Affairs of the Nation Archives

AFFAIRS OF THE NATION

Ian Paisley Sean O’Riordan Margaret Sweeney Jay Bourke Ellie Kisyombe Francesca McDonagh Ted Cunningham National Space Centre An Irish Goodbye Oscar Robert Quirke Ciara Kelly Executive Women Gathering Doug Taylor Florian Haufe Robbie Henshaw Bill Shipsey Breaking the Silence L’Ecrivain Ronan McNally National Lottery Michael Roche Energy Action Balls.ie Newspapers VAT Abbey Theatre Patricia Madden Irish Banking Culture Board Randox Aoife Gallagher Book Dalai Lama Trinity Trevor White RTÉ Chairperson Shane Houlihan Noel Smyth IKC Bob Geldof Landlord Ireland Neutrality Ukraine

CULTURE CLUB

October 19, 2022
THERE HAS been a flurry of letter writing activity in the Irish Times this month relating to the little-known Irish Banking Culture Board (IBCB),... Read more »

TEVIAN’S TRAVAILS

October 19, 2022
A JUDGMENT has just been registered by PR queen Caroline Kennedy against the fabulously named Tevian Mirrelson, who previously came to the attention of... Read more »

LAW SOCIETY ABSTENTIONISTS

October 19, 2022
HOW EMBARRASSING. With elections pending to the Law Society Council, members have been informed there will be no such election as not enough solicitors... Read more »

Micheal Martin Fianna Fáil Housing Crisis

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S NIMBYISM

October 6, 2022
TAOISEACH Micheál Martin became a little tetchy last Sunday when Justin McCarthy of RTÉ’s This Week programme reminded him that he had described the... Read more »

MICHAEL D’S NEW YORK PALS

October 6, 2022
TWO SIGNIFICANT twists in the ongoing saga of the attempt to sell off the prestigious American Irish Historical Society (AIHS) building in New York... Read more »

BARNIVILLE DEFENDS ‘PRIVATE’ JUDGES

October 6, 2022
WITH IMPECCABLE timing, just as the first ever judicial misconduct complaints procedure is due, High Court president Mr Justice David Barniville proceeds to demonstrate... Read more »

KINCORA COVER-UP — AGAIN

October 6, 2022
THE KINCORA Boys’ Home scandal, as old as the northern Troubles, not only refuses to go away but now threatens to burst into the... Read more »

AID FOR DALAI LAMA

October 6, 2022
the 87-year-old Dalai Lama must be wondering where Robo is when you need her, as a Trinity College Dublin (TCD) committee agonises about whether... Read more »

GUNS’N’HOUSES

October 6, 2022
THE “MODEST” 5.6% increase in Irish defence spending – to €1.174bn – in Budget 2023 appeared not to cause any negative reaction from either... Read more »

AER LINGUS HACKED AGAIN?

October 6, 2022
WHEN AER LINGUS suffered a significant IT outage on September 10, Goldhawk pointed out that the account provided by the airline made little sense... Read more »

FINE GAEL BORDER POLL

October 6, 2022
MORE EVIDENCE of Leo Varadkar’s cunning plot to outmanoeuvre Micheál Martin on the national question (see The Phoenix 9/9/22) came with his appearance at... Read more »

FF/FG CIVIL WARS

October 6, 2022
THE PERSISTENCE of Cork City Fine Gael councillors and others in their quest to honour Michael Collins with the erection of a statue has... Read more »

CAUGHT RED HANDED

October 6, 2022
CONTROVERSIAL LOYALIST Jolene Bunting was elected to Belfast City Council in 2014. Offensive comments about Muslims, jokes about the famine and allowing British first... Read more »

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 crash on Saturday September 10, from 9am to 5.30pm. The disruption caused the airline... Read more »

NEW CHAIR FOR RTÉ

September 22, 2022
NEXT WEEK is the closing date for applicants seeking to land the plum job of chairperson 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 friendly toward Ireland in recent years was consummate,... 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 »