Affairs of the Nation Archives

AFFAIRS OF THE NATION

PRESIDENTIAL PURGE

January 13, 2022
IRISH TIMES news values asserted themselves days after Christmas with a front page story culled from declassified 1990 state papers headlined, “Áras in a... Read more »

EU SPECIAL POLICE

January 13, 2022
IT HAS come to Goldhawk’s attention that the garda’s Emergency Response Unit (ERU) is part of an interesting and little known European Union entity... Read more »

POST-BREXIT: FEDERAL EU

December 16, 2021
TUCKED AWAY almost out of sight at the end of the Irish Times report on the recent formation of the German government was the... Read more »

Shane Houlihan Noel Smyth IKC Bob Geldof Landlord Ireland Neutrality Ukraine

HARNEY’S MOOLAH

December 16, 2021
THE BUSY former health minister Mary Harney has been putting her money where her mouth is. And it looks like her various corporate interests... Read more »

ENDA KENNY’S CHINESE TAKEAWAY

December 16, 2021
LAST WEEKEND, the Business Post reported trouble brewing in Belfield, where a Chinese-funded educational body has been accused of straying into the political field.... Read more »

ROSE HYNES’S SMOOTH FLIGHT

December 16, 2021
THE DEPARTMENT of Transport has just advertised the position of chair of the Irish Aviation Authority. The question interested parties will have is whether... Read more »

EDDIE HOBBS’S HERESY

December 16, 2021
TO THE already bulging shelves of Irish literature Eddie Hobbs has now added his first novel, The First Heresy, which he revealed on Twitter... Read more »

IRISH TIMES PANDEMIC PROFITS

December 16, 2021
WHILE THE Irish Times only picked up the one gong in the UCD Smurfit Business School journo awards this week, the performance of the... Read more »

ADAMS HASN’T GONE AWAY YOU KNOW

December 16, 2021
AFTER RECORD breaking poll ratings the last thing Sinn Féin – or some of the more electorally sensitive members in the leadership – wanted... Read more »

THE GARDAÍ’S VIRTUAL HERO

December 16, 2021
THEY’RE A fun-loving lot at the Garda Review, publication of the Garda Representative Association (GRA), and the current edition has a full-on front page... Read more »

EX-INM EDITOR SUES ‘SUNDAY TIMES’ HACK

December 16, 2021
A SIGNIFICANT issue of press freedom will shortly be determined in the High Court arising from a libel action taken by Stephen Rae, former... Read more »

FG/GREEN ‘UNITY’

December 16, 2021
THE CONTINUING decline in Fine Gael’s popularity is beginning to look less like a slump and more like a death spiral. Panic in the... Read more »

SIMON COVENEY’S CONUNDRUM

December 2, 2021
HOW LONG more will Minister Simon Coveney’s floundering and dangerous foreign policy agenda in the African continent go unreported in the Irish media? Ireland... Read more »

ROBERT QUIRKE’S VENTILATORS

December 2, 2021
MORE THAN 20 months after Covid-19 impacted this country, one of the players who made a killing by importing ventilators is now living in... Read more »

JOHN GOODWIN’S PENTHOUSE

December 2, 2021
IT WAS not quite the raffle result that John Goodwin expected when he put his expensive Grand Canal penthouse apartment up for grabs, courtesy... Read more »

THE ‘IT’ IN TRINNERS

December 2, 2021
IRISH TIMES editor Paul O’Neill was presumably somewhat relieved that a referendum carried out at Trinity College Dublin fell short of having the newspaper... Read more »

ISRAELI PROPAGANDA BLITZ

December 2, 2021
FORMER UCD president Hugh Brady is moving from the president’s chair at the University of Bristol to become president of Imperial College London. But... Read more »

CHARLIE AND BRITISH INTELLIGENCE

December 2, 2021
GARY MURPHY’S book Haughey may disappoint some long-standing Phoenix readers as the author barely addresses the Squire’s bruising entanglements with Her Majesty’s spooks. Murphy... Read more »

IMMORAL IRISH

December 2, 2021
MANY READERS of The Phoenix will recognise the episodic campaigns for Ireland to formally join up with the incipient EU military machine being constructed... Read more »

SQUIRE HOCKEY’S BEN DUNNE DOSH

December 2, 2021
IN THE biography Haughey, Gary Murphy writes that RTÉ’s Prime Time reported on April 17, 1997, that Ben Dunne had given CJ Haughey more... Read more »

CIARA KELLY’S RUDE HEALTH

December 1, 2021
ONE OF the names on star agent Noel Kelly’s roster of ‘talent’ is doctor-turned broadcaster Ciara Kelly, who has just filed some revealing accounts.... Read more »

MARY ROBINSON’S SACRED COWS

November 18, 2021
FORMER IRISH president Mary Robinson made headlines around the world for her emotionally charged interview at the Cop26 conference in Glasgow in which, her... Read more »

DRINKAWARE’S BAR BILL

November 18, 2021
AFTER NUMEROUS and lengthy delays, the latest phase of the Public Health (Alcohol) Amendment Bill came into effect last week, notably introducing significant restrictions... Read more »

JOE MCHUGH’S STRATEGY

November 18, 2021
JOE MCHUGH’S threat to resign from Fine Gael – which party made him a minister twice – if the mica protesters don’t get what... Read more »

SHANE ROSS’S BANKING ACCOUNT

November 18, 2021
LAST WEEKEND, Shane Ross took a pop at those he claimed had escaped the sort of abuse poor old Sean Fitzpatrick got as a... Read more »

BERTIE AND THE ‘REAL’ PEACEMAKERS

November 18, 2021
WHAT A waspish speech Bertie Ahern made when launching former junior foreign minister Conor Lenihan’s biography, Albert Reynolds, Risk Taker for Peace, last week.... Read more »

UK LABOUR HUNTS DOWN POET HIGGINS

November 18, 2021
THE BRITISH Labour party, post Jeremy Corbyn, has been in the process of purging left-wing elements from its ranks and even though he is... Read more »

BATTLE ROYAL: LORD LOUIS’S DIARIES

November 18, 2021
THE BRITISH government is engaged in a battle royal to conceal the historical papers of the queen’s uncle and former navy admiral, Lord Louis... Read more »

ANNUAL 2021: GOLDHAWK’S AWARDS FOR THE PASSING PARADE 2021

November 18, 2021
Declan Kelly THE 2021 Crisis Management Award of the Year goes to Dancing Declan Kelly – the former head honcho of Teneo – for... Read more »

THE ABBEY’S €700,000 DRAMA

November 4, 2021
WITH THE arrival at the Abbey theatre during the summer of Catríona McLaughlin (artistic director) and Mark O’Brien (executive director), the stage was set... Read more »

O’BRIEN VS ZUCKERBERG

November 4, 2021
DENIS O’BRIEN has had a busy couple of weeks, selling off a chunk of his Digicel group to the Aussies and also finding time... Read more »

STEFANIE PREISSNER’S PROFITS

November 4, 2021
IT IS increasingly hard to avoid Stefanie Preissner these days (for anybody who might want to), with two separate radio stations opting to feature... Read more »

MATT DEMPSEY GOES GREEN

November 4, 2021
TIME WAS when Matt Dempsey, former editor of the Irish Farmers Journal and a Kildare farmer himself was the champion of dairy and beef... Read more »

PHARMACISTS’ STRONG MEDICINE

November 4, 2021
WITH A Covid-19 vaccine booster campaign on the table following the recommendation from the National Immunisation Audit Committee earlier this week, Dermot Twomey and... Read more »

CORRECTION

November 4, 2021
IN THE Phoenix edition, October 8, 2021, an article entitled ‘LEGAL SAGA NEAR AN END?’ referred to a 15-year-old legal battle between Bernard and... Read more »

‘DIPLOMAT’ DAVID GOODALL

November 4, 2021
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY of Ireland Press recently published The Making of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 by British diplomat David Goodall – chief driver on... Read more »