -

ON A trip back to the old sod recently, Louise Richardson – Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire – derided Irish neutrality as something that does not fit into any accepted interpretation of neutrality. She reminded us, unwittingly perhaps, that while we are not members of any military alliance, we act as… Read more »

SHARK ATTACKED

Date: October 31, 2024 -

LAST WEEK the appeal by racehorse trainer John ‘Shark’ Hanlon against the severity of a 10-month suspension for bringing the sport into disrepute resulted in a reduction of his ban to six months, with the probability that he will end up serving only a three-month suspension overall. It came a little late in the day,… Read more »

SIR GARRET MISLED BY HAROLD WILSON

Date: October 31, 2024 -

OPERATION DENTON, led by Sir Iain Livingstone, is looking at the 1974 Dublin-Monaghan bomb atrocities. It lays much emphasis on the fact it is an analytical review that is diligently scrutinising all of the relevant files. Goldhawk would like to suggest that it digs out the briefing papers prepared for PM Harold Wilson prior to… Read more »

EU’S BEST FORM OF DEFENCE 

Date: October 31, 2024 -

THE European Union’s appointment this autumn of Lithuania’s Andrius Kubilius as the blocs first defence commissioner is a clear sign of an increase in the momentum towards militarisation of the alliance. At the same time, the EU is negotiating defence partnerships with Britain, South Korea and Japan. While the Government’s much-vaunted Consultative Forum on International… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: October 31, 2024 -

Like, I look at someone like Ian Dempsey and I feel like genuflecting. Anyone that sees that man should hug him. To have done what he has done [presenting breakfast shows] for well over 30 years is amazing. Donncha O’Callaghan, Sunday Independent Life Magazine If you’ve been holding your breath since the news arrived in… Read more »