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March 10 - March 24, 2017
Affairs of the Nation
LEO VARADKAR IN RETREAT
IT’S EARLY days yet but the latest poll showing Fine Gael voters favouring Simon Coveney over Leo Varadkar have unnerved the latter’s supporters and right now the momentum is with... Read more »
MARIE COLLINS PUTS IT UP TO ‘IL PAPA’
HOW careless of Pope Francis to lose abuse victim Marie Collins a year after Briton Peter Saunders jumped ship from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. The departure... Read more »
HOW WEALTHY IS DINNY?
THERE WAS the usual array of surprise valuations in the latest Sunday Times Rich List, with the likes of Martin Naughton, John Magnier and JP McManus all wildly undervalued, while... Read more »
CLOCK TICKING AT NATIONAL GALLERY
WHAT ON earth is going on at the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI)? The contract of the director of the institution, Sean Rainbird, expires on April 15 but the job... Read more »
DUP Gaelgoir
ONE DUP member who survived the party’s slaughter last week was Jim Wells who got help from Dublin Irish language academic Professor Ciarán Ó Coigligh, who canvassed with him in... Read more »
MICHAEL CAREY TAKES THE BISCUIT
WHAT GOES around, comes around. A Drogheda biscuit company called East Coast Bakehouse, which has been heavily promoting its products, is the brainchild of Michael Carey, a man with quite... Read more »
Letters to the Editor
‘MALICIOUS’ SOURCES Dear Editor, You write (See The Phoenix, 24/2/17) that I, among others, suggested that RTÉ’s Paul Reynolds should reveal his garda sources in relation to his reporting about... Read more »
MAHON TRIBUNAL RIP?
With the settlement of Joe Murphy’s High Court case against the MahonTribunal last week, the taxpayer may now never learn the truth about what really went on in the Flood/Mahon... Read more »
INVESTIGATING GALWAY’S ‘PALACE’
THE STATEMENT issued by the Charities Regulator last week that it has opened a statutory investigation into the €9.5m and counting Solas-Galway Picture Palace Teo won’t have come as much... Read more »
Pillars of Society
Regina Doherty
GOVERNMENT chief whip Regina Doherty is the most ambitious woman in the Dáil and sees herself as a future Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach.... Read more »
The Young Bloods
Al Porter
HIGH profile Dublin comedian Al Porter (24) copper-fastened his status last month when he took over the reigns of his very own Today FM... Read more »
Fit to Print?
DENIS O’BRIEN’S BOSWELL
IS Denis O’Brien’s enthusiastic apologist, John J May, deliberately trying to provoke a libel writ from one or more principals in the Moriarty Tribunal? Or is he trying to usurp... Read more »
Cop Culture
WITH exquisite timing the current edition of Garda Review, organ of the Garda Representative Association (GRA), was published the day before the Policing Authority held its latest public meeting on... Read more »
Last Refuge
LORD ROSS TO CURB JUDGES?
THAT recent report about “leading judge” George Birmingham proposing a watering down of transport minister Shane Ross’s judicial appointments bill omitted one small detail, namely, that Birmingham is a former... Read more »
SOC DEMS: STICKIES IN DISGUISE?
ARE Social Democrats TDs Catherine Murphy and Roísín Shortall along with Irish Times ideologue Fintan O’Toole trying to recreate the Workers Party? It recently emerged that the DUP had received... Read more »
O’Brien backs Simon
LEO VARADKAR’S campaign team is getting jittery and it is not just because of that Irish Times poll showing Fine Gael members swinging over to Simon Coveney in the leadership... Read more »
WILL AOIBHINN SUCCEED ENDA IN MAYO?
THERE is much fretting among Mayo Blueshirts about the future without An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, and even more anxiety about the possibility that Michael Ring might also bow out. A... Read more »
Bog Cuttings
Periwinkle picker pickled in public A TUAM periwinkle picker was told by Judge James Faughnan at the local District Court that he would get one chance but wouldn’t get a... Read more »
Fowl Emissions
NAUGHTEN’S FUTILE ‘AMBASSADORS’
DENIS NAUGHTEN is appointing “climate action ambassadors” in every county as part of a new “national dialogue on climate change” he launched in Dublin’s Mansion House last week. The climate... Read more »
Bird's Eye View
TRIUMPH FOR SF IN NORTH
UNIONISTS are still coming to terms with the new electoral landscape in the north after last week’s Assembly election. It’s worth having a look at that landscape. Out of 15... Read more »
The Hot Air Brigade
And then I thought, I can’t take my girls to a country where abortion is illegal. How could you do that? It’s like having black children and bringing them to... Read more »
High Society
IN SYNC WITH SAMANTHA LESLIE
SAMANTHA LESLIE, the woman who is the face of the impressive Castle Leslie in Co Monaghan, popped up in an Irish Times series on mindfulness last month to discuss her... Read more »
Peter Gaynor’s Club
THE entry for Monte Carlo-based Olivia Gaynor-Long and hubby Brian Long in the latest Sunday Times Rich List guesstimates their wealth at an impressive enough €71m. The main source of... Read more »
SHANE RYAN’S MANSIONS
AT LAST Shane Ryan has got around to lodging a planning application for his latest abode – the former French consulate on Ailesbury Road. Not surprisingly, the property hungry moneybags... Read more »
Behind the Scenes
GARRY HYNES FEELS THE HEAT
WITH Druid Theatre’s artistic director Garry Hynes coming in for fierce criticism over the lack of female playwrights in the company’s latest programme, one man who may have permitted himself... Read more »
AND THE AWARD GOES TO …
THE ANNUAL gong show season is upon us again and after the Oscars debacle, Áine Moriarty and Deirdre Hopkins at the IFTAs will also be looking to restore their own... Read more »
Sport of Kings
PHILIP’S CHELTENHAM HOPES
PHILIP REYNOLDS, son of former Taoiseach Albert, had a day to remember in March last year when he saw his own silks in the winner’s enclosure at Cheltenham for the... Read more »
RACE ON FOR NEW STUD BOSS
OUTGOING Irish National Stud (INS) chief executive John Osborne certainly won’t be paying Brian Kavanagh a debt of gratitude any time soon. Meanwhile, the runners and riders are lining up... Read more »
Tough Turf Club Tactics
The Turf Club’s stewards are not shy about implementing the new rules for alleged “non-triers”, particularly so when it comes to the smaller yards. They showed no leniency to the... Read more »
SHEIKH FAHAD’S JUMPER
QATARI SHEIKH Fahad Al Thani has a good chance of adding a Cheltenham Festival win to his international haul of big race wins, which includes a Melbourne Cup and an... Read more »
Books
ABOUT BEING NORMAL – DES FENNELL (SOMERVILLE)
“THE ‘ECONOMIC foundation of independence’ cannot be built in a context of decreasing independence … It can be built … only in an independent nation which is reliant primarily on... Read more »
Reviews
DANIEL AND MAJELLA’S B&B ROAD TRIP – RTÉ ONE
FOLLOWING their initial success on UTV Ireland, the Donegal crooner and his wife have been nabbed by RTÉ for the new series of their laidback travel show. The format could... Read more »
THE GOOD PEOPLE – HANNAH KENT (PICADOR)
HANNAH KENT’S second novel follows her internationally successful debut, Burial Rites, the disquieting account of a young wife executed for her role in a murder that happened in Iceland in... Read more »
Moneybags
UDG’s accounting manoeuvres
OVER THE past 16 years, Liam Fitzgerald dramatically transformed United Drug from being the biggest Irish wholesale drug and distribution company supplying most hospitals and 60% of Irish retail pharmacies... Read more »
DCC shareholders sitting pretty but party is now over
TOMMY BREEN’S €270m acquisition of Esso’s retail petrol network in Norway last month and, even more so, last week’s decision to sell off DCC’s environmental division contradicts the group’s so-called... Read more »
The Hot Water Brigade
Jerry Carey’s pals in China
MORE on Jerry Carey, the Cork businessman who has been a godsend for the political career of Fine Gael junior minister Dara Murphy. It will be recalled that Carey was... Read more »
Niall McGarry’s high standards
CONGRATULATIONS are in order to hard-necked “new media” mogul Niall McGarry whose company, Maximum Media Network Ltd – the outfit behind the Joe.ie website – filed healthy looking accounts recently.... Read more »
End of the line for Noel McFeely
SPARE a thought for Derry builder Noel McFeely who has been declared bankrupt in the north. McFeely follows in the footsteps of his brother, cowboy builder Tom McFeely, who was... Read more »
‘Cloud bleed’ hits Captains?
STRANGE that a recent major internet security breach went unreported in the Irish media recently. The phenomenon known as “cloud bleed” affected over four million web domains including a host... Read more »
Familiar names feature on defaulters list
GOLDHAWK spotted some familiar names on the Revenue’s latest list of tax defaulters. Disgraced former District Judge Heather Perrin was hit with a tax judgment for close to €¼m in... Read more »
More tax trouble for Michael O’Leary
SPARE a thought for Michael O’Leary (not that one) who has just had yet another judgment registered against him by the dreaded taxman, this time for €87,000. Wexford accountant O’Leary... Read more »
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