Subscribe Now
November 4th - November 17, 2022
Affairs of the Nation
VAT RELIEF ONLY FOR ‘GOOD’ MEDIA?
FINANCE MINISTER Paschal Donohoe told the Dáil in his Budget 2023 speech that he was reducing VAT on newspapers from 9% to zero. The minister was doing this, he explained... Read more »
PATRICIA MADDEN’S EXIT
BARRISTER AND long-time member and officer of the Irish Countrywomen’s Association (ICA) Patricia Madden has exited her position on the board. It remains to be seen if any issues around... Read more »
THE ABBEY’S WHISTLEBLOWER
THERE IS little sign of the drama waning at the Frances Ruane-chaired Abbey Theatre, with Goldhawk hearing that a dreaded ‘whistleblower’ has been looking to shine a spotlight on the... Read more »
MUTINOUS JUDGES
THE WHIFF of mutinous protest pervades the courts and even the judiciary at present, with elders among them trying hard to restrain the resentment felt by many judges, especially in... Read more »
TRESPASS IN CHURCH CHARGE
THE SOCIETY of the Apostles of Jesus and Mary (SAJM) has been busy eschewing the links a number of its flock once had with the traditionalist Catholic group SSPX Resistance... Read more »
ESCORT IRELAND’S FOREIGN FROLICS
IN TRUE tabloid style, the Sunday World last week ran the grim story of Bruno Binda De Souza, a transexual prostitute who was recently released from prison after serving a... Read more »
DEIRDRE CONROY’S DAY IN COURT
NEXT WEEK will see Fianna Fáil councillor, barrister and failed by-election candidate Deirdre Conroy finally get into the High Court, where she is looking to prove the personal injuries negligence... Read more »
FRENCH PERFIDY IN MALI?
IN 2018, with champagne corks popping in the background, the Department of Foreign Affairs issued a press release announcing Ireland’s election to the UN Security Council that was rich in... Read more »
MOUNTBATTEN QUERY
RESEARCHERS INTO the squalid Kincora scandal – authors Andrew Lownie and David Burke – have asked gardaí to release the logs made by the unit assigned to protect Lord Mountbatten... Read more »
Pillars of Society
PROFILE: RUADHÁN MAC CORMAIC
“HONOURED… DELIGHTED” and “beyond proud” to have been appointed editor of the Irish Times was how Ruadhán Mac Cormaic expressed himself on landing what... Read more »
The Young Bloods
YOUNG BLOOD: LORRAINE HALL
Leo Varadkar’s astute outflanking of Micheál Martin and Fianna Fáil on the national question continues apace with the elevation of 41-year-old Dún Laoghaire councillor... Read more »
Fit to Print?
MEDIAHUIS AWARDS NOMINATIONS SOAR
WHAT A hugely enhanced performance has taken place in the standard of journalism at Mediahuis – the largest publishing stable in the country north and south, which includes the Sunday... Read more »
IT V SF
AMID THE welter of media hit jobs on Sinn Féin in the last fortnight, the most surprising such assault came from accomplished Irish Times journalist Simon Carswell, who was a... Read more »
COLD MESS
IRELAND’S LOSS is Europe’s gain, as Damien O’Reilly trades in his gig as presenter of RTÉ radio’s Countrywide to head up the Brussels office of the Irish Co-operative Organisation Society... Read more »
Last Refuge
MARTIN WANTS FOREIGN POST
IN THE increasingly fevered world of ministers obsessed with and angling for preferment in the December change-over and reshuffle, the word is that outgoing Taoiseach Micheál Martin wants and has... Read more »
THE NORTH IS A FAILED ENTITY
SINCE JANUARY 2017 the executive and assembly of the supposed state of Northern Ireland have only functioned for 18 months. Before that, the system operated in fits and starts. The... Read more »
WILL GALLAGHER BE REPLACED AS AG?
DUE TO a mixture of Fianna Fáil domination and coalition formation, Fine Gael legal eagles have provided just one attorney general in the last 25 years and then only for... Read more »
FF LEADER EYES UP COALITION WITH SF
ONE WISHFUL scenario being propagated by the media, and by the Irish Times in particular last week, is that even if Sinn Féin is the largest party by far after... Read more »
Hush Hush
OOH AH, UP THE RUC
ALMOST 25 years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, you might be surprised to discover that the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), to use a rather hackneyed phrase, hasn’t... Read more »
Bog Cuttings
BOG CUTTINGS
BANG FOR YOUR BUCK DROGHEDA DISTRICT Court heard the case of a 22-year-old woman who pleaded guilty to charges of public intoxication, engaging in abusive behaviour towards gardaí and refusing... Read more »
Fowl Emissions
WHERE’S THE BEEF?
FOR DECADES the fossil fuel industry has avoided regulation by systematically misrepresenting the science around climate change. To maintain the illusion of credibility, Big Oil often funnels cash into front... Read more »
LESS THAN FRANK
ALONG WITH developing dubious narratives around meat and nutrition, the livestock sector has also invested heavily in spinning away the huge climate impact of methane from cattle. The go-to guy... Read more »
The Hot Air Brigade
THE HOT AIR BRIGADE
The book is deeply personal, searingly honest and at times laugh-out-loud funny. It reads like an anatomical lesson; he cuts himself open for all to peer inside. Simon Carswell on... Read more »
High Society
LIZ OAKES’S RESOMARIUM
YOU’VE GOT to hand it to eyebrows queen Liz Oakes – the multi-talented businesswoman sure knows how to generate media attention. In the last couple of weeks there have been... Read more »
CATHERINE MARTIN’S SHORTLIST
AS THE National Gallery of Ireland (NGI) hits the one-year mark for limping along with a board full of ministerial vacancies, the good news is that arts minister Catherine Martin... Read more »
THE MORANS’ RETENTIONS AND LOSSES
RACEHORSE-LOVING Noel and Valerie Moran have continued to splash their cash, with a new hotel in Co Meath their most recent undertaking. It turns out that the pair of moneybags... Read more »
Behind the Scenes
RTE’S DIVERSITY
CONGRATULATIONS TO the three writers of the 25-minute dramas being broadcast on RTÉ 2 under the ‘Storyland’ banner. Certainly, the selection represents a vote of confidence in female talent. The... Read more »
Sport of Kings
PAUL BYRNE’S NEW NAG
WHEN TRAINER Emmett Mullins teams up with owner pal Paul Byrne for a horse deal, punters tend to take notice. They pulled off an almighty coup last year when selling... Read more »
KEELING’S PLAN STUMBLES
WHEN MONEYBAGS Joe Keeling and his ‘Friends of the Curragh’ proposed to boost the prize money to €600,000 for the Irish Cesarewitch at the track in September, the move was... Read more »
SHARK’S YANKEE DOLLARS
NOT ONLY did John Shark Hanlon plunder America’s most prestigious jumps contest when his bargain buy, Hewick, landed the $250,000 American Grand National at Far Hills in New Jersey, but... Read more »
ANDREW HOGAN’S HEAVY GOING
THE PROPOSED all-weather track development at Tipperary racecourse has suffered a potential setback in the form of a spanner lobbed into the planning works by two local residents. Having been... Read more »
Books
ALL THE BROKEN PLACES – JOHN BOYNE
BACK IN 2006, John Boyne’s young-adult novel, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, focused on the story of Bruno, the son of an Auschwitz SS officer who befriends Shmuel, a... Read more »
Moneybags
ORIGIN SHARE PRICE FAILS TO REFLECT PERFORMANCE
ORIGIN ENTERPRISES doesn’t often make headlines. As a supplier of agronomy services and agricultural inputs such as fertiliser and seed, the significant inflation in raw material prices has put the... Read more »
DIAGEO’S MENEZES NEEDS TO EARN HIS BIG BUCKS
READING THE analysis of Diageo’s very well paid CEO, Ivan Menezes, investors could imagine that the group had a fantastic year in the 12 months to the end of June... Read more »
The Hot Water Brigade
EVENT ARMY SUFFERS DEFEAT
THE DEFICIT at the online talent sourcing operation Event Army Ltd (EAL), which had traded as Mustard, could turn out to be pretty hefty judging by the figures revealed in... Read more »
JOHN MOORE SPLASHES THE CASH
NOW BASED in sunny Lisbon in Portugal, self-described “rebel entrepreneur” and “concerned citizen” John Moore has been chucking his money around here, as evidenced by some interesting filings last month.... Read more »
COLIN MCKINLAY’S ASBESTOS PROBLEM
IT’S BEEN a difficult few years for Center Parcs Ireland (CPI). No sooner had the group opened its expensive holiday village in Co Longford than it was shut down thanks... Read more »
GORDON ELLIOTT’S NEW WINNER
HIGH-PROFILE horseracing trainer Gordon Elliott has just filed some figures for his latest corporate entity. The Master of Cullentra remains the most likely jumps handler to take the champion trainer’s... Read more »
NOONAN FAMILY CLEANS UP
A COMPANY with the rather boring name of NNF Services Ltd has just been wound up and it turns out there is quite a lot of moolah sloshing around. This... Read more »
CARTOONS 4119-01
CARTOONS 4119-02
CARTOONS 4119-03
CARTOONS 4119-04
CARTOONS 4119-05
