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DENTON NO-SHOW TO FOLLOW KENOVA?

Date: March 21, 2024 -

OPERATION KENOVA investigated a string of murders perpetrated by Freddie Scappaticci and his associates. It did not result in a single criminal prosecution. Scappaticci, a member of the IRA, worked for British intelligence. He died in April 2023. Operation Kenova was led by Jon Boutcher,… Read more »

CORRECTION

Date: March 21, 2024 -

In The Phoenix 8/3/24, it was reported that GC Aesthetics was being wound up. We have been informed that the operating company, GC Aesthetics, is unaffected and is “trading well… and fully-solvent”. The company now in liquidation is Global Consolidated Aesthetics Ltd and this winding up “reflects a restructuring at the holding company level”. We… Read more »

NATIONAL PARTY ‘MODERATES’

Date: March 21, 2024 -

DIVISIONS IN the far-right National Party (NP) emerged publicly last July due to a dispute over the ownership of more than €400,000 worth of gold bars, with two factions claiming to be the authentic leadership of the party. Early last month, a spokesperson for the Electoral Commission stated that a decision on which faction is… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: March 21, 2024 -

The whole programme is a bit like a Japanese bullet train whizzing from Osaka to Tokyo. Pat Spillane on the All-Ireland football season, Irish Independent It is fitting that he does have such a prominent role in the ESB because really his role now is about illuminating a dark past and charting a course to… Read more »

DISSIDENT DRUMS

Date: March 21, 2024 -

THE MOOD at dissident republican Easter commemorations this year is likely to be subdued with no sustained armed campaign under way, while the electoral rise of Sinn Féin seems irresistible. Last Easter a few hundred republicans marched through west Belfast for the annual National Republican Commemoration Committee Easter commemoration. The main address was delivered by… Read more »

CRUELLA VON DER LEYEN BACKS BIG AG

Date: March 21, 2024 -

Fresh from giving Israel carte blanche to commit murder and mayhem in Gaza with the EU’s unconditional backing, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen did her own Cruella de Ville impression last month by scrapping plans to cut pesticide usage across the EU. Under… Read more »

TIMBER!

Date: March 21, 2024 -

Joy was unconfined in environmental circles with the revelation earlier this week that Coillte, the state-owned forestry agency, was to turn over a new leaf and switch its focus towards biodiversity protection. “Now is the time for us to hold up our hands and admit that we’ve been part of the problem for too long,”… Read more »

LISA: ‘NON, JE NE REGRETTE RIEN’

Date: March 21, 2024 -

WAS THERE ever a more controversial ‘no’ vote by one individual in a referendum? The last-minute decision of Fianna Fáil Seanad leader Lisa Chambers to vote ‘no’ in the recent referendums has become the main talking point in the post mortem analysis of the disastrous Government campaign on the recent referendums. But while ‘yes’ campaigners… Read more »

FINTAN O’TOOLE’S FUTURE

Date: March 21, 2024 -

RECENTLY RETIRED Irish Times seer Fintan O’Toole will surely feel compelled to do what he has been threatening to do for some years now, namely stand for election to the Dáil. As he has argued in the past, the point is not to merely protest but to act to change things. In fact, O’Toole has… Read more »

LEADERSHIP PARANOIA IN GOVERNMENT

Date: March 21, 2024 -

THE WELTER of criticism levelled at integration minister Roderic O’Gorman about the near Gaza-like conditions of Tent City in Dublin’s Mount Street was led not by the opposition but by Government politicians last week. How strange. Or perhaps not. Fine Gael’s higher education minister, Simon Harris, and Fianna Fáil TD Jim O’Callaghan took aim at… Read more »

ANOTHER KENNEALLY SCANDAL

Date: March 21, 2024 -

CHILD ABUSER Bill Kenneally, a member of the well-known Fianna Fáil family, is in jail for multiple child sex offences committed between 1979 and 1990. He is currently the subject of a full-blown Commission of Inquiry, headed by retired judge Michael White. Although he admitted his abuse to a senior garda in 1987, Kenneally waited… Read more »

BAD ADVICE

Date: March 21, 2024 -

ROLL OF honour or street of shame? A hefty, three-page catalogue of the Government’s 68 advisors, national handlers and media manipulators drawn up by seven of the Irish Times’s finest was published last weekend. Introduced as a “Who’s who of the people behind the power”, they are described as well paid (two-thirds are on over… Read more »

ARAGE IMAGERY SLAMMED

Date: March 21, 2024 -

THE BUSINESS POST provoked a storm on X recently with a studious and well-meaning article, by Aidan Regan, on immigration and how to blunt efforts by the far right to grow its appeal. Unfortunately, the imagery accompanying the piece attracted far more attention than Regan’s article, even though it was a sober assessment of Ireland’s… Read more »

PEDRO DE AZAMBUJA’S DOUBLE FAULTS

Date: March 21, 2024 -

WITH AN asking price of no less than €5.5m, the Georgian Kilquade Hill House outside Greystones in Co Wicklow is one of the pricier piles to come on the market in recent times. According to the Irish Times, this “manageable sporting estate” on five acres was “totally transformed” over a three-year period with the help… Read more »

IRISH OSCAR PLOT SPOILERS

Date: March 21, 2024 -

Despite all the hoopla around the successful Oscar run by Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer and Element Pictures’ Poor Things, the delirious hacks have managed to remain undistracted by inconvenient plot spoilers, such as the fight for long-suffering Irish performers to be given contracts on a par with UK and US actors working in Ireland on… Read more »

VICKI NOTARO’S FANS

Date: March 21, 2024 -

NO SURPRISE to see well-connected former VIP Publishing boss Vicki Notaro attracting some high-level plugs for her upcoming debut novel, Reality Check. These include the likes of fellow Penguin imprint author Paul Howard (“Absolutely hilarious”) and Sarah ‘Aisling’ Breen (“Escapism at its finest!”). Breen is formerly of Stellar magazine, part of the VIP stable. Reality… Read more »

WRECKING BALLS-UP

Date: March 21, 2024 -

BARRY CONNELL’S short-priced ante-post favourite for Cheltenham’s Arkle Chase, Marine Nationale, was ruled out of Cheltenham following his flop at the Dublin Racing Festival last month. Of course, he also has William Munny – “the best bumper horse in Ireland” – but left the horse at home last week, earmarking him for the Punchestown Festival…. Read more »

JOHN MOREHART’S WILDFOWL

Date: March 21, 2024 -

JOHN MOREHART, squire of the splendid Bellamont House and its 1,000 acres outside Cootehill, Co Cavan, has been getting busy again. It will be recalled (see The Phoenix 8/3/24) that the loaded American lawyer has not been shy when it comes to objecting to issues in his neck of the woods. He had a rare… Read more »

ANTI-DOPING INITIATIVE

Date: March 21, 2024 -

THE IRISH Horseracing Regulatory Board and the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) recently joined forces in an anti-doping initiative. Citing “out-of-competition testing” as a critical component of any strategy, tests will be performed through joint operations in Ireland and Britain. One area sure to attract attention is the cost to taxpayers, given that Irish personnel will… Read more »

GENE MURTAGH’S STRANGE STRATEGY AT KINGSPAN

Date: March 21, 2024 -

SHORTLY BEFORE the company’s latest PR debacle at the hands of the EU, Kingspan CEO Gene Murtagh announced a strategy involving the commitment of €750m to enter the American roofing and waterproofing market. This could well prove another of the follies that have characterised some of the big moves by the Murtagh family-dominated insulation group…. Read more »

RISING CAIRN HOMES SHARES STILL UNDERVALUED

Date: March 21, 2024 -

THE HOUSING crisis continues to dominate politics but, were it not for the raising of almost €1bn in equity between Cairn Homes and Glenveagh, the current state of affairs would be an awful lot worse. In particular, Michael Stanley’s Cairn Homes delivered 1,741 new homes last year, up from 1,526 in 2022, bringing the total… Read more »

JOHN PAUL KEANE’S CONNECTIONS

Date: March 21, 2024 -

THE LUXEMBOURG-based Irish financier John Paul Keane has been attracting a fair degree of media attention as a result of teaming up with one Conor McGregor. He has also had strong business connections in the past with another Irish millionaire, Michael Enright, who has had mixed fortunes since cashing in his hugely profitable logistics business…. Read more »

MAURICE GILLEN’S BUM NOTE

Date: March 21, 2024 -

A NUMBER of companies that were controlled by the king of Galway’s nightclub scene during the boom, Maurice Gillen, are to be wound up next week, long after the wheels came off the operation. For decades, including the good old days, Gillen and his former business partner, Declan Farrell (who exited in 2016), were behind… Read more »

COLM O’CUILLEANAIN’S VISIBLE THREAD

Date: March 21, 2024 -

A FIVE-bed pile in Rathmichael D18 has come on the market with a price tag of €2.8m – steep for sure but not quite Hamptons level. The owner here turns out to be Colm O’Cuilleanain, who made quite a killing when selling out of both the advertising and telecoms games. He was also an early… Read more »

ROUND TWO AT FOTA ISLAND RESORT

Date: March 21, 2024 -

JUST ONE month after a settlement was reached in the high-stakes legal poker game between China-based businessman Yuzhu Kang and his former associate, Fota Island-based Xiu Xianj Kelly, over ownership of the valuable Fota Island hotel and golf resort, the parties are back in the… Read more »

McDOWELL PLOTS NEW DÁIL FORCE

Date: March 7, 2024 -

REGARDLESS OF the referendum results this week, the stand-out personality in an otherwise boring campaign was senator Michael McDowell, former justice minister and attorney general, who is determined to return to the Dáil and government, via a new political force. McDowell did not raise Cain in the referendums merely for its own sake and he… Read more »

PROFILE: JOHN MCGUIRK

Date: March 7, 2024 -

THE EDITOR of Gript.ie, John McGuirk, has managed to look both foolish and incompetent in two legal stand-offs recently, just as his particular brand of reactionary politics appears to be making some progress among a section of the public. The controversial hack is plausible and editorially capable but is provocative to the point of occasional… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: JENNY MAGUIRE

Date: March 7, 2024 -

JENNY MAGUIRE is a familiar name around the city, both inside and outside of Trinity’s campus. A co-organiser of Trans and Intersex Pride Dublin, Jenny has become one of the most recognisable and influential student activists of her generation. She has just triumphed in the election for the Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) presidency,… Read more »

CATHERINE MARTIN’S NEW CAST

Date: March 7, 2024 -

WITH FORMER chief KPMG number-cruncher Terence O’Rourke preparing to take charge of the RTÉ board, one of the first big tasks will be to examine the external review on corporate governance at Montrose. Catherine Martin’s arts and media department told Goldhawk that the report will be delivered this month and, coincidentally, it is being prepared… Read more »

BILL McCABE’S BREAST IMPLANTS

Date: March 7, 2024 -

IT HAS been a rough few months for veteran investor Bill McCabe, who had pumped big bucks into the listed Irish medtech business, HealthBeacon, which collapsed from a market capitalisation of around €100m a couple of years ago to effectively zilch when it ran out of cash before Christmas. Now the holding company behind another… Read more »

JP McMANUS’S BAD DREAM

Date: March 7, 2024 -

BRED BY Brian and Claire Gleeson’s Brucetown Farms and ridden in all his starts by their son, John, A Dream to Share was last week awarded the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association’s (ITBA) Young National Hunt Horse of the Year. The timing may have been significant. Unbeaten in his five bumpers last year, including at the… Read more »

RTÉ’S SENIOR HURLEY DIRECTOR

Date: March 7, 2024 -

VERY LITTLE attention has been paid to the political affiliation of Mari Hurley, RTÉ’s new chief financial officer appointed last week, although her financial and corporate pedigree – including positions at Sherry FitzGerald and Nama – were widely disseminated. But Mari’s most interesting position was as a committed trustee, among other positions, for the Fine… Read more »

U2 WINS AWARD SHOCK!

Date: March 7, 2024 -

ON THURSDAY March 7 U2 are to receive this year’s RTÉ Choice Music Prize for Classic Irish Album for their 1991 album Achtung Baby, with the Vicar Street event being aired on 2FM. The RTÉ publicity surrounding this Vegas-type event claims the record saw U2 “reinvent themselves musically and assert the band as one of… Read more »

MARTIN’S FEMALE FAVOURITES

Date: March 7, 2024 -

ONE ASPECT of Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin’s new way has been the electoral emphasis on young, middle-class females and prominent among these has been senator Lisa Chambers, former TD for Mayo. Another aspect has been Martin’s stranglehold over party decisions and policies but last week he over-extended himself. This resulted in grassroots members in… Read more »

VOL. 42 NO. 05

Date: March 7, 2024 -

MICK HEANEY ON SARAH MCINERNEY

Date: March 7, 2024 -

FANS OF Goldhawk will be aware of Irish Times radio reviewer Mick Heaney’s drooling admiration of Drivetime presenter Sarah McInerney (see The Phoenix 26/2/21). He was back in fawning form last month, highlighting Sarah’s “lethally loaded questions” that left her guest “flummoxed for an answer”. Mick was bowled over by the presenter’s “uncompromising inquisitorial tone”… Read more »