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THE CORONER’S DAUGHTER – ANDREW HUGHES

Date: May 3, 2023 -

FIRST PUBLISHED back in 2018, Andrew Hughes’s period thriller, The Coroner’s Daughter is the One Dublin One Book choice for 2023. The author is an archivist and historian whose research inspired his debut novel, The Convictions of John Delahunt, based on a real-life murderer and Dublin Castle informer in the early 1840s. Similar exhaustive –… Read more »

THEATRE FESTIVAL’S DIVERSITY PLOT

Date: May 3, 2023 -

LAST MONTH, the Dublin Theatre Festival (DTF) issued a call for potential directors. It looks like David Nolan’s board is anxious to avoid the kind of controversy that recently landed the Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. The DTF circular went out to what looks like the full… Read more »

MICHAEL O’CALLAGHAN’S MISHAP

Date: May 3, 2023 -

SPARE A thought for Kildare trainer Michael O’Callaghan, who has just moved into his new purpose-built training complex, which cost a fair few bob to construct. O’Callaghan would have had to juggle this investment while also maintaining enough capital to re-invest at the breeze-up sales, where traditionally he does rather well. Having dug deep to… Read more »

ELLIOTT’S SADDLES

Date: May 3, 2023 -

HOT ON the hooves of his recent cock-up at Navan (see The Phoenix 21/4/23), Gordon Elliott fell foul at Punchestown when putting the wrong saddles on two runners in the Louis Fitzgerald Hotel Hurdle. Obviously, there are logistical challenges when training 200 or so horses and saddling up to 20 runners at big race meetings,… Read more »

DANNY’S WHIP HAND

Date: May 3, 2023 -

ANOTHER EXAMPLE of the disparity of racing rules between Irish and British jurisdictions (see ‘Bradley Gibbs’s Gripes’) was evident last week. At Punchestown, Danny Mullins got a three-day ban after his whip came into contact with fellow jockey Paul Townend’s body in the closing stages of the William Hill Champion Chase on the opening day…. Read more »

BRADLEY GIBBS’S GRIPES

Date: May 3, 2023 -

PUNCHESTOWN IS often referred to as Ireland’s version of Cheltenham and many UK owners and trainers try to beat the Irish on home turf. One such UK horse, Premier Magic, did not get the chance to follow up a Cheltenham victory at Punchestown. The horse had beaten the Emmett Mullins-trained Its On The Line when… Read more »

BOWING OUT AT BALLYFIN

Date: May 3, 2023 -

AFTER over 20 years in situ on the board of Fred Krehbiel’s magnificent Ballyfin Demesne, James Reynolds – whose garden designing skills were much admired by the Chicago moneybags – has resigned from the board. He was also listed as a director of assorted British Virgin Islands-registered Ballyfin entities, including the holding company Ballyfin Capital…. Read more »

LEE BUSHELL TRIPS UP

Date: May 3, 2023 -

A BIRMINGHAM millionaire – who even owns a bank – is behind the Irish Aldo shoe business relaunched here 12 months ago, which has already collapsed into liquidation. Lee Bushell may be an unfamiliar figure here but across the Irish Sea he has been making a splash courtesy of his Bushell Investment Group (BIG). According… Read more »

TACKLING MICHAEL D.

Date: May 3, 2023 -

“Many economists remain stuck in an inexorable growth narrative, or at best a ‘green growth’ narrative,” which has “resulted in a discipline… blinkered to the ecological challenge – the ecological catastrophe – we now face.” This observation by President Michael D Higgins last week touched a raw nerve. The Business Post quoted five economists as… Read more »

ANOTHER GREEN/RED LINE GONE

Date: May 3, 2023 -

Sinn Féin really is a laggard when it comes to climate policy but some in the party seem to be making an effort. Last week senator Lynn Boylan pitched a modest proposal to curtail the insidious power of fossil fuel lobbyists – an amendment to the Lobbying Bill that would limit the industry’s access to… Read more »

NO HELP FOR MCREDMOND

Date: May 3, 2023 -

POWERSCOURT GROUP boss Rory Godson contacted Goldhawk to inform us that we were incorrect to say he had assisted David McRedmond – former chairman of Powerscourt’s Irish arm – in his bid to take the job of RTÉ director general (see The Phoenix 21/4/23). We are happy to accept Rory’s assurance that he gave no… Read more »

CARLSON’S DOWNFALL

Date: May 3, 2023 -

Tucker Carlson, a right-wing broadcasting star on Fox News, was tipped as the political heir to Donald Trump, until he was sacked – without an explanation – last month by News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch. What went wrong? Many observers believe Murdoch jumped into bed with the CIA when he befriended Ted Shackley, a CIA… Read more »

SOC DEMS TO ECLIPSE LABOUR?

Date: May 3, 2023 -

THE ONLY constituency in the state to house both a Labour and a Social Democrats TD is Dublin Bay North (DBN) with Aodhán Ó Ríordáin and Cian O’Callaghan respectively. This sets the scene for an electoral title fight between the two representatives to symbolically determine which party will survive to fly the cuddly left flag… Read more »

OLD ARMIES AND NEW

Date: May 3, 2023 -

THE WAR of words between the official National Army and the Respect and Loyalty to the Forgotten (RLF), a group of retired army officers, continued last weekend. In the absence of any official commemoration of those 700-plus National Army fatalities in the Civil War a hundred years ago, the RLF last November organised its own… Read more »

FARMERS IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING

Date: May 3, 2023 -

ROSCOMMON-GALWAY TD Michael Fitzmaurice got a predictable reaction from Green Party representatives when he mooted his new farmers’ party. Junior agriculture minister and Green senator Pippa Hackett said Fitzmaurice was using the “playbook of Trump’s America” and had an “anti-environment sentiment for his own narrow electoral gain”. Meanwhile, Green Party bruiser senator Róisín Garvey was… Read more »

TORIES TAKE ON THE DUP

Date: May 3, 2023 -

The DUP is furious with the British government. The DUP hasn’t realised that the terms of trade have changed since the overwhelming 515-29 vote in Westminster to endorse the Windsor Framework deal with the EU on the Irish Protocol. That’s as near unanimous a vote as possible in the House of Commons. It put a… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: May 3, 2023 -

The king will travel in the Gold State Coach. This is splendour played out on an epic canvas. It’s extraordinary how Britain has changed since the last coronation. Don’t expect to see Charles and Camilla holding hands, Harry and Meghan-style. Éamon de Valera and President Seán T O’Kelly said no thanks. Leo Varadkar and Michael… Read more »

HATE-FREE SPEECH

Date: May 3, 2023 -

As far back as November 2019 Garda Commissioner Drew Harris told the Policing Authority that Ireland was beginning to see a rise in right-wing extremism. He stated: “The difficulty with it is that it’s spread through the web and spread through social media… We now… Read more »

NEW YORK’S FINEST

Date: May 3, 2023 -

A SHORT and largely unnoticed announcement last week on the website of the American Irish Historical Society (AIHS) signalled an emphatic victory for over 40,000 Irish New Yorkers led by the formidable trio of former NYPD Manhattan homicide squad supremo Brian McCabe; New York attorney general Letitia ‘Tish’ James; and Ireland’s consul-general in New York,… Read more »

POLLUTERS PARADISE

Date: May 3, 2023 -

The polluter’s paradox is the term given to the fact that the more polluting a company or sector is, the more it has to spend on both politics and advertising to ensure it evades being properly regulated. In the US, fossil fuel companies have invested heavily in buying up politicians as well as bamboozling the… Read more »

LIZ TRUSS FOR SECRET COURT CASE

Date: May 3, 2023 -

THE BRIEFEST of British prime ministers, Liz Truss, could find herself called in a dramatic court case that her government is trying to have heard in secret as it concerns allegations about British diplomatic misbehaviour and indiscretion in the US. An Irish passport holder and British civil servant, whose father hails from Galway, is suing… Read more »

SEND HIM VICTORIOUS!

Date: May 3, 2023 -

A SIGN of ‘how far we have come’, as some modernists put it, is the invite to its members from the Kildare Street & University Club this weekend. There they will repair to the drawing room of their club for champagne and fine wine in order to celebrate the coronation of King Charles III over… Read more »

THE MOUSE THAT ROARS

Date: May 3, 2023 -

MEDIA SPECULATION about the appetite of Tánaiste Micheál Martin for the post in foreign affairs – something that became very apparent in the months before the changeover with Leo Varadkar as Taoiseach last Christmas – was muted and polite, preferring not to mention the elephant or even the mouse in the room. But Martin’s Skibbereen-type… Read more »

VOL 41 NO 09

Date: May 3, 2023 -

AVVIO’S AI BONUS

Date: April 20, 2023 -

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) is generating quite the buzz at the moment but an Irish hotel booking software company, Avvio, that has been working away with this technology for a number of years recently hit the jackpot when US giants bought in. The big winner here was Frank Reeves. Elsewhere Goldhawk highlights the impressive PR skills… Read more »

FILM PRODUCERS’ PROFITABLE PLOT

Date: April 19, 2023 -

THE LOBBY organisation for film and television producers, Screen Producers Ireland (SPI), has just delivered a nice plot in its latest accounts, covering the year to December 2021. Presumably, most of its member companies are happy with the tough stance it has been taking on royalties for actors. Run by chief executive Susan Kirby, SPI… Read more »

MICHELLE HETHERINGTON’S CURATED COLLAPSE

Date: April 19, 2023 -

A COMPANY called Curated Ltd has just collapsed into liquidation. This entity turns out to be linked to high-profile design company David James Interiors Ltd (DJI). The latter operates as DJI Design and Construction – David Clarke and Michelle Hetherington’s design company, which has built up a strong client base in the commercial interior fit-out… Read more »

CLADDAGH’S BIDEN BOOST

Date: April 19, 2023 -

THE SINDO was rapturous in its reporting that Sleepy Joe Biden was gifted a vinyl copy of Almost Everything – a spoken-word album of the poetry of Patrick Kavanagh – by Michael D Higgins. As the paper pointed out, Claddagh Records is chaired and owned by Denis O’Brien’s PR man, James Morrissey, and has been… Read more »

P&O STORM DELIVERS SMOOTH SAILING FOR ICG

Date: April 19, 2023 -

THE LATEST figures from Irish Ferries’ owner Irish Continental Group (ICG) are pretty impressive and reflect the wise move to expand on the busy Dover-Calais route – an opportunity provided by competitor P&O and gleefully accepted by Eamonn Rothwell, ICG boss since 1992. Shareholders, however, remain in the dark about various aspects of this Irish… Read more »

VODAFONE SHARES WORTH DOUBLE CURRENT PRICE

Date: April 19, 2023 -

VODAFONE HAS seen some significant changes at the top recently – and not just in Ireland, where CEO Anne O’Leary switched provider for Meta/Facebook last September. Rather more significant, however, is the exit of the CEO of the whole Vodafone group, Nick Read, who was ousted at the end of last year having failed to… Read more »

McREDMOND’S RTÉ CAMPAIGN BLOWS UP

Date: April 19, 2023 -

DAVID McREDMOND came out with his hands up last Sunday issuing a statement saying he had “no further interest in a role at RTÉ” (actually, it was the other way round) following a veritable campaign to install him as RTÉ director general by his supporters on the national broadcaster’s board and in the wider media…. Read more »

THE DEVIL’S OWN – MARIA McDONALD

Date: April 19, 2023 -

THIS MUCH-HYPED historical suspense novel, The Devil’s Own, centres on three mysterious diaries dating back to the late 1800s but only discovered in 2020. After a lifetime in the Irish army, Brian McElroy is retiring. While clearing his attic before moving out of the Curragh Camp, he finds the journals and is instantly engrossed in… Read more »

PROFILE: NEASA HOURIGAN

Date: April 19, 2023 -

THERE WAS a time when Green Party members would have been calling for smelling salts to revive themselves if its TDs and other personalities engaged in political brawling in public. The suspension of Neasa Hourigan TD – for the third time in two years – reveals a party that has changed from the gentleness of… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: KEILIDH CASHELL

Date: April 19, 2023 -

MONAGHAN MAKE-UP artist Keilidh Cashell (27) has parlayed a talent for creating dramatic looks into a very profitable business, thanks to a little help from her friends. Her cosmetics brand, Kash Beauty, was made up when it wiped the eye of other more high-profile competitors in October. Out of a very crowded market, it became… Read more »

BERTIE’S OBSTACLE TO THE ÁRAS

Date: April 19, 2023 -

ANYBODY WHO presumed that Bertie Ahern would shy away from a bid to run for the presidency in 2025 because of the adverse comments made about him in the Mahon Tribunal will have been surprised by his remarks in an interview with Justine McCarthy in the Irish Times last week. There, Bertie made it clear… Read more »

LAW SOCIETY COCK-UP

Date: April 19, 2023 -

THERE WILL have been some red faces in Blackhall Place this month when the solicitors’ body had to apologise for a warning notice it had posted on its own website, which left readers with the impression that a totally innocent firm may have been acting in a dishonest manner. The good news for Law Society… Read more »