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BLUE-BLOUSE BATTLES

Date: June 27, 2024 -

GOLDHAWK REPORTED in the last edition on the two Dublin Bay South (DBS) Fine Gael personalities, ex-TD Kate O’Connell and newly elected councillor Emma Blain, who hoped to stand here at the next general election. The options appeared to be that one of them would accompany barrister James Geoghegan on the DBS ticket, while the… Read more »

TIMMY DOOLEY’S DELIGHT

Date: June 27, 2024 -

IT’S REFRESHING in these times of political hand-to-hand fighting and abuse of – and between – politicians to note the fraternal expression of great joy from Clare Fianna Fáil senator Timmy Dooley at his “neighbour and friend” Michael McNamara’s victory in South at the recent EU elections. Within minutes of the Independent TD’s triumph, Timmy… Read more »

DUBLIN DANGER FOR FIANNA FÁIL

Date: June 27, 2024 -

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S appointment of Jack Chambers as finance minister and also as deputy leader of Fianna Fáil, a post that had been vacant for four years, was doubtless a recognition of the party’s need to project a Dublin image in these divisive times. It was also a reward for the party’s unexpected success in the… Read more »

GARDA BUGGERS

Date: June 27, 2024 -

TD RICHARD Boyd Barrett hauled justice minister Helen McEntee over the coals in the Dáil last week regarding Garda surveillance of the survivors and families of those butchered during the Dublin-Monaghan (D-M) bombings (see The Phoenix 13/6/24). Boyd Barrett asked the minister about the presence of undercover special branch officers at Garden of Remembrance ceremonies for… Read more »

CLARE DALY AND THE ‘IT’

Date: June 27, 2024 -

IS THE Irish Times worried that many readers recognise that its hounding of Dublin MEP Clare Daly helped to unseat her and nearly led to the election of new-right candidate Niall Boylan? Since the count, it has twice defended its coverage of Daly, with political editor Pat Leahy doing so on the front page and… Read more »

MEDIAHUIS SHEDS HACKS

Date: June 27, 2024 -

AS MEDIAHUIS continues to cut a swathe through its workforce, the genial, soft-spoken Mediahuis chief executive, Peter Vandermeersch, has been issuing soothing statements coupled with financial warnings about inadequate revenue streams at the publishing company. The Belgian-owned Mediahuis includes the Irish Independent, Sunday Independent, Sunday World and Belfast Telegraph among its titles. On the one… Read more »

SMOCK ALLEY’S PATHWAY

Date: June 27, 2024 -

ACCOUNTS SIGNED off this month for Smock Alley Theatre (SAT) in Temple Bar make clear the state of affairs that has seen Dublin City Council (DCC) moving in to take overall control (see p28). Fans of Goldhawk will not have been surprised that SAT is in a financial mess. It will be recalled (see The… Read more »

BOXED OFFICE

Date: June 27, 2024 -

THE DREADFUL home box-office performance of Irish films will be familiar to fans of Goldhawk. Now, research from Crescine, a €4m cinema research project looking at seven small EU states, confirms the harsh reality. A team of Irish-based film academics, Judith Pernin, Daithí Mac Síthigh, Fiacre Muller, Nic Flanagan, Padraig Trehy and Rónán Ó Muirthile… Read more »

HASSETT’S ALLOWANCE

Date: June 27, 2024 -

PUNTERS WHO backed John ‘Minella’ Nallen’s Pinball Wizard in Sligo’s Web The Tool Company Handicap on May 15 can feel a little hard done by. Having finished second to Carlo Bianconi on the day, it later transpired that winning rider Wayne Hassett had claimed a 7lb allowance rather than the 5lb he was entitled to…. Read more »

PHILIP BYRNES’S APPEAL

Date: June 27, 2024 -

HAVING HAD a recent four-day Navan ban for careless riding overturned on appeal, jockey Philip Byrnes again returned to the IHRB to appeal his latest ban for the same offence. Once again, Philip Byrnes insisted that the stewards on the day – Dr Tom McDonogh (chairman), Anthony Ryan, Nick Wachman, John O’Shaughnessy and H Hynes… Read more »

ABANDONING ADO

Date: June 27, 2024 -

LUSK TRAINER Ado McGuinness, who has been having a quiet season, delivering a 6% strike rate, was dealt a further blow with the announcement that Shamrock Thoroughbreds is removing all of its 11 horses from his care, following a split with assistant trainer Stephen Thorne, who is also the syndicate manager. The horses will now… Read more »

NEVILLE EAGER’S ASCOT OUTING

Date: June 27, 2024 -

THERE WAS significant success in Royal Ascot last week for the syndicate owners of a horse called Crystal Black, which is trained by Ger Keane and managed to land the £110,000 Duke of Edinburgh Stakes. Ridden to victory by the trainer’s son, Colin Keane, the six-year-old is owned by the Wear a Pink Ribbon Syndicate… Read more »

SUCCEEDING MARY KEANE AT THE NGI

Date: June 27, 2024 -

NEXT MONTH marks the end of the term of Mary Keane as chairwoman of the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI). The vacancy should not take long to fill given that arts and culture minister Catherine Martin recently filled three seats on the board, so already has a name in the bag for the fourth seat…. Read more »

DEEP D4 PROPERTY POCKETS

Date: June 27, 2024 -

DEVELOPER Joe O’Reilly must be delighted with the Irish Times giving a plug to his swanky Lansdowne Place apartment scheme in Ballsbridge. The paper reported that a three-bed penthouse has been sold to an Irish buyer for €6.6m, according to the Property Price Register (PPR). Happily, there was no room to mention issues of concern… Read more »

NO TOAST FOR DEBRA CREW AT DIAGEO

Date: June 27, 2024 -

IT WAS never going to be easy for the new CEO of Diageo to follow Ivan Menezes’s decade-long reign to June 2023. While his record had been mixed, Menezes nevertheless increased the market value of Diageo from £42bn in 2013 to £100bn in June 2023. The preceding CEO, Paul Walsh, also had an exceptional record… Read more »

AMINEX SHARES DOUBLE AS TANZANIA HEATS UP

Date: June 27, 2024 -

THE LAST five years have been hugely frustrating for Aminex shareholders, who have been waiting for the company to drill its critical third step-out well in the Ntorya gas discovery block in south-eastern Tanzania. New results have now greatly increased the estimated value of the resource and those who listened to Moneybags (“Aminex finally ready… Read more »

PRIDE PAYS

Date: June 27, 2024 -

IT WAS surprising to see Dublin Pride festival manager Jamie Kenny going to the trouble of telling Irish Defence Force members and courts services workers that they are not welcome at this weekend’s Pride bash. Presumably, those who intended to march on the day had paid up their money like everyone else (all corporates need… Read more »

DRAMA IN TEMPLE BAR

Date: June 27, 2024 -

ELSEWHERE IN this issue (see p17) Goldhawk reports on the ongoing structural changes at the Smock Alley Theatre, which have come about as a result of the financial stresses within the operation, chaired until recently by former PTSB suit Brendan Lynott. Accounts were signed off two weeks ago for the year to December 2022, which… Read more »

SF: BEHAVE AS IF IN GOVERNMENT

Date: June 13, 2024 -

SINN FÉIN is staring at an electoral abyss and the potential loss of a republican generation that could have provided a radical political transformation, not to mention the slowing of moves towards a united Ireland, the party’s reason for existence. SF and Mary Lou McDonald have been here before but the worrying thing for members… Read more »

PROFILE: DAN HEALY

Date: June 13, 2024 -

THE NOW characteristic line in fighting talk of Dan Healy was already very much in evidence when he blazed in to succeed John McMahon as the new head of RTÉ 2fm in 2013. Describing the station as a “sleeping giant”, he acknowledged that there were big commercial challenges ahead but asserted that the station had… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: MARTHA NÍ RIADA

Date: June 13, 2024 -

THE OUTGOING president of University College Dublin Students’ Union (UCDSU), Martha Ní Riada (24), is your prototypical student politics type: a permanent fixture at political protests, no stranger to being manhandled by security and a rising star in a left-wing political party. Recently elected to the national executive of the Social Democrats, you should probably… Read more »

KATE O’CONNELL’S CHOICES

Date: June 13, 2024 -

KATE O’CONNELL is currently weighing up her prospects as a Dáil candidate in at least two constituencies after local and European campaigns in which she soldiered mightily in an effort to reingratiate herself with Fine Gael members. Readers will recall that the advent of new leader and Taoiseach Simon Harris was not necessarily adequate to… Read more »

PLOT THICKENS IN LISTOWEL

Date: June 13, 2024 -

THERE CONTINUES to be more twists and turns on the Listowel Writers’ Week (LWW) board than can be found in any thriller that was discussed at the annual shindig earlier this month. The latest plot development features the sudden ousting of the chairman in what looks like a coup by members of the ancien regime…. Read more »

THE PIT BULL LOBBY

Date: June 13, 2024 -

AFTER THE recent fatal dog attack in Limerick, there will be increased focus on the activities of Heather Humphreys’ new Dog Control Stakeholder Group, chaired by ex-Garda deputy commissioner John Twomey. Of interest to Goldhawk is the approach adopted by some of the players here. For example, Dogs Trust, a UK-founded charity with assets of… Read more »

PAT MCDONAGH’S APPEAL

Date: June 13, 2024 -

THIS WAS a memorable month for Supermac’s co-founder Pat McDonagh, whose fast-food operation scored a notable win in its long-running trademark dispute with global burger giant McDonald’s. The European Court of Justice sided with Supermac’s in its case to force McDonald’s to relinquish its Big Mac trademark in Europe. A less covered court ruling concerned… Read more »

DECLAN RYAN SELLS UP

Date: June 13, 2024 -

THERE WAS a glowing write-up at the weekend in the Business Post for an impressive-looking house on Harcourt Street in Dublin 2, now on the market for €3m. The owner here turns out to be one Declan Ryan, son of the late Tony Ryan. According to the Biz Post, 9 Harcourt Terrace is an example… Read more »

SAVING MIKE ORMONDE’S HYDE

Date: June 13, 2024 -

THE RESCUE process being undertaken by Secret Seasonings Ltd, the insolvent company behind the Hyde bar and nightclub off Dublin’s Grafton Street, is entering the closing strait and process adviser Dessie Morrow of Azets is targeting new investment to keep the show on the road. According to figures seen by Goldhawk, the scale of losses… Read more »

NOT ALL RIGHT ON THE NIGHT

Date: June 13, 2024 -

DESPITE THE hype, the results of the local government and European Parliament elections were underwhelming for a number of Ireland’s new right-wing parties. A small number of ‘Independent’ new-right councillors were elected and Independent Ireland (II) EU candidates Niall Boylan and Ciaran Mulloolly were still battling for seats as we went to press. But the… Read more »

VOL 42 NO 12

Date: June 13, 2024 -

TOO MUCH DATA, MARIE

Date: June 13, 2024 -

LAST OCTOBER the Climate Change Advisory Council (CCAC) received an email from PR and lobbying firm FleishmanHillard to say that its client, Peter Lantry, was “very keen to arrange a very discrete [sic] but urgent discussion with Marie”. Lantry is MD of the Irish arm of data centres operator Equinix, and the Marie he was… Read more »

PADDY CURRAN’S HEAVY GOING

Date: June 13, 2024 -

AMONG THE various interesting local election results thrown up this week, Goldhawk noted the surprise defeat by a short head of Kildare Blueshirt councillor Paddy Curran. Having entered the election on the back of a stint as mayor of Kildare-Newbridge, Curran was fancied to take a second seat for Fine Gael but came up just… Read more »

JIM O’CALLAGHAN’S INTENTIONS

Date: June 13, 2024 -

MICHEÁL MARTIN was not so much elated as tremendously relieved at the local and EU election results, which basically mean he does not have to face down a revolt from the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party, councillors and members. These, of course, would have been looking chiefly to TD Jim O’Callaghan to ride in on a… Read more »

PASCHAL DONOHOE’S PATIENT ‘ALLY’

Date: June 13, 2024 -

SCENES OF jubilation among Fine Gael candidates and other senior party figures at the Dublin local election count centre in the RDS were captured by the Sunday Times last weekend, with one particular focus being the on public expenditure minister, Paschal Donohoe, and his “ally”, Dublin City councillor Ray McAdam. ST political editor Hugh O’Connell… Read more »

COMER BROTHERS’ PR COUP

Date: June 13, 2024 -

CONGRATULATIONS TO the minted Comer brothers, Luke and Brian, who earned a quick return from their decision to splash out on some public relations handlers from London. It turns out that there is a strong Irish connection in play here, courtesy of Clodagh Higginson, better known in Co Waterford as Clodagh Hartley. The rise of… Read more »

DARRAGH O’LOUGHLIN’S HANDICAP

Date: June 13, 2024 -

A DRAFT copy of the long-awaited Mazars report into financial matters that were described by Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) boss Darragh O’Loughlin as being of “grave concern” has been delivered to the boards of the IHRB and the state agency, Horse Racing Ireland (HRI). Goldhawk is aware that it confirms that accounting transactions show… Read more »

NEUTRALITY ANNOYS EU, FG AND BRITS

Date: June 13, 2024 -

After a European Parliament election campaign dominated by the issue of immigration, which was put centre stage by a cohort of ideologically committed hard-right parties and then amplified by more opportunistic politicians, the possibility that Irish neutrality and not immigration will be the key issue for the newly elected parliamentarians, as well as Nato cheerleaders… Read more »