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CILLIAN MURPHY’S FOREIGN AFFAIR

Date: April 19, 2023 -

IT IS not well understood by the public that most of the taxpayers’ moolah that subsidises film production in Ireland is soaked up by (mainly) US producers, although assorted reports commissioned by Désirée Finnegan’s Screen Ireland (SI) emphasise the local jobs provided. An recent Irish film funded by SI, God’s Creatures, is a case in… Read more »

ANGELA SCANLON’S MOOLAH

Date: April 19, 2023 -

IT HAS been hard to avoid the hype around Angela Scanlon’s return to the screen with her Ask Me Anything talkshow on RTÉ. The bad news for fans, however, is that they won’t be seeing loads more of her as busy Angie has officially ruled herself out for The Late Late Show hosting gig, telling… Read more »

JP McMAHON’S NEW DINERS

Date: April 19, 2023 -

WITH FINE dining under pressure as the rising cost of living kicks in and tourism numbers come under pressure due to a lack of hotel accommodation, it is not surprising that restaurateurs are looking at ways to boost their income. The latest brainwave involves serving up swanky tasting menus to kids. One of those extolling… Read more »

STANLEY’S STRATEGY

Date: April 19, 2023 -

THE QUEEN of the Body & Soul festival in Ballinlough Castle, Avril Stanley, announced recently that she has cut the shindig’s capacity by almost 70% to 5,000 “to come back to what was important”. This may put the brakes on the impressive financial performance delivered by Avril but it is clear that she intends to… Read more »

MAGNIER’S COSTLY FILLY

Date: April 19, 2023 -

THE OLD adage of breeding the best to the best and hoping for the best is as good a guide as any to navigating the tricky waters of breeding racehorses (although it’s a method that tends to require very deep pockets). With the flat season gathering pace there have been some interesting examples of horses… Read more »

DEVELOPERS’ WINNING WAYS

Date: April 19, 2023 -

PROPERTY DEVELOPERS Sean Deane and Ger O’Brien have experienced highs and low in their business careers but have rarely enjoyed anything but good times when it comes to their horses. The boys are best known for the exploits of the great mare Quevega, who brought them into the Cheltenham winners’ enclosure no less than six… Read more »

FRANK REEVES’S BIDEN BOOST

Date: April 19, 2023 -

GOLDHAWK DOFFS his cap to the PR skills of Frank Reeves, the Irish businessman behind hotel booking software operation Avvio, which he set up in Limerick 20 years ago with his brother, Brian. There was plenty of commercial interest in Joe Biden’s visit, given the potential for delivering marketing opportunities courtesy of copy-hungry hacks. Reeves… Read more »

COLIN MARRY’S SAUSAGES

Date: April 19, 2023 -

GOLDHAWK WAS surprised to see that a company touted as being behind the farming of “pigs that could change the world” has just collapsed into liquidation. It appears that Louth entrepreneur and farmer Colin Marry has found that changing the world is an expensive business. Certainly, he has thrown an awful lot of moolah at… Read more »

ELLIOTT’S ID FARCE

Date: April 19, 2023 -

GORDON ELLIOTT was summoned before an Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) referrals committee recently to explain how a significant mix-up in his yard led to two of the wrong horses being sent to compete at Navan in March. When the Elliott-trained filly Optoforce was presented by her groom for inspection to IHRB veterinary officer Emma… Read more »

NOEL MEADE’S PARTNER

Date: April 19, 2023 -

THE PAST 10 years have seen a number of predominantly Wexford-based point-to-point trainers revolutionise the point-to-point game from what was an amateur discipline – often seen as a bit of fun for amateur riders and trainers – into what is now closer to a high-stakes poker game involving millions of euros worth of horseflesh. People… Read more »

SILVANA’S LUXURY HANDBAGS

Date: April 19, 2023 -

WHILE MOST of the big bucks invested in this country is focused on the likes of tech, pharma and property, there has been a fair few bob sloshing around in recent times looking for a home in the luxury goods market. One of those hoping to tap in here is Silvana Landa. As Goldhawk revealed… Read more »

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Date: April 19, 2023 -

Given the constant chorus from the livestock sector claiming it is being unfairly demonised on emissions while fossil fuel companies are not subject to the same scrutiny, a new international media analysis on industrial meat and climate change had some surprising findings. It noted that while livestock accounted for a whopping 14.5% of global emissions,… Read more »

IRELAND DUMPS ON AFRICA

Date: April 19, 2023 -

In his recent address to the Oireachtas, US President Joe Biden said that “Ireland remembers the painful hollows of the Great Hunger”. He praised the fact that the Irish aid budget is now expanding to help the most vulnerable, “especially partner nations across Africa”. And, for good measure, Biden added that Ireland was a “global… Read more »

‘IT’ DENOUNCES SECTARIANISM

Date: April 19, 2023 -

JUSTINE McCARTHY recently thundered against the “sectarian criteria” of the planned scoping inquiry into the abuse of children in “schools run by religious orders”, an inquiry stimulated by reports of abuse in Blackrock and other Spiritan schools. Confining the inquiry to schools run by religious orders limits the exercise to Catholic schools as Church of… Read more »

OFFICER CLASS MEDIA FIGHT BACK

Date: April 19, 2023 -

THE DAMNING report of the Independent Review Group (IRG) into sexual assault and other abuses in the Defence Forces was given a supportive response by PDForra – representing enlisted members – but a somewhat more guarded welcome on its release by the officers’ organisation, RACO. Chief of Staff, Lt General Seán Clancy has so far… Read more »

IS SHANNON NEUTRAL GROUND?

Date: April 19, 2023 -

In two recent Morning Ireland interviews, Áine Lawlor has interrogated the details of Sinn Féin’s commitment to neutrality, a sensitive issue given the upcoming National Consultative Forum on Ireland’s International Security Policy. SF’s newly appointed spokesperson on foreign affairs and defence, Matt Carthy, was interviewed recently alongside Fianna Fáil MEP Barry Andrews. Carthy was definitive… Read more »

NO COUNCIL HOUSES – NO COUNCIL DEBATE

Date: April 19, 2023 -

DAYS BEFORE Sinn Féin’s Dáil motion on ending the eviction ban and a fortnight before the ban was due to expire, Tánaiste Micheál Martin rounded on local councils and accused them of “resistance” to the scheme of buying homes with tenants in situ. The Fianna… Read more »

HOUSING FOR ALL… ELSEWHERE

Date: April 19, 2023 -

FIANNA FÁIL insiders raised an eyebrow last week at an Irish Independent report that housing minister Darragh O’Brien continues to send constituents with housing queries to an Independent councillor rather than a party colleague. But locals in Balbriggan have focused instead on the fact that the housing minister’s councillor of choice opposes housing developments. As… Read more »

18 KIDS ON THE DOLE

Date: April 19, 2023 -

“It is frightfully hard to explain to Protestants that, if you give Roman Catholics a good job and a good house, they will live like Protestants because they will see neighbours with cars and television sets; they will refuse to have 18 children. But if a Roman Catholic is jobless and lives in the most… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: April 19, 2023 -

I told him that I’ve brought the famous light in the [Áras] window down to Ballina, so it will now be housed in the Mary Robinson Centre opposite where he will be speaking tonight. Mary Robinson gets her priorities right when asked about meeting US President Joe Biden, RTÉ’s News at One We believe anything… Read more »

MOBILE MEDIA ETHICS

Date: April 19, 2023 -

A common trope in the Irish media is the accusation of censorship by the Chinese Communist Party and the Russian government. According to Irish and most western media, since the invasion of Ukraine Russia has effectively criminalised opposition to the government and any independent reporting of the news. But what is the cause of the… Read more »

IAN PAISLEY’S REAL RECORD

Date: April 19, 2023 -

The BBC’s House of Paisley marathon trilogy ignored vital chunks of Ian Paisley’s stormy career, despite the fact it had exposed many of them in the past. In 2019, former British army officer David Hancock told BBC NI’s Spotlight programme that Paisley had helped finance the Silent Valley bombing in 1969. It was a false… Read more »

SCAPPATICCI TALES

Date: April 19, 2023 -

In the early 1970s, the IRA adopted a cellular structure. The overlap between cells was kept to a bare minimum, thereby limiting the damage a British agent could inflict if he infiltrated one compartment. One of London’s spies in the IRA, the recently deceased Freddie Scappaticci, managed to breach the new arrangement. Scappaticci was run… Read more »

DAME TO SAVE IRISH NEUTRALITY

Date: April 19, 2023 -

ONE TRUSTS that Tánaiste Micheál Martin’s recent failure to give Louise Richardson her full, proper title of Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (DBE) was a lapse in his usual respect for British authority and not an effort to obscure… Read more »

SEAN O’RIORDAN’S RATIONALE

Date: April 19, 2023 -

SOME SORT of award should be organised to encourage Irish journalists competing with each other to be the most enthusiastic champions of Nato and/or an EU army with Ireland to the fore. The Henry Kissinger Pacifism Award or the Orwellian Literary Prize might produce improved arguments that say battle groups are not real armies or… Read more »

MARGARET SWEENEY’S BATTLE

Date: April 19, 2023 -

AS GOOD old corporate battles are rare enough here, there is mounting interest in the open challenge by a leading shareholder in the giant Ires Reit property rental company to the re-election of much of the board. It looks like the very well paid CEO, Margaret Sweeney, will have to earn her crust in the… Read more »

VOL 41 NO 08

Date: April 19, 2023 -

OFFICER CLASS IN RETREAT

Date: April 6, 2023 -

THE SPECTACLE of Defence Forces Chief of Staff (c/s) Seán Clancy being pilloried for denying he had encountered any abuse issues as highlighted by the Independent Review Group (IRG) is ironic. Ever since he was appointed c/s in 2021, Clancy has been a target for the more conservative, male officers in the army who regard… Read more »

PROFILE: BARRY CONNELL

Date: April 6, 2023 -

SINCE THE beginning of this year, racehorse trainer Barry Connell had been telling everyone who would listen that his horse, Marine Nationale, would win the opening race of the Cheltenham Festival – the Grade 1 Supreme Novices Hurdle – and he duly delivered. This was the latest significant step taken by the Dublin-based hedge fund… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: PÁDRAIG O’SULLIVAN

Date: April 6, 2023 -

WITH FIANNA FÁIL continuing to lag in the polls and its support among young people at catastrophic levels, the party is hoping its young breed can find a way forward. Cork North Central (CNC) TD Pádraig O’Sullivan then has a pivotal role to play in the hoped-for regeneration of FF. But does he share the… Read more »

GERRY O’CARROLL’S CRI DE COEUR

Date: April 6, 2023 -

WITH EACH staging post along the 40-year-old Kerry Babies saga, the prevailing view is that several gardaí were involved in a travesty in which six members of Joanne Hayes’s family in Abbeydorney confessed to crimes in 1984 they could not possibly have committed. One such garda is retired Det Inspector Gerry O’Carroll, one of two… Read more »

CLAIRE BYRNE’S ‘SUPER AGENT’

Date: April 6, 2023 -

WITH THE clock ticking in the search for the new host of The Late Late Show (TLLS), there are those wondering if agent Noel Kelly can make it a hat-trick, given that he also represents Ryan Tubridy and Pat Kenny. No doubt the influential owner of NK Management was delighted that the Mail on Sunday… Read more »

JAY BOURKE’S STORIES

Date: April 6, 2023 -

GOLDHAWK’S OLD friend Jay Bourke addressed the AGM of the insolvency specialists’ representative body, Restructuring and Insolvency Ireland (RII) last month. Judging by a report in the Irish Times, bankrupt Jayo was most effusive, as is his style – when it suits him. RII is chaired by Mark Woodcock of Fieldfisher but not on the… Read more »

MARISSA CARTER’S GLOW-UP

Date: April 6, 2023 -

IT HAS been a busy few months for Marissa Carter, who was chosen as Newstalk’s Eversheds Sutherland-sponsored ‘Business Person of the Month’ for March. She also launched her budget cosmetics range, Carter Beauty, in Dubai a month earlier. In other good news, the tan queen appears less browned off with her business partners these days…. Read more »

ELECTIONS AT MILLTOWN

Date: April 6, 2023 -

IT’S NEVER all that easy to secure membership of the more sought after golf clubs, especially those in and around south Co Dublin. One of these is obviously the venerable Milltown Golf Club, founded way back in 1907 and the 19th tee for many of Dublin’s most prominent business, professional and legal players. Last month,… Read more »

MARC GODART’S TENANTS

Date: April 6, 2023 -

FANS OF Goldhawk will have recognised the name of landlord extraordinaire Marc Godart on the front page of the Irish Times earlier this week when he was ordered to cease short-letting apartments in a block on Dublin’s Reuben Street in Dolphin’s Barn. He has quite the record. The latest run-in relates to notices of termination… Read more »