Affairs of the Nation Archives

AFFAIRS OF THE NATION

PAISLEY’S JUNKET

January 24, 2019

CO-OPERATION IRELAND, which funded Ian Paisley’s first-class junket (£6,327 in travel and accommodation) to New York last year, is headed by a former... Read more »

LAW SOCIETY WARS

January 24, 2019

MAYO SOLICITOR Daniel Coleman has just emerged from a decade-long joust with the Law Society. He was successful in an appeal to the... Read more »

PADDY PRENDERGAST’S PROJECT

January 24, 2019

NOT FOR the first time, Trinity College Dublin students are expressing their dissatisfaction with Provost Paddy Prendergast and his administration (see The Phoenix,... Read more »

EILEEN BATTERSBY’S LITERARY LUVVIES

January 10, 2019

THE OUTPOURINGS from literati in the Irish Times and elsewhere following the death of literary correspondent Eileen Battersby disguised the tensions that existed... Read more »

MARY ROBINSON’S CREDENTIALS

January 10, 2019

MOST OBSERVERS have been baffled by Mary Robinson’s blunder in giving cover to the feudal Emirates ruling family and noticed the irony of... Read more »

DIARMUID MARTIN’S SUCCESSOR

January 10, 2019

The race to succeed Diarmuid Martin as Archbishop of Dublin has begun in earnest, even though the most successful head in recent times... Read more »

NIALL MCGARRY’S BIG YEAR

January 10, 2019

GOLHAWK’S favourite self-promoting online publisher, Niall McGarry, has hit the ground running in 2019, promising a very big year for his Maximum Media... Read more »

‘IRISH TIMES’ ROMAN FEUD

January 10, 2019

THE IRISH TIMES’S refusal to adequately recompense Paddy Agnew, its Rome correspondent of 28 years, has now involved six hearings at the Tribunale... Read more »

THOSE IRISH YELLOW VESTS

January 10, 2019

Who exactly are the Irish Yellow Vests? The movement in France is a leaderless broad church but, although subject to some right-wing infiltration,... Read more »

HELEN LUCEY’S SEMI-KINGDOM

January 10, 2019

THE LAW Society Gazette’s report last month on sanctions imposed on Listowel solicitor Helen Lucey raises an interesting question about Lucey’s role of... Read more »

ODRAN REID’S POLITICS

January 10, 2019

The changes continue apace at Brendan Halligan’s Ireland China Institute, the “independent think tank dedicated to the study of Irish Chinese affairs”. The... Read more »

SOFTLY DOES IT WITH THE MAKTOUMS

January 9, 2019

GIVEN THE influence of the Dubai ruling Al Maktoum family here, the silence to date of the Irish government on the Sheikha Latifa... Read more »

COVENEY’S CAREFUL CHOREOGRAPHY

December 13, 2018

ALAN SHATTER’S predictable outburst against Simon Coveney on the Israel-Palestine issue will actually be welcomed by the foreign minister. Far from behaving like... Read more »

TROUBLE BREWING AT TROY STUDIOS?

December 13, 2018

IN FEBRUARY this year, culture minister Josepha Madigan was invited to a ‘do’ in the Merrion Hotel, Dublin, by Kim Harris, general counsel... Read more »

PITT’S HUNT FOR INM LEAKS

December 13, 2018
THE SHINE has come off former Independent News & Media (INM) chief executive Robert Pitt – the man who blew the whistle on INM’s... Read more »

COMMONWEALTH BLUES

December 13, 2018

AT THE height of the Brexit crisis, what are Fine Gael senators Neale Richmond and Frankie Feighan up to in their promotion of... Read more »

FF MAN TO SAVE MADAM MENG?

December 13, 2018

FORMER Fianna Fáil spin doctor Dave Harmon will surely be called on to provide political and diplomatic assistance to Ms Meng Wanzhou, chief... Read more »

DIVIDENDS AT GRAFTON COLLEGE

December 13, 2018

WHILE THE sudden closure of Grafton College English language school attracted plenty of media attention, little has been said about the operation behind... Read more »

PHIL HOGAN V FRANCES FITZGERALD

December 13, 2018

SUCH IS the poll-induced hubris in Fine Gael, especially in Dublin, that party seniors are already divvying up and apportioning potential MEPs and... Read more »

UNION FACTION FIGHTS

December 13, 2018

AN INTRIGUING political quarrel inside the country’s second-largest union, Fórsa, saw its youth wing, Fórsa Youth Network, closed down recently by the union’s... Read more »

CHASING MICHAEL HEGARTY

December 13, 2018

FANS OF Goldhawk may have been a tad surprised to see East Cork Blueshirt county councillor Michael Hegarty pop up on a three-man... Read more »

ZAPPER ZAPS HER CONSTITUENCY

November 29, 2018

THE DANCING on children’s minister, Katherine Zappone’s political coffin that Fine Gael and media commentators have engaged in could be most premature judging... Read more »

DANA LIBEL SAGA: CHAPTER 1

November 29, 2018
DANA’S libel settlement with the Sunday World this week is just the beginning of a long, litigious war for the singer and former presidential... Read more »

DENIS O’BRIEN’S AWARD

November 29, 2018

CONGRATULATIONS TO Denis O’Brien, who has landed an honorary fellowship from the National College of Ireland (NCI). It is the least the great... Read more »

LUKE COMER’S HEAVY GOING

November 29, 2018

ALTHOUGH ONLY a handful of people in this country can claim to be richer than developer Luke Comer, he finds himself being sued... Read more »

LORRAINE HIGGINS FOR EUROPE?

November 29, 2018

FORMER LABOUR senator Lorraine Higgins has suddenly become a lady that lunches with Blueblouse women and has been tweeting in support of the... Read more »

JACKIE LAVIN’S LITIGATION

November 29, 2018

INTERESTING to see Jackie Lavin once again suing Bill Cullen (this time with Ulster Bank). The happy couple have been down this road... Read more »

OOOPS! THE MONEY IS GONE

November 29, 2018

FANS OF Goldhawk will be familiar with the lengthy liquidation saga at Ralph Christians’s Magma Films, where the end is finally in sight.... Read more »

WHO FEARS TO SPEAK?

November 29, 2018

EARLY LAST month, French President Emmanuel Macron demanded the creation of a “real European army”, arguing in apocalyptic mode that “we have to... Read more »

UCD PRESIDENT’S MAR-A-LAGO

November 29, 2018

AUSSIE GO-GETTER and UCD president Andrew Deeks has caused academic eyebrows to arch with his grandiose projects, including the €48m creative design centre;... Read more »

DR VARADKAR’S DILEMMA

November 15, 2018

TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar has been defended by his party colleagues as a doctor with experience of management practice in the health service after... Read more »

IVY’S PR BLITZ

November 15, 2018

SOME rather ingratiating advertisements appeared in the national dailies recently, thanking Irish customers of The Ivy restaurant, the ritzy eatery that opened in... Read more »

LOVIN MEDIA’S SAUDI LOVE IN

November 15, 2018

Irish businessman Emmet O’Neill must be shocked at some of the articles being published by Lovin Saudi, a franchise of his Lovin Media... Read more »

LOST LEADER BRIAN HAYES

November 15, 2018

RICHARD BRUTON is the man that effectively blocked MEP Brian Hayes’s planned route back to the top in national politics. But judging by... Read more »

ARAMARK RATTLED

November 15, 2018

Is food services giant Aramark starting to panic about the boycott of its cafes and restaurants by students at the University of Limerick... Read more »

JOHN ARKINS’S HEADACHE

November 15, 2018
THE TIMING of Prime Time’s recent breathless exposé of the Irish film industry was less than perfect for the Irish Film Workers Association (IFWA),... Read more »