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March 22 - April 4, 2024
Affairs of the Nation
NORTH HARMONY THREATENED
THE LOVE-IN between Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill and Jeffrey Donaldson’s puppet deputy first minister, Emma Little-Pengelly, should not fool people into believing that lasting harmony has overtaken the northern assembly... Read more »
SUE SPENCE’S SHORTS
THERE WAS no celebrating at Cheltenham for the well-connected businesswoman Sue Spence, whose Tranquil Sea did not make it on to the turf for the Boodles Juvenile Hurdle despite having... Read more »
TRINA VARGO’S FAILING FUND
US-IRELAND Alliance (USIA) president Trina Vargo’s statement last week on the “pausing” of the George J Mitchell Scholarship programme didn’t quite get across the abject failure of her entity to... Read more »
Sponsored Content
Dublin Port Spotlights Ireland’s Exporters
Focus begins with €6.3 billion dairy industry as Dublin Port teams up with Ice Cream Treats Record Lo-Lo container volumes handled in May Dublin Port Company has today put... Read more »
RECOGNISING PALESTINE — AGAIN
WORDS MATTER. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s statements criticising Israel’s war on Gaza have helped to muster world opinion against Israeli genocide there. But words should not be a substitute for real... Read more »
TRIPLE LOCK TO GO?
IT OCCURRED to Goldhawk on recently reading the Irish Times’s political editor, Pat ‘The Brigadier’ Leahy, that he had contracted gout on some mission abroad, such was the testy, belligerent... Read more »
DON’T MENTION THE WAR
LAST WEEKEND’S article in the Irish Times by novelist Sally Rooney represented one of the relatively few public criticisms of the US’s policy on Israel by a high-profile Irish writer.... Read more »
IN THEIR ELEMENT
“WE NEED to actually invest in developing our own stories,” declared movie producer Ed Guiney, pointing out that there “just isn’t enough investment in television drama in Ireland” in a... Read more »
CORRECTION
In The Phoenix 8/3/24, it was reported that GC Aesthetics was being wound up. We have been informed that the operating company, GC Aesthetics, is unaffected and is “trading well…... Read more »
DENTON NO-SHOW TO FOLLOW KENOVA?
OPERATION KENOVA investigated a string of murders perpetrated by Freddie Scappaticci and his associates. It did not result in a single criminal prosecution. Scappaticci, a member of the IRA, worked... Read more »
NATIONAL PARTY ‘MODERATES’
DIVISIONS IN the far-right National Party (NP) emerged publicly last July due to a dispute over the ownership of more than €400,000 worth of gold bars, with two factions claiming... Read more »
Pillars of Society
PROFILE: MICHAEL MCDOWELL
MICHAEL McDOWELL was the stand-out personality in the referendums campaign and his elation at the count was visible as ‘no’ activists gathered eagerly around... Read more »
The Young Bloods
THE YOUNG BLOODS: ROB KENNY
HAVING GAINED an early profile through the social media site Snapchat, the canny Rob Kenny combines running a PR agency with being a social... Read more »
Championing Corporate Integrity: CEA’s 2024 Annual Report
The Corporate Enforcement Authority (CEA), Ireland’s dedicated company law enforcement agency, has released its second annual report, highlighting a year of robust action and strategic progress. As the CEA... Read more »
Fit to Print?
ANOTHER KENNEALLY SCANDAL
CHILD ABUSER Bill Kenneally, a member of the well-known Fianna Fáil family, is in jail for multiple child sex offences committed between 1979 and 1990. He is currently the subject... Read more »
BAD ADVICE
ROLL OF honour or street of shame? A hefty, three-page catalogue of the Government’s 68 advisors, national handlers and media manipulators drawn up by seven of the Irish Times’s finest... Read more »
ARAGE IMAGERY SLAMMED
THE BUSINESS POST provoked a storm on X recently with a studious and well-meaning article, by Aidan Regan, on immigration and how to blunt efforts by the far right to... Read more »
Last Refuge
LISA: ‘NON, JE NE REGRETTE RIEN’
WAS THERE ever a more controversial ‘no’ vote by one individual in a referendum? The last-minute decision of Fianna Fáil Seanad leader Lisa Chambers to vote ‘no’ in the recent... Read more »
COMRADES STAGG AND PRESIDENT HIGGINS
THE WHIFF of authentic sincerity marked the tributes of President Michael D Higgins to the recently departed ex-Labour minister Emmet Stagg and the two were definitely close comrades in the... Read more »
FINTAN O’TOOLE’S FUTURE
RECENTLY RETIRED Irish Times seer Fintan O’Toole will surely feel compelled to do what he has been threatening to do for some years now, namely stand for election to the... Read more »
LEADERSHIP PARANOIA IN GOVERNMENT
THE WELTER of criticism levelled at integration minister Roderic O’Gorman about the near Gaza-like conditions of Tent City in Dublin’s Mount Street was led not by the opposition but by... Read more »
Hush Hush
DISSIDENT DRUMS
THE MOOD at dissident republican Easter commemorations this year is likely to be subdued with no sustained armed campaign under way, while the electoral rise of Sinn Féin seems irresistible.... Read more »
Bog Cuttings
BOG CUTTINGS
FISTICUFFED Sligo District Court heard the case of a 25-year-old man who pleaded guilty to engaging in abusive or threatening behaviour towards gardaí following an incident on Shore Road, Sligo.... Read more »
Fowl Emissions
CRUELLA VON DER LEYEN BACKS BIG AG
Fresh from giving Israel carte blanche to commit murder and mayhem in Gaza with the EU’s unconditional backing, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen did her own Cruella de... Read more »
TIMBER!
Joy was unconfined in environmental circles with the revelation earlier this week that Coillte, the state-owned forestry agency, was to turn over a new leaf and switch its focus towards... Read more »
The Hot Air Brigade
THE HOT AIR BRIGADE
The whole programme is a bit like a Japanese bullet train whizzing from Osaka to Tokyo. Pat Spillane on the All-Ireland football season, Irish Independent It is fitting that he... Read more »
High Society
ROSS LEWIS’S RICH DISH
AS USUAL, there was plenty of speculation last month ahead of the Michelin restaurant awards that Dublin’s swanky Chapter One might land a third... Read more »
JOHN MOREHART’S WILDFOWL
JOHN MOREHART, squire of the splendid Bellamont House and its 1,000 acres outside Cootehill, Co Cavan, has been getting busy again. It will be... Read more »
PEDRO DE AZAMBUJA’S DOUBLE FAULTS
WITH AN asking price of no less than €5.5m, the Georgian Kilquade Hill House outside Greystones in Co Wicklow is one of the pricier piles to come on the market... Read more »
Is David Howard one of Ireland’s most influential?
David Howard’s name rarely graces headlines, yet his subtle, profound impact on Ireland’s Health and blockchain spheres cannot be understated. Operating discreetly, his expertise and networking weave a powerful... Read more »
Behind the Scenes
IRISH OSCAR PLOT SPOILERS
Despite all the hoopla around the successful Oscar run by Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer and Element Pictures’ Poor Things, the delirious hacks have managed to remain undistracted by inconvenient plot... Read more »
VICKI NOTARO’S FANS
NO SURPRISE to see well-connected former VIP Publishing boss Vicki Notaro attracting some high-level plugs for her upcoming debut novel, Reality Check. These include the likes of fellow Penguin imprint... Read more »
Sport of Kings
WRECKING BALLS-UP
BARRY CONNELL’S short-priced ante-post favourite for Cheltenham’s Arkle Chase, Marine Nationale, was ruled out of Cheltenham following his flop at the Dublin Racing Festival last month. Of course, he also... Read more »
ANTI-DOPING INITIATIVE
THE IRISH Horseracing Regulatory Board and the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) recently joined forces in an anti-doping initiative. Citing “out-of-competition testing” as a critical component of any strategy, tests will... Read more »
MULLINS’S ROUGH DIAMOND
While Patrick Mullins’s victory aboard Jasmine De Vaux provided his father, Willie, with his 100th Cheltenham success, his faith in Ashroe Diamond in the Mares Hurdle proved to be misplaced.... Read more »
Moneybags
GENE MURTAGH’S STRANGE STRATEGY AT KINGSPAN
SHORTLY BEFORE the company’s latest PR debacle at the hands of the EU, Kingspan CEO Gene Murtagh announced a strategy involving the commitment of... Read more »
RISING CAIRN HOMES SHARES STILL UNDERVALUED
THE HOUSING crisis continues to dominate politics but, were it not for the raising of almost €1bn in equity between Cairn Homes and Glenveagh,... Read more »
How to Improve Your Chances of getting a Bank Loan for Your Business
First impressions matter. It is important for SMEs to make the best possible case when applying for credit from financial institutions. Banks assess each business application on a case-by-case... Read more »
Brief Cases
JOHN PAUL KEANE’S CONNECTIONS
THE LUXEMBOURG-based Irish financier John Paul Keane has been attracting a fair degree of media attention as a result of teaming up with one Conor McGregor. He has also had... Read more »
MAURICE GILLEN’S BUM NOTE
A NUMBER of companies that were controlled by the king of Galway’s nightclub scene during the boom, Maurice Gillen, are to be wound up next week, long after the wheels... Read more »
COLM O’CUILLEANAIN’S VISIBLE THREAD
A FIVE-bed pile in Rathmichael D18 has come on the market with a price tag of €2.8m – steep for sure but not quite Hamptons level. The owner here turns... Read more »
ROUND TWO AT FOTA ISLAND RESORT
JUST ONE month after a settlement was reached in the high-stakes legal poker game between China-based businessman Yuzhu Kang and his former associate, Fota Island-based Xiu Xianj Kelly, over ownership... Read more »
Dovida’s Live-in Care Service
A compelling alternative to nursing home care, delivered by the most experienced care provider in Ireland Michael Wright, Director of Growth, Dovida Ireland Growth in nursing home... Read more »
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