Affairs of the Nation

Simon Coveney

Affairs of the Nation

COVENEY HASN’T GONE AWAY

IS THERE a prime minister in the western world who has become head of their party after losing a leadership vote among its members – in Leo Varadkar’s case by... Read more »

Affairs of the Nation

BANKING ON THE QATARI MOOLAH

THE TUMULT in the Middle East – where Qatar finds itself isolated economically and diplomatically by a strategy fronted by Saudi Arabia and including smaller Arab and Muslims states such... Read more »

Affairs of the Nation

BILL McCABE’S EXCLUSIVE CLUB

MONEYBAGS Bill McCabe’s experiment with the pampering of high-flyers saw him invest big bucks into the Oyster Circle club but now the company has finally been wound up, after a... Read more »

Affairs of the Nation

Affairs of the Nation

NEW IRISH BILDERBERGERS

THE shadowy Bilderberg Conference, at which the most wealthy and powerful transatlantic decision-makers gather to discuss mutual interests, convened in Chantilly, Virginia, for its annual meeting recently and there appears... Read more »

Affairs of the Nation

EDWARD BURKE’S CREDENTIALS

LAST WEEK, after the deadly London attack, Irish Times readers were treated to an opinion piece by Edward Burke on the Irish state’s “overburdened” security services. He should know what... Read more »

Affairs of the Nation

Michael Semple ‘fights the right’

INTERESTING to see “our man in Kabul” Michael Semple pop up last weekend as a speaker at Labour Youth’s Tom Johnson Summer School. The ex-“political officer” for the British Foreign... Read more »
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Affairs of the Nation

Letters to the Editor

Dear Goldhawk, Prime Time and Claire Byrne Live have never presented climate change as a 50:50 debate as you falsely claimed in your last edition. All of our debates on... Read more »

Affairs of the Nation

PADDY DUNNING WAXES LYRICAL

MR TEMPLE BAR, Paddy Dunning, has seen a number of his businesses struggle in recent years, so he must have been delighted with the plug for his National Waxwork Museum... Read more »
Scouting Ireland

Affairs of the Nation

Scouts’ Honour Impugned

ALLEGATIONS of poor governance and control of finances have struck yet another voluntary organisation and the dogs of legal war have been let slip within that most innocent of organisations,... Read more »

Pillars of Society

Pillars of Society

Ailbhe Smyth

THE archetypal feminist in today’s Ireland is a Labour or Fine Gael supporting, middle class professional with aggressive secularist leanings. This brand of feminist... Read more »

The Young Bloods

The Young Bloods

Niall O’Connor

THERE’S a new breed of journalist on the block – young, brash, assertive and ever so opinionated. A breed for whom opinions are sacrosanct... Read more »

Fit to Print?

Fit to Print?

INM’S ‘NO’ TO CELTIC MEDIA

THE “mutual” decision by INM and Celtic Media Group to go forward “on a separate footing”, thus ending the proposed INM buy-out of Celtic Media, was anything but mutual. It... Read more »

Fit to Print?

Noel Whelan’s U-turn

WHAT a perceptive student of British politics Irish Times columnist Noel Whelan is. Just days before the UK general election Whelan pointed out that British Tories and media supporters, helped... Read more »

Fit to Print?

‘IRISH TIMES’ AFGHAN WARRIOR

WHY does the Irish media continue to present military commentators to the public as if they were detached observers in violent conflicts across the globe? Ex-Royal Irish Rangers Captain Patrick... Read more »

Last Refuge

Last Refuge

WHAT IS MICHEÁL MARTIN’S STRATEGY?

WHAT strategy will Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin adopt in the face of new Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s supposedly revitalised Fine Gael? Up until now it has been a slow burning,... Read more »

Last Refuge

HOWLIN’S UK LABOUR COMRADES

HOW heartening to see Labour leader Brendan Howlin’s solidarity with his British counterpart Jeremy Corbyn’s election campaign as Brendan joined his comrades on the campaign trail in London shortly before... Read more »

Last Refuge

OLYWN ENRIGHT BACK IN FOCUS

A FINE Gael starlet from the past, former Laois-Offaly TD Olwyn Enright, returned with a vengeance in the FG leadership contest and her prominence on Team Varadkar helps to explain... Read more »

Last Refuge

WILL MICHAEL McDOWELL RETURN TO THE HUSTINGS?

WHILE THE Irish and Sunday Independent continue to depict Kate O’Connell as a political Boadicea set to scale the political heights, there are movements in Dublin Bay South that Kate... Read more »

Bog Cuttings

Bog Cuttings

Bog Cuttings

Bog Cuttings

Groom is spared conviction on big day A GROOM who appeared in court on his wedding day was spared a conviction by Judge David Waters in Kinsale District Court. Benjamin... Read more »

Fowl Emissions

Fowl Emissions

DUP’S GLOBAL CHILLING

NORTHERN Irish politics doesn’t produce many laughs. One of the better ones involved the Democratic Unionist Party’s Sammy Wilson, when interviewed in Belfast by comedian Ali G (Sacha Baron Cohen).... Read more »

Bird's Eye View

Bird's Eye View

LEO VARADKAR AND THE DUP

RAY BASSET, former joint secretary of the British-Irish secretariat in Belfast, earlier this week welcomed Leo Varadkar’s commitment to “re-engage with the north”, an admission that the government hasn’t engaged... Read more »

The Hot Air Brigade

The Hot Air Brigade

The Hot Air Bridage

We really haven’t seen anything like Leo Varadkar in Irish politics, ever. He’s a sensation… a superstar… full of charisma… He’s got the X-Factor. He’s super cool and he’s confident... Read more »

The Hot Air Brigade

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

I think even my harshest critics would say that any role I am given in government, I genuinely try to give it my all. It is my personality. It is... Read more »

High Society

High Society

JOHN CUNNINGHAM BACKS IMMA

THERE WAS good news for Sarah Glennie et al at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) last month when the director was able to announce that a private fundraising... Read more »

High Society

HOLLY WHITE’S NUTTY HUBBY

LAST MONTH at Mount Juliet Hotel, TV presenter, stylist, blogger and general ‘It’ girl Holly White celebrated her marriage to Kildare moneybags Andrew Wynne. The wedding was attended by assorted... Read more »
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High Society

Tom Higgins’s Art Collection

WOULD-BE space cadet and former Irish Psychics Live phoneline operator Tom Higgins has reinvented himself in recent years as a art dealer of sorts. This has yet to pay off,... Read more »

Behind the Scenes

Behind the Scenes

NIAMH BRENNAN’S RETICENCE

AN UPCOMING meeting of the Niamh Brennan-chaired board of the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) will need to make a decision on the long-fingered offer of funding from... Read more »
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Behind the Scenes

Quietly Does It

RECORDS ARE thin on the ground on recent developments in the arts world, involving the Abbey Theatre and the Arts Council. In the case of the former, fans of Goldhawk... Read more »

Behind the Scenes

THE TAXMAN COMETH TO FILM LUVVIES

THE REVENUE Commissioner has just published this year’s first quarter list of beneficiaries of the Section 481 tax wheeze beneficiaries. Although termed a tax credit scheme, it is, as fans... Read more »

Sport of Kings

Sport of Kings

ELLIOTT’S NEW GAME

NOT CONTENT with equalling the record for the number of jumps winners trained in a season, Gordon Elliott has set his sights on the flat trainers’ division. The Meath maestro... Read more »
Sheikh Fahad Al Thani

Sport of Kings

AL THANI’S HYDROGEN PROBLEM

WHEN SHEIKH Fahad Al Thani forked out the sale-topping sum of 2.5m guineas for a Galileo yearling half-brother to Epsom Derby winner Authorized at Tattersalls in 2012 he would have... Read more »
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Sport of Kings

BOLGER’S BARK

JIM BOLGER has never been a man to mince his words and he didn’t hold back recently when describing Pat Smullen’s performance in the saddle as a “disgraceful bit of... Read more »
Irish Judges Dubai

Sport of Kings

HEAVY GOING AT GODOLPHIN

THE GODOLPHIN racing and breeding operation of Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum has been playing second fiddle to John Magnier’s Coolmore and Ballydoyle enterprises for the past decade and it appears... Read more »

Reviews

Reviews

MINDING FRANKIE – GAIETY THEATRE

THEATRE IMPRESARIO Breda Cashe knows, better than most, how to tap into Irish punters’ desire for cheap, feel-good stories. With this saccharine version of a Maeve Binchy novel, she’s done... Read more »

Reviews

PAULA – RTÉ ONE

ONE OF the better series delivered to RTÉ viewers ended its run last week and many of those who enjoyed the three chilling episodes may have been left with the... Read more »

Books

HOUSE OF NAMES – COLM TÓIBÍN (VIKING)

IN HIS successful 2012 novel, The Testament of Mary, Colm Tóibín imagined the mother of Jesus struggling to accept her son’s divinity. The Enniscorthy author’s latest book centres on another... Read more »

Moneybags

Moneybags

Some clean up at Cairn Homes

CAIRN HOMES has pulled off quite a coup by landing the coveted RTÉ site in Dublin 4. This is good news for Mick and Kevin Stanley and their Scottish mentor,... Read more »

Moneybags

Ryan ensures super growth rating for ABF

IT IS hard to overstate the scale of the legacy Arthur Ryan created with the Penneys/Primark retailing phenomenon that started life in Dublin’s Mary Street. While running the successful retail... Read more »

The Hot Water Brigade

The Hot Water Brigade

More medical trouble for Houlihan Cushnahan

INTERESTING to see Dublin accountancy firm Houlihan Cushnahan facing down the barrel of a “class action-type” lawsuit from over 20 medical consultants. The medics allege the Glasthule firm was professionally... Read more »

The Hot Water Brigade

Scruffy’s set for the scrap heap?

LIAM Collins had a rather nostalgic article in the Sindo last weekend about once-popular Dublin 2 pub Scruffy Murphy’s, which could be demolished to make way for an “aparthotel”. Happily... Read more »

The Hot Water Brigade

Eddie Hobbs’s troubled Treatdrop

SPARE a thought for celebrity economist Eddie Hobbs who is so far having a year to forget with his former property company Brendan Investments making headlines for all the wrong... Read more »

The Hot Water Brigade

George Elliott’s troubled waters

BAD news from De Braam Mineral Water Company Ltd, an interesting Co Meath operation that finally got around to filing six years of back-dated accounts with the Companies Office recently.... Read more »
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The Hot Water Brigade

Andy Sweeney’s bank woes

SPARE a thought for Malahide businessman Andy Sweeney who has just had an eye-watering judgment for u3.3m registered against him by AIB in his latest scrap with the bank. Sweeney... Read more »

The Hot Water Brigade

Brendan Rohan’s business pal

MORE on bolshy hotelier Brendan Rohan who, much to the chagrin of locals, has vowed to keep the Union Jack flying over his premises. The former Irish army officer owns... Read more »
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The Hot Water Brigade

Brian Lee’s Healthy Profits

CONGRATULATIONS are in order to Dublin entrepreneur and part-time mixed martial artist Brian Lee whose salad bar company is looking very healthy indeed. Freshly Chopped Ltd, the company behind three... Read more »