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JACK CANTILLON’S ‘RE-IMAGINING’

Date: February 22, 2024 -

“THIS ISN’T the same old boring news of a stallion retiring, this is a re-imagining of what a stallion deal should look like for the benefit of breeders” was the PR spiel last summer from lawyer-turned-bloodstock entrepreneur Jack Cantillon of Syndicates.Racing, where broadcaster etc Kevin Blake plays a supporting role. Syndicate.Racing Ltd, based at the… Read more »

VOL 42 NO 04

Date: February 22, 2024 -

GOVERNMENT’S GAZA VERBIAGE

Date: February 22, 2024 -

As the Israeli slaughter in Gaza reaches genocidal proportions, the disconnect between the Irish Government’s rhetoric and the reality of its commercial actions in recent years could hardly be starker. Enterprise minister Simon ‘Covetous’ Coveney has been quite strident in his criticism of Israel as it commenced bombing Rafah in advance of a ground offensive,… Read more »

RICHARDSON: DAME OR IRISH COMMONER?

Date: February 22, 2024 -

TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar and Tánaiste Micheál Martin would have been reassured to learn that the person chairing the neutrality session at the Munich conference last week was Dame Louise Richardson, who was so adept at dealing with pinko radicals and pacifists at Martin’s security forum last year. But the awkward voice at the Munich neutrality… Read more »

IAN KEHOE’S NO-SHOW

Date: February 22, 2024 -

IT IS worth quoting The Currency website’s “over-arching philosophy”, which founders Ian Kehoe and Tom Lyons proclaim as “journalism that is fearless, focused and always interesting” and is also free from “any corporate, sectoral or political interest – including our own”. This detachment would, of course, be equally important in Kehoe’s other job as a… Read more »

CONCERNS OVER GLENCREE CENTRE

Date: February 22, 2024 -

THERE IS not much sign of reconciliation between the worthies at the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in Co Wicklow and their paymasters in Micheál Martin’s Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), who appear to be getting a little nervous. Fans of Goldhawk will be aware that there has been rather a lot of coming… Read more »

JUDGING JOHN OF GOD

Date: February 22, 2024 -

DISABILITIES MINISTER Anne Rabbitte expressed her “incredible disappointment” at the stand-off between Saint John of God (SJOG) and the HSE, which was caused by last week’s announcement of the former’s plan to withdraw disability services. She will, however, be well aware that this represents merely the latest surfacing of the tensions between the two entities…. Read more »

BRITISH ‘DIPLOMACY’ AT WORK

Date: February 22, 2024 -

BARRIE GANE CMG OBE, of MI6, born on September 19, 1935, died of a stroke on December 10 last. His official resumé alleges that he was a “diplomat”, a description that masks his true role as an MI6 high flier. Also concealed is the fact that he served in Ireland in the early 1980s. By… Read more »

MI6 HONEY TRAPS

Date: February 22, 2024 -

In 2016, an anonymous MI6 officer swore under oath to Judge Anthony Hart that MI6 had never engaged in sexual blackmail. This delicate piece of perjury was uttered during Hart’s inquiry into child sexual abuse in the north. Hart lapped it up, despite the publication of confessions by a string of MI6 officers that they… Read more »

BRITISH AND IRISH RIGHT WING

Date: February 22, 2024 -

When the notorious British far-right activist Stephen Yaxley Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) arrived in Ireland in February last year, he caused a significant amount of rancour and tension among Ireland’s far-right milieu. It was not so much Robinson’s multiple convictions for crimes involving violence, stalking, financial and immigration fraud, drug possession, public order offences etc… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: February 22, 2024 -

I worked with Paul Mescal, and he’s a really good friend of mine. I saw him speaking Irish and that blew my mind. Dakota Johnson, Irish Independent With Sara Greavu as curator, we aim to make a pavilion in tribute to those who persist, against the odds, in being shelter for each other. Artist Eimear… Read more »

MEDIA CLIMATE CALL

Date: February 22, 2024 -

In recent years, the Business Post had developed a reputation as a broadly progressive publication on many hot-button issues, including climate and environment. Notwithstanding the regular presence of hard-right commentator Lucinda Creighton, the Post under editor Richie Oakley made some effort to platform voices beyond the business/growth consensus. However, his replacement, former Irish Examiner political… Read more »

MATT O’KEEFFE’S CLIMATE CALL

Date: February 22, 2024 -

Irish Times readers were recently treated to a glossy 32-page magazine insert, titled The Climate Call. According to the cover, it was about a “sustainable future” and “green efforts”. Published by IFP Media and edited by Matt O’Keeffe, confusingly this magazine appears to be a rebadged Dairy Ireland, a bi-annual industry magazine. Oddly, O’Keeffe did… Read more »

NORTH POLL MELTS DUP ICE

Date: February 22, 2024 -

On the face of it, last week’s LucidTalk poll offered mixed fortunes for the DUP. The party did slide four points to 24% but, on the other hand, the poll vindicated DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson’s decision to face down his party’s hard liners and return to Stormont: 67% of unionists support that. That 67% score… Read more »

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S CUNNING PLAN

Date: February 22, 2024 -

THE GROWING pressure on the reluctant Social Democrats to unite with Labour does not primarily come from the latter party but from the Fourth Estate, although inspired by ‘bourgeois’ parties of the Third Estate. These have used the willing platform of the Irish Times and others in efforts to coerce the Soc Dems to bond… Read more »

BEWARE MINISTERS BEARING GIFTS

Date: February 22, 2024 -

FURTHER EVIDENCE of the growing rift on Gaza between Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin emerged last week when the Taoiseach joined with Spain to urge recognition of Palestinian statehood while Fine Gael’s Simon Coveney, a former foreign minister, described Israel as a “rogue state” and a “monster”. Meanwhile, Tánaiste Martin tailed his coalition partners by… Read more »

RELIGIOUS CENSORS AT ‘IRISH TIMES’

Date: February 22, 2024 -

THE CENSORSHIP continues of letters and submissions to the Irish Times that challenge the newspaper’s view of unique Catholic repression and abuse in Irish society. The new year has seen further analysis of this allegedly exceptional Catholic behaviour but, more significantly, of censorship by the IT of any disagreement or criticism of this viewpoint. A… Read more »

GUINNESS GUFF

Date: February 22, 2024 -

THE SPECIAL pleading from Diageo against the imminent banning of its five-axle lorries from the city centre has the finger prints of a particularly experienced PR handler all over the rhetoric deployed to exempt it from such a fate. The Irish Times published a front-page report about the historic Guinness route to Dublin Port, once… Read more »

MIRIAM AND BRENDA SOCK IT TO THOMAS

Date: February 22, 2024 -

IRISH TIMES columnist Miriam Lord gave Fianna Fáil minister Thomas Byrne, the party’s leader on the referendums, a good talking to recently and applauded Sunday Times columnist Brenda Power for trouncing “male, stale and inside the Pale” Tommy in a debate about the impending votes. The minister made the mistake, on RTÉ Radio’s Today with… Read more »

DONOHOE’S MITIGATION

Date: February 22, 2024 -

THE REFERRALS committee of the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB), chaired by legal eagle Robert Dore, recently convened to consider matters arising from a stable visit to the premises of trainer Shane Donohoe. He looks to have been a lucky boy. During the inspection, it was noted that three horses had not been returned as… Read more »

MOLONEY’S ADVENTURES

Date: February 22, 2024 -

AN INCIDENT at Cork racecourse between well-known trainer and breeze-up consignor Thomand O’Mara and IHRB clerk of the course Paul Moloney recently went before the board’s referrals committee. Moloney alleged that O’Mara both verbally and physically abused him and had been harassing him with repeated phone calls, including late at night. The hapless Moloney, more… Read more »

CATCHING UP IN BRITTAS

Date: February 22, 2024 -

INTERESTING TO see a truckload of documents filed in the Companies Registration Office (CRO) in recent months relating to Ballinacarrig Park Club (BPC), a name that will ring bells with visitors to the sandy environs of Brittas Bay in Co Wicklow. Ballinacarrig Park Club is known to many as the poshest of the various mobile… Read more »

FLUTTER SHARES COULD HIT £300 IN NEXT TWO YEARS

Date: February 22, 2024 -

IT IS quite jaw dropping to delve into the remarkable figures being delivered by gambling behemoth Flutter Entertainment. The company’s market capitalisation is almost £30bn and the transfer to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is set to push the shares higher in the short term. Indeed, given the potential for growth across the Atlantic,… Read more »

TAPPING INTO NORWEGIAN ENERGY

Date: February 22, 2024 -

IT IS hard to overestimate the impact Eddie O’Connor has had on the renewable energy sector, which is attracting increasing interest from shareholders as climate change continues to dominate the agenda. One interesting Norwegian operation, Aker Horizons, has had a remarkably stormy couple of years following its acquisition a couple of years ago of a… Read more »

GRANT ASHTON’S ADVENTURES

Date: February 22, 2024 -

A RATHER interesting business that had been involved in cutting-edge integrated circuit technology architecture – and featuring a rather exotic shareholder base – was quietly wound up last month. The liquidation of Akya Holdings Ltd (AHL), however, comes more than six years after the operating subsidiary, registered in the UK, bit the dust. The UK… Read more »

BERNARD CALDWELL’S MEMBERS

Date: February 22, 2024 -

THERE WAS some off-track activity in the horseracing world this month, with Bernard Caldwell’s Irish Stable Staff Association (ISSA) holding its AGM last week in the Trim Castle Hotel. Interestingly, a change to the constitution means that all Irish stable staff who were historically defined as members of the association have to apply for membership…. Read more »

CLOCK TICKING FOR FLEXTIME

Date: February 22, 2024 -

THERE WAS a suitably glowing write-up in the Indo’s property pages last week featuring a house called Ard Aoibhinn in Dundrum, south Co Dublin, which has gone on the market with a €1.85m price tag. While there was plenty of detail about the owners and their entrepreneurial skills, there was one significant detail overlooked. Ciaran… Read more »

MARY LOU’S BACK YARD MESS

Date: February 8, 2024 -

DESPITE THE ascent of Sinn Féin’s northern leader, Michelle O’Neill, to the Stormont summit, Mary Lou McDonald and SF have endured various tribulations down south in recent months. The latest setback is the Horlicks of a local election strategy in the North Inner City (NIC) electoral area located in McDonald’s Dublin Central Dáil constituency. Initially the… Read more »

PROFILE: IAN BAILEY

Date: February 8, 2024 -

THE DEATH of Ian Bailey, ‘chief suspect’ for the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier in 1996, drew the sort of crowd that sometimes gathers outside police stations to bang on the vans bearing murder suspects to court. Except that this particular crowd was composed… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: ANNIE HOEY

Date: February 8, 2024 -

FRESH FROM being squeezed out of a Labour Party nomination to stand in the forthcoming European election, can vibrant senator Annie Hoey build on her strong involvement in student politics and lay the basis for a Dáil seat for herself and for her beleaguered party. The 35-year-old senator enjoyed a prolific and high-profile career in… Read more »

RAMSAY’S IRISH RECIPE

Date: February 8, 2024 -

IT HAS probably escaped most viewers’ attention that the latest TV venture of Gordon Ramsay, Next Level Chef – Series 3, launched this week in the US on Fox’s Food Club. Irish taxpayers provided some of the ingredients here, as the series was co-produced by Pat Kiely’s BiggerStage at Joe O’Connell’s Ashford Studios. Ramsay’s series… Read more »

ALL CHANGE AT GLENCREE CENTRE

Date: February 8, 2024 -

JUST WHAT is going on on the board of the publicly funded Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation, where there have been some odd comings and goings? Despite being a charity in receipt of around €400,000 directly from the taxpayer, transparency does not appear to be high on the agenda at Glencree. The Glencree centre… Read more »

AUBREY’S ELECTION WAR CHEST

Date: February 8, 2024 -

WITH MUCH of the political speculation focused, unsurprisingly, on the possible timing of a general election, one contest that looks set to go ahead is the by-election to determine David Norris’s successor in the Seanad. One person sure to throw his hat in the ring here is businessman and philanthropist Aubrey McCarthy, whose campaign won’t… Read more »

PAUL HOURICAN’S NEW HAT

Date: February 8, 2024 -

GOLDHAWK’S FAVOURITE landlord, Paul Hourican, is back in action again, with a new company but some of the same old problems. Fans of The Phoenix will be familiar with Hourican’s rental adventures thanks to the high-profile collapse of Period Door Properties Ltd (PDP). It will… Read more »

THE BROWNS PULL THE PLUG

Date: February 8, 2024 -

THE SURPRISE dispersal of the entire string of racehorses owned by Andy and Gemma Brown, the star of which was Grade 1 Future Champions’ Novice Hurdle winner Caldwell Potter, took place earlier this week in the aftermath of the Dublin Racing Festival. The move has resulted in plenty of head-scratching by punters and, for trainer… Read more »

MARK’S ISRAELI VICTIMS

Date: February 8, 2024 -

THE REVIVAL of an Israeli PR blunder – unusual for the well-resourced PR machine of Israel and the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) – was reported in the Irish Times last Saturday under the headline: “Hamas mutilated women ‘like garbage’ campaign launch hears”. Last week’s meeting in central London was hosted by Labour peer Lord Mendelsohn… Read more »