Affairs of the Nation Archives

AFFAIRS OF THE NATION

RYANAIR’S BUSINESS CLASS

September 22, 2022
THERE WAS A bumpy landing for those financial hacks who booked their tickets for the Ryanair AGM in north County Dublin last week. The... Read more »

MYSTERY IT CRASH AT AER LINGUS

September 22, 2022
THE COMPUTERISED IT system at Aer Lingus suffered a significant outage on Saturday September 10, from 9am to 5.30pm. The disruption caused the airline... Read more »

Shane Houlihan Noel Smyth IKC Bob Geldof Landlord Ireland Neutrality Ukraine

NEW CHAIR FOR RTÉ

September 22, 2022
NEXT WEEK is the closing date for applicants seeking to land the plum job of chair of RTÉ. There should be plenty of interest... Read more »

BILL SHIPSEY’S ART WORK

September 22, 2022
IT WAS surprising to see former barrister Bill Shipsey caught in the crosshairs last week, when Amnesty International (AI) commenced legal proceedings against him... Read more »

CLEVER TREVOR’S SPEAKERS

September 22, 2022
INTERESTING TO see who is speaking at the upcoming ‘Icon’ series at the Little Museum of Dublin, where director Trevor White has signed up... Read more »

LIZ TRUSS’S ‘ETHICAL’ SPYMASTER

September 22, 2022
British teasock Liz Truss appears determined to maintain his majesty’s ship of state on a collision course with the EU. If she hopes to... Read more »

KING CHARLES AND THE IRISH

September 22, 2022
THE MEDIA seemed to be competing with their British counterparts when it came to recording the devotion of the British royals’ would-be subjects in... Read more »

SHE LOVED US, SHE LOVED US NOT

September 22, 2022
YOU HAVE to hand it to the late Queen Elizabeth, whose act in coming over all Irish-friendly in recent years was consummate, due largely... Read more »

GERRY O’BRIEN’S BUDGET PLOT

September 22, 2022
IN A flurry of recent social media publicity on Facebook and Instagram, Gerry O’Brien, the president of the Irish Equity actors and performers union,... Read more »

UKRAINIAN SILVER LINING

September 8, 2022
WITH AROUND 50,000 Ukrainian refugees now in Ireland, accommodating them has obviously caused some headaches. What is interesting, however, is that millions of euro... Read more »

VARADKAR’S NORTHERN PLOT

September 8, 2022
WHILE Taoiseach Micheál Martin mulls over his chances of surviving as Fianna Fáil leader until the next election, his replacement as leader of the... Read more »

GELDOF’S ‘TENANT’

September 8, 2022
WHEN MOTORMOUTH, and landlord, Bob Geldof paid a flying visit to Ireland this summer to visit Skibbereen and recall famine atrocities, he presumably checked... Read more »

ED GUINEY’S MOVIE MARATHONS

September 8, 2022
IT MAY have come as something of a surprise that the biggest movie hit of the season by far, Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick,... Read more »

KENNEL CLUB’S NEXT DOGFIGHT

September 8, 2022
FRIDAY NIGHT sees the latest monthly gathering of Irish Kennel Club (IKC) members, many of whom continue to fear a sale of the National... Read more »

MI6 FIGHT BORIS RETURN

September 8, 2022
BORIS JOHNSON ended his premiership with a campaign for his political rehabilitation and return via a ‘farewell tour’, showcasing his achievements to the Tory... Read more »

Ruadhan Mac Cormaic Irish Times New Editor

‘IRISH TIMES’ EDITORIAL CONTEST

September 8, 2022
THE RACE to become the new editor at the Irish Times will be more complex, political even, than normal with the ascendancy of the... Read more »

SIMON COVENEY’S TRAINING MISSION

September 8, 2022
GOLDHAWK BOWS to the military genius and alacrity displayed by defence personnel recently when the question of Irish involvement in an EU training mission... Read more »

FACTS ON THE GROUND

September 8, 2022
AS PHOENIX readers will know, Ireland’s co-operation with Nato has deepened in recent years. The Defence Forces involvement in Nato’s operational capability concept (OCC)... Read more »

ZERO CRED

September 8, 2022
As the climate crisis deepens, it is heartening to see corporate Ireland respond to the emergency. Take the new group, The Alliance for Zero... Read more »

‘IRISH TIMES’ HOT SEAT

August 25, 2022
THE EXIT of Paul O’Neill, after little more than five years as the editor of the Irish Times, came as a surprise to outsiders,... Read more »

MORE HEADACHES FOR DEE FORBES

August 25, 2022
RTÉ’S HEAD of news and current affairs, Jon Williams, threw a clever feint with his new year’s message to staff back in January by... Read more »

LAW SOCIETY TRUCE

August 25, 2022
BOTH SIDES have temporarily backed down in the Law Society controversy that saw a motion to expel 2020-21 president James Cahill from the society’s... Read more »

PAT MCDONAGH’S BUN FIGHT

August 25, 2022
BURGER KING Pat ‘Supermac’s’ McDonagh found himself in a stand-off with a Limerick-based franchisee John Lyons over alleged rent arrears. It looks like the... Read more »

CLINTEL’S DECLARATION

August 25, 2022
WITH EVIDENCE of climate change impossible to avoid this summer a Dutch-based group Clintel, mainly funded by a real-estate millionaire, issued a statement that... Read more »

HEAVY GOING AT HRI

August 25, 2022
THE LONG overdue publication of the annual report of Brian Kavanagh’s Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) agency is due next month and there will be... Read more »

Dermot McCarthy Ireland Energy Independence

DERMOT McCARTHY’S REVIEW

August 25, 2022
WITH THE hapless Irish public facing a ‘perfect storm’ of power cuts, fuel rationing and soaring prices both this and next winter, the Government... Read more »

ALTADA SETS THE RECORD STRAIGHT

August 25, 2022
IT HAS been a hectic August for Allan Beechinor and Niamh Parker, the principals in the Altada artificial intelligence (AI) outfit tipped to be... Read more »

‘TANS’ WRITTEN OUT OF HISTORY

August 25, 2022
A DISAPPOINTED Charlie ‘BlackandTanAgain’ Flanagan and friends will not, as promised, be organising another effort to celebrate the contribution of the Royal Irish Constabulary... Read more »

KINCORA WHISTLE BLOWER DIES

August 25, 2022
CAPTAIN BRIAN GEMMELL, who ran loyalist agents for MI5 in the mid-1970s, has died. When Gemmell discovered that boys were being abused by a... Read more »

ZUZANA’S ZETBACK

August 25, 2022
GOLDHAWK SPOTTED that a judgment for a hefty $438,000 (€439,000) has been registered against Co Waterford developer Shane Houlihan and his American wife, Zuzana... Read more »

AN ENEMY OF THE CROWN

August 25, 2022
NEW INFORMATION about a decade-long MI6 smear campaign against Charles Haughey and even an operation to sully St John Hume is about to be... Read more »

DUBAI JUDGES: WHO KNEW AND WHEN?

August 11, 2022
SABINA HIGGINS’S public spat may have helped to obscure not so much the appointment of heavyweight Irish judges Frank Clarke and Peter Kelly to... Read more »

BISHOPS CENSORED!

August 11, 2022
THE NORTHERN Ireland Equality Commission is mulling over a request for “advice” from an unusual quarter – the Catholic Primate of All Ireland, Archbishop... Read more »

ALL ABOUT EVA

August 11, 2022
HEALTH GURU Eva Orsmond (previously of Operation Transformation fame) was back on RTÉ this week with the second series on her attempt to open... Read more »

FRANCES RUANE’S SHORT RUN

August 11, 2022
AS GOLDHAWK predicted (see The Phoenix 17/6/22), former economist Frances Ruane has been given just a two-year extension to her initial five-year term as... Read more »

FRANC’S UKRAINIAN BONUS

August 11, 2022
GOLDHAWK’S favourite wedding planner, Peter Kelly, aka ‘Franc’, has been doing rather better out of the State coffers this year than was the case... Read more »