Affairs of the Nation

John Corrigan

Affairs of the Nation

JOHN CORRIGAN’S ‘PRIVATE MATTER’

WHILE HEADS have rolled at Davy this week, chairman John Corrigan remains in place, which suggests he is doing a hell of a job given the questions raised about the... Read more »
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Affairs of the Nation

BRIAN POLLY’S LEGAL ACTION

HORSES HAVE been in the news for all the wrong reasons recently and another equine row is bubbling away, this time involving Brian Polly, chairman of the Association of Irish... Read more »
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Affairs of the Nation

DENIS O’BRIEN’S RADIO EXIT

DENIS O’BRIEN was happy to wave goodbye to his Irish radio business when the deal to sell his Communicorp radio group to Bauer Media Audio was announced last month. He... Read more »
Hermann Kelly

Affairs of the Nation

RIGHT-WING SPECTRUM

FOLLOWING THE recent violent anti-lockdown protest in Dublin, justice minister Helen McEntee said she was reluctant “to get caught up in who was involved”. McEntee was helping to furiously backpedal... Read more »
James Hamilton

Affairs of the Nation

IRISH DPP SCOTS KINGMAKER

THE BYZANTINE feud between former Scottish first minister Alex Salmond and his successor Nicola Sturgeon involves complex legal and parliamentary detail, which is the subject of a Scottish parliamentary inquiry.... Read more »
Ciarán Hancock

Affairs of the Nation

DAVY/‘IRISH TIMES’ AND ‘TRUST’

A BEAUTIFUL friendship, partnership even, has been destroyed by the actions of those wheeler-dealers at the Davy Group, which last year had joined in collaboration with the Irish Times to... Read more »
Tracy Piggott

Affairs of the Nation

TRACY PIGGOTT’S OUTRAGE

THE RACING community is still drawing breath after circulation of that photograph of Gordon Elliott sitting on a dead horse, with the trainer given a 12-month suspension last week. Elliott... Read more »
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Affairs of the Nation

FF COMMITTEE CAST

THAT’S AN interesting committee selected to work on a postmortem about Fianna Fáil’s poor general election result last February. Two junior ministers, Seán Fleming (chair) and Mary Butler, are on... Read more »
Brian Kavanagh

Affairs of the Nation

BRIAN KAVANAGH’S NEXT RIDE?

INVESTORS IN the revamped Curragh racecourse (who include the likes of John Magnier, JP McManus and one Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum), will be keen to see that a top name... Read more »
Simon Coveney

Affairs of the Nation

COVENEY SILENT ON KHASHOGGI MURDER

WITH US President Joe Biden under pressure for not sanctioning Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for his role in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi – Biden... Read more »

Pillars of Society

Simon Harris

Pillars of Society

PROFILE: SIMON HARRIS

ANY DISCONTENT inside Fine Gael in the year since the general election has been obscured by Micheál Martin’s problems with his increasingly cantankerous parliamentary... Read more »

The Young Bloods

Stephen and David Flynn

The Young Bloods

YOUNG BLOODS: STEPHEN & DAVID FLYNN

There are those who worship at the altar of the sunrise-swimming Happy Pear twins, and others who are allergic to the sight and sound... Read more »

Fit to Print?

Judge Smithwick

Fit to Print?

SMITHWICK TRIBUNAL REVISITED

WHAT AN intriguing notice the Sunday Times published last weekend – buried underneath a panoply of outraged letters about perfidious journalist Roy Greenslade – under the heading “CORRECTION”. It read:... Read more »
Irish Times Black Friday Vicky Conway

Fit to Print?

PAUL CLARKSON’S RECORD

SO ANXIOUS was Micheál Martin to acquire the services of former Irish Sun editor Paul Clarkson that he had to rearrange staff at both the government press apparatus and that... Read more »
Denis O'Brien

Fit to Print?

DENIS O’BRIEN’S SUBTLETY

“O’BRIEN’S PERSONAL editorial influence within the media organisations in which he invested was hard to quantify – including at Independent Newspapers … influence is often exerted subtly rather than by... Read more »

Last Refuge

Philip Brennan

Last Refuge

UNARMED MILITARY COMMITTEE

IF CETA, the EU Canada trade deal, threatens what remains of Green Party unity, then just wait until its position on Irish neutrality and defence is debated in the near... Read more »
Diarmuid O'Cadhla

Last Refuge

REBEL CORK POPULISM

LEADER OF the Cork People’s Convention (CPC) Diarmaid Ó Cadhla made an effort to break out of the marginal political ghetto he has been in for the last decade with... Read more »
Brid Smith

Last Refuge

SWP TOP OF THE TROTS

THAT MERGER of TD Paul Murphy’s Rise movement – he had previously been part of Solidarity – with TD Richard Boyd Barrett’s People Before Profit (PBP) needs to be decoded... Read more »
Jim O'Callaghan

Last Refuge

FIANNA FÁIL PLOTTERS DIVIDED

A FASCINATING zoom meeting last week of the Cosmhuintir Fianna Fáil faction within the party heard TDs Seán Haughey and Jim O’Callaghan, as well as former minister Conor Lenihan, discuss... Read more »

Hush Hush

Brandon Lewis

Hush Hush

MI5 PROVOCATEURS

NORTHERN SECRETARY Brandon Lewis ought to get a grip on his government’s intelligence apparatus and their activities in his patch before they do some serious – and very deliberate –... Read more »
Ian Paisley Jr

Hush Hush

DUP’S ‘CONCERNED’ BEDFELLOWS

THE DUP’S connections with loyalist paramilitaries have once again been downplayed by the media, which continues to treat it as a normal political party. Last week’s Loyalist Communities Council (LCC)... Read more »

Bog Cuttings

Bog-Cuttings-Defaul

Bog Cuttings

BOG CUTTINGS

‘Fucking Wanker’ Thomas Coffey (42) of 9 Cahereens West, Castleisland, failed to appear before Killarney District Court, sitting in Tralee, as he was “wandering around and drinking” according to his... Read more »

Fowl Emissions

Michael Creed

Fowl Emissions

AGRI-ANGER

HELL HATH no fury like an agri-committee scorned. The recent decision by the Environmental Pillar (EP), representing 26 eNGOs, to withdraw from the industry-dominated Agri-Food 2030 strategy group has triggered... Read more »
Claude Etchelamendy Ed Brophy Richard Boyd-Barrett Kish Dale Crammond Frank Mitloehner Shell Greenwashing Meta Data Centres Ireland

Fowl Emissions

LIFESTYLE CHOICES

A NEW round of state grants has been announced totalling almost €500,000 for research titled, “a healthy diet for a healthy lifestyle”. What’s unusual is that the funding agency is... Read more »

The Hot Air Brigade

Brendan O'Connor

The Hot Air Brigade

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

I discovered the other day that they have a fully chocolate-coated Hobnob. I was excited, but I was on my own at the time so I had no one to... Read more »

High Society

Paddy McKillen

High Society

PADDY MCKILLEN’S GALLERIES

ART LOVING moneybags Paddy McKillen was splashing the cash recently, when adding a super expensive art gallery to his 540-acre Chateau La Coste cultural/tourist project in France. According to the... Read more »
Consuelo O’Connor

High Society

BILL SHIPSEY’S ART WORK

CAMPAIGNING BARRISTER Bill Shipsey, long associated with the Irish section of Amnesty International (which he chaired at one stage,) got a few things off his chest last week in an... Read more »
Paul Ward

High Society

WARRING WARD FAMILY’S PLOT TWIST

THE WEALTHY Ward family, which owns Dublin’s Savoy cinema among many others, is engaged in another legal wrangle that sees the principals named as defendants in an action lodged by... Read more »

Behind the Scenes

Emma Dabiri

Behind the Scenes

HUGH LANE’S NEW FACE

AT LONG last change is in the air at the Dublin City Council controlled Hugh Lane Gallery. While the board is getting some new blood, however, the long overdue appointment... Read more »
Susan Bergin Marlowe Mullingar Film Studio RTÉ Self-Employment

Behind the Scenes

MORE MOVIE MOOLAH

WITH THE running time for the Screen Ireland (SI) board appointments process approaching epic length, the film and TV biz’s favourite cash dispenser has at least got around to divulging... Read more »

Sport of Kings

Charlie McConalogue

Sport of Kings

KAVANAGH’S COUNTDOWN

FIVE YEARS ago, when Brian Kavanagh entered into his controversial third term as chief executive of Horse Racing Ireland (HRI), he insisted this five-year stint would be his last. Now,... Read more »
Mick Bailey

Sport of Kings

CHELTENHAM CAST

CHELTENHAM WILL be a different beast this year. Apart from no spectators, no atmosphere, no socialising and no Guinness Village, the name GE Elliott, the festival’s leading trainer two years... Read more »
Gordon Elliott

Sport of Kings

BRITS POUT

The furore surrounding the Gordon Elliott controversy shone a light on the lack of faith the British Horse Racing Authority (BHA) has in Denis Egan’s Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB)... Read more »
Charles Byrnes

Sport of Kings

CHARLES BYRNES’S NEIGHBOUR

RECENTLY BANNED trainer Charles Byrnes has teamed up with a neighbour of his to enable him to run some horses. Byrnes signed off for the next six months as a... Read more »

Reviews

James Nesbitt

Reviews

BLOODLANDS – BBC ONE

SET IN contemporary Northern Ireland, the four-part thriller stars James Nesbitt as PSNI detective Tom Brannick. Produced by Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio, this stylish crime series follows familiar... Read more »

Moneybags

Edmond Scanlon

Moneybags

KERRY GROUP NEEDS SIGNIFICANT GROWTH TO JUSTIFY RATING

THE DECISION by Ed Scanlon to offload the Kerry Group’s stagnant consumer foods division (including the creamery and cooked meats operations) was long overdue. Moneybags has been pointing out the... Read more »
Tony Smurfit

Moneybags

SMURFIT KAPPA CONTINUES TO GO BACKWARDS

SMURFIT KAPPA has been on the receiving end of plenty of glowing press coverage in recent times, sometimes driven by the focus on attaining green goals for the company’s sustainability.... Read more »

The Hot Water Brigade

JP Hartigan

The Hot Water Brigade

TACKLING JP HARTIGAN

A COMPANY called Shadowman Sports Ltd has collapsed into liquidation, which may come as a surprise to fans of the sporting innovations of JP Hartigan, the listed controlling shareholder. It... Read more »
Brian Hayes

The Hot Water Brigade

BRIAN HAYES’S CAMPAIGN

NATWEST GROUP would have known that its decision to wind down Ulster Bank operations in the south was going to require a big PR push to soften the blow. Happily... Read more »
Yvonne Bauer

The Hot Water Brigade

YVONNE BAUER’S RADIO WAVES

WHAT NEXT for Newstalk radio? A look at the apparent valuation placed on the Communicorp group by Yvonne Bauer’s radio group (see p3), which has been reported to be about... Read more »
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The Hot Water Brigade

PRIDE PROFITS

WITH THE pandemic likely to scupper yet another Dublin Pride jamboree next summer (following last year’s virtual hooley), Jed Dowling’s Dublin LGBTQ Pride Company might be getting concerned. In recent... Read more »
Áine Moriarty

The Hot Water Brigade

ÁINE MORIARTY’S FIGURES

OVERDUE FIGURES (covering an 18-month period to the end of 2019) have been filed by Áine Moriarty’s Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTA) and Irish Film and Television Network (IFTN)... Read more »
Ian Lumley

The Hot Water Brigade

JOHN MCQUAID’S SETBACK

THERE HAS been a setback for Goldhawk’s old friend John McQuaid whose quarry in Clontibret, Co Monaghan, was the subject of a recent ruling by the Supreme Court no less.... Read more »