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April 19 - May 2, 2019
Affairs of the Nation
SDLP/FIANNA FÁIL: THE FIRST ITEM
HOW IS the ‘historic’ Fianna Fáil/SDLP alliance playing out in the European elections, especially in Dublin where FF candidate Barry Andrews would surely value SDLP support given the Blueshirts’ recruitment... Read more »
HSE PAUL REID’S RADICAL PAST
WHAT AN interesting journey the new €300,000-salaried HSE director general, Paul Reid, has travelled since the days of his firebrand activism in politics and the trade union movement. Comrades in... Read more »
TARGETING BOYD BARRETT
A CAMPAIGN of sorts has been kicked off by film industry insiders, who appear to have had their fill of Richard Boyd Barrett of the People Before Profit (PBP) party.... Read more »
PHELIM O’NEILL’S MANY HATS
ONE OF the side-effects of that high profile eviction in Strokestown, Co Roscommon last December was the gardaí’s decision to seize the mobile phone owned by editor of the Democrat,... Read more »
MARTIN SUPPORTS EU ARMY
A STRAINED silence emanated from Fianna Fáil following the revelation that Fine Gael successfully blocked its EU grouping, the European Peoples Party (EPP), from inclusion of support for an EU... Read more »
PHILIP COMYN ‘ADMONISHED’
GOLDHAWK WAS surprised to see the name of Cork City coroner Philip Comyn featuring among the assorted legal eagles who had come a cropper at the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDF).... Read more »
KERRY (IN)SANITY PLEA
ANOTHER HSE controversy is trundling down the tracks, courtesy of Kerry’s Eye, following the HSE’s grudging agreement to correct a false record stating that Castlemaine man Jim Bailey had been... Read more »
HEEEE’S OUTTA HERE!
RELATIONS between Ireland and the US may have been slightly dented by an incident last week at Dublin Airport, which saw a baseball coach given his marching orders as his... Read more »
IRISH IN THE WWE RING
WHAT IS it with the Irish and the rather lucrative ‘sport’ of wrestling – one of the biggest earners on TV? Even those unfamiliar with the carry-on in the high-octane... Read more »
Pillars of Society
PROFILE: BARRY CONNELL
TEN YEARS ago, Dublin-based hedge fund manager and former stockbroker Barry Connell looked odds-on to become one of the leading players in the ranks... Read more »
The Young Bloods
YOUNG BLOOD: MARIA WALSH
IF FINE GAEL’S cosmopolitan leadership could manufacture a candidate under laboratory conditions, the result would probably look a lot like former Rose of Tralee... Read more »
Fit to Print?
PRESS SANCTION FOR ‘IRISH TIMES’
VETERAN Irish Times journalist and former Sunday Tribune editor Peter Murtagh retired last week. The IT fired a shot at Denis O’Brien in its tribute to the hack, noting that... Read more »
KEYSTONE COPS
A SCENE of Keystone Cops proportion was conjured up last week by Irish Times, Irish Independent and RTÉ coverage of Garda commissioner Drew Harris’s accident at Phoenix Park HQ. All... Read more »
CRIME DOES PAY
The International Fraud Prevention Conference, organised by ex-INM group editor Stephen Rae and his best buddy and colleague, Paul Williams, formerly of Newstalk, has a dramatic ring to it. Rae... Read more »
Last Refuge
AIDAN EAMES’S CLIENTS
THE MOST influential man in the room at the recent Oireachtas Committee on Sport hearing was not Football Association of Ireland (FAI) demoted executive John Delaney, committee chair Fergus O’Dowd... Read more »
RABBITTE FEELS UNLOVED
FIANNA FÁIL’S two-candidate strategy in the Midlands-North-West (MNW) EU constituency – the, er, ‘dream ticket’ of Brendan Smith and Anne Rabbitte – is already strained, with the Galway East TD,... Read more »
McDOWELL’S FREE MEDIA PLATFORMS
DUBLIN BAY South TDs Jim O’Callaghan and Kate O’Connell must have been chewing their carpets at the flattering exposure granted to former minister and attorney general, Senator Michael McDowell, by... Read more »
GEMMA’S THEORIES
ADDING PUNGENCY to the EU elections is the candidacy of ‘investigative journalist’ Gemma O’Doherty in Dublin. If there is one live debate that Goldhawk listens to it will be that... Read more »
HIGGINS’S LABOUR DEFECTORS
PRESIDENT HIGGINS’S new appointments to the Council of State do not include any party political members – not even from Labour, the political booster that Michael Twee relied on for... Read more »
Hush Hush
DREW HARRIS CROSS-BORDER SECURITY
Elite and heavily armed units of the PSNI cruising around Dublin is a steep step change in policing here in the south. But this is the reality under Garda commissioner... Read more »
Bog Cuttings
BOG CUTTINGS
Fishy business A TYRONE man accused of assault became angered with the prosecutor’s line of questioning in East Tyrone Magistrates Court, demanding to know, “Are you making a cod of... Read more »
Fowl Emissions
IFA VS DR WHO
When you find yourself picking a fight with schoolkids, chances are you’re going to end up on the losing side, as the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) has been finding out.... Read more »
PAT SMYTH’S SOLAR PANELS
“The collapse of civilization is… on the horizon as a result of climate change.” So goes the blurb promoting Solar Power Ltd. It explains how “installing Solar PV to generate... Read more »
Bird's Eye View
DUP AND SF TO DEVOUR RIVALS
Observers will be watching the north’s local elections for answers to a series of political questions. Will Sinn Féin suffer for their abstentionist policy at Westminster? Will the DUP suffer... Read more »
The Hot Air Brigade
THE HOT AIR BRIGADE
As a human being, the disconnect between how I see myself and how I’m seen by those around me can feel almost dehumanising, like my sense of self is splitting.... Read more »
High Society
CATHERINE’S RICH RECIPES
NEXT MONTH ‘celebrity chef’ Catherine Fulvio dons her glad rags (Irish designers were frothing at the bit) and flies off to southern California for the 46th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards... Read more »
SINGAPORE MONEYBAGS
INTERESTING TO see that the man understood to have bought the Dublin City Hotel and Trinity Bar on Dame Street, D2, is one Stanley Quek. This is not the only... Read more »
ANTHONY MCGRATH’S ANTIQUES
LAST WEEK’S popular Channel 4 series, 24 hours in Police Custody, featured one Anthony McGrath, an Irish-born orthopaedic surgeon with a “very privileged background”. Given the subject matter of the... Read more »
Behind the Scenes
ABBEY BOARD’S SCRIPT
GOLDHAWK was interested to know how the Abbey board reacted to last year’s decision by the Arts Council to withhold a chunk of funding until it sorted out its employment... Read more »
ADDING UP IN CORK
THE FALLOUT from the Michael Jackson documentary, Leaving Neverland, has affected a number of players here. One of those hit is the Cork Opera House (COH), which was to stage... Read more »
JOHN GLEESON’S NEW PLOT
THE ACCOUNTANCY profession has expanded significantly since the financial services sector was freed of its old-fashioned, fusty reservations. And with riskier business came the ‘forensic’ accountant – a sort of... Read more »
Sport of Kings
SEAMUS ROSS’S RETURN
WITH A rejuvenated Sean Mulryan enjoying such high-profile success this year after his long hiatus, the developer’s re-engagement with the sport is being classed as a barometer for the health... Read more »
WHEN ALL IS LEAD AND DUNNE
BRITAIN-BASED Irish jockey Robbie Dunne has received a 15-day ban by the British Horseracing Authority over a 2017 incident in which Dunne guided the Ian Williams-trained Rocknrollrambo to victory at... Read more »
O’LEARY’S ANIMAL WELFARE FANS
MICHAEL O’LEARY’S surprising idea of offering Don Poli and Outlander for sale two days before the Aintree Grand National certainly bore fruit. The two OAPs netted £330,000 between them –... Read more »
DECLAN MCDONOGH’S DEMOTION
THIS TIME of year, as the flat season gets into full swing, a few jockeys sometimes get promoted – or vice versa – and one who is getting a rough... Read more »
Movies
DON’T GO – DIRECTED BY DAVID GLEESON
WATCHING David Gleeson’s Don’t Go in a near empty cinema, as Goldhawk did, a viewer’s thoughts may drift to parodies in The Simpsons of Poe’s The Raven and Kubrick’s The... Read more »
Books
THE GHOST FACTORY – JENNY McCARTNEY (4th ESTATE)
WITH NO apparent end in sight to fictional accounts of the Troubles, it’s not surprising that this debut novel revisits familiar ground. The author now works as a journalist in... Read more »
Reviews
DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE – VIRGIN MEDIA
This health-based series offers the same nutritional hit as a visit to McDonald’s. Viewers are left hungry for something actually worth getting their teeth into. Among those thanked in the... Read more »
Moneybags
KENMARE RESOURCES INCREASINGLY TEMPTING AS TAKEOVER TARGET
FANS OF Moneybags will recall last year’s prediction (see The Phoenix, 23/3/18) that Kenmare Resources “should manage to hit sales of nearly $250m in the current year. This increased revenue... Read more »
O’BRIEN COULD GET €100M IN INM TAKE-OUT
IT IS hard to believe the news emerging of a pending takeover bid for Independent News & Media (INM). With Denis O’Brien sitting on a 30% shareholding and his pal,... Read more »
The Hot Water Brigade
BLACK CARD FOR BOOZER PLANS
PLANS to redevelop a popular pub adjacent to Croke Park have hit the crossbar. Dublin City Council has requested that the Dublin Loft Company (DLC), where the largest shareholder is... Read more »
RUTH MORAM’S ‘ABUSE OF PROCESS’
ANOTHER chapter in the remarkable legal saga involving Ruth Moram and the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Ireland was written in the Court of Appeal recently. The scrap goes back a number... Read more »
TAXING TIMES FOR MARTIN TUBRIDY
THE TAXMAN has finally lost his patience with Clare businessman Martin Tubridy. A petition to wind up his construction and civil engineering company, GMD Developments Ltd, has just been filed... Read more »
DISCIPLINING CIARÁN DESMOND
MORE on Ciarán Desmond, the legal eagle and financial adviser at the centre of a high-profile court case involving allegations of fraud and “secret profits”. The Rebel County solicitor has... Read more »
PETER GAYNOR’S BIG BUCKS
MORE GOOD news for restaurateur-turned-construction suit Peter Gaynor, who continues to make a mint in London, having seen his food business back in Dublin essentially collapse last year. Accounts have... Read more »
POOR FORM AT SARACENS
WITH MUNSTER heading to England to play Saracens in the European Rugby Cup semi-finals this weekend, it is interesting to see the kind of financial firepower the English club possesses... Read more »
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