Last Refuge Archives

Last Refuge

HOLLY CAIRNS GETS NERVOUS

November 12, 2025

HOLLY CAIRNS was given much media coverage for her remarks distancing herself from Sinn Féin, with criticisms that its policies were not left-wing... Read more »

TERRY PRONE V PJ MARA

November 12, 2025

WHAT INTRIGUING insights into the behaviour of spin doctors and politicians are included, some inadvertently, in Terry Prone’s latest book – I’m Glad... Read more »

The most appropriate epithet of the year may well be Micheál Martin’s new nickname – Louis XIV.

ANNUAL 2025: GOVERNMENT – HUBRIS OVERWHELMS GOVERNMENT

November 12, 2025

AS 2024 culminated with a general election, the abiding impression exuded by party leaders Micheál Martin and Simon Harris was one of entitlement... Read more »

Following the Sinn Féin-backed presidential campaign, Mary Lou McDonald’s party has a more realistic chance of getting into government.

ANNUAL 2025: OPPOSITION – SINN FÉIN’S NEW ROUTE TO POWER

November 12, 2025

Sinn Féin is looking forward to 2026 in a far more optimistic mood than was the case last year. Then the party had... Read more »

Sinn Féin first minister Michelle O’Neill attended the cenotaph in Belfast at the annual Somme commemoration, insisting that she has to show respect for unionist traditions if she is to live up to her slogan as ‘first minister for all’.

ANNUAL 2025: POLITICS – PARALYSIS SEIZES NORTH

November 12, 2025

At least one item was missing in the north in 2025. There was no election. People might have expected that, in the absence... Read more »

HOW LONG CAN MARTIN HOLD ON?

October 30, 2025

The alienation of Fine Gael hard man Big Phil Hogan in 2020 was a source of some regret to then taoiseach Leo Varadkar... Read more »

SPECTRE OF CATHERINE AND MARY LOU

October 30, 2025

THERE IS considerable trepidation among right-thinking people at the very large vote that left-alliance presidential candidate Catherine Connolly pulled last week. A distraught... Read more »

WHY SEÁN KELLY WAS BLOCKED

October 30, 2025

FINE GAEL approached the presidential contest with quiet confidence last summer, with super EU technocrat Mairead McGuinness the clear favourite until she was... Read more »

O’CALLAGHAN SITS TIGHT

October 16, 2025

WHEN BILLY KELLEHER threw down the gauntlet to Micheál Martin and his presidential choice, Jim Gavin, Jim O’Callaghan trod a most cautious path... Read more »

NEW RIGHT NEW PARTY

October 16, 2025

A NEW middle-class party appears to be in gestation, judging by the noise surrounding the failure of Maria Steen’s smash-and-grab effort to break... Read more »

Janice Boylan Irish Military Mali Coolock Says No IFP Hermann Kelly Timmy Dooley Aontú Mal O’Hara Fintan O’Toole Josepha Madigan Eoghan Harris Ukraine War Micheál Martin Middle East Philip Ryan Seán Clancy Simon Coveney Hugo MacNeill Mountbatten Neasa Hourigan Green Party Martin NPT Ivana Bacik Independents Limerick Hospital Overcrowding Barry Cowen

MI6 AND CHARLIE HAUGHEY

October 16, 2025

Martin Mansergh will be remembered for his role in the northern peace process but less so for his deep understanding of British intelligence... Read more »

YATES: ‘LET’S HEAR THE BASTARD DENY IT’

October 16, 2025

THE ARRESTING advice offered by ex-Fine Gael minister Ivan Yates to his former party colleague, presidential candidate Heather Humphreys, on how to handle... Read more »

STEEN GRIPPED BY NEW RIGHT

October 2, 2025

THE OUTRAGE displayed by Maria Steen’s allies and supporters at Michael McDowell’s failure to return her calls as she lobbied him for a... Read more »

EU: THE REAL CON

October 2, 2025

WITH DONALD TRUMP dissing the European Union and also declaring climate change to be one big con, it’s worth looking at the real... Read more »

FF COUNCILLORS VOTE DOWN MARTIN’S ‘SHARED ISLAND’

October 2, 2025

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S attack on local councils over housing policy is not the only cause for local dissent with the Taoiseach and his northern... Read more »

CONNOLLY’S COLONIAL COMRADES

October 2, 2025

THE MAIN bone of contention for some in Sinn Féin at Catherine Connolly’s presidential nomination (see p14) was whether she was serious about... Read more »

BOB GELDOF’S MASTER PLAN

September 18, 2025

THE MYSTERY of why Bob Geldof should want to be president of a nation whose 1916 origins he despises and whose leaders, Pearse... Read more »

DANGEROUS MOMENTS FOR MICHEÁL MARTIN

September 18, 2025

WITH FIANNA FÁIL back bench TDs now getting the bit firmly between their teeth in the revolt against Micheál Martin’s Brezhnev behaviour in... Read more »

VIKTOR ORBÁN SNUBBED

September 18, 2025

HUNGARIAN PRIME MINISTER Viktor Orbán cut a lonely figure, politically and diplomatically speaking, at the Ireland v Hungary soccer match in Dublin this... Read more »

CRUELLA MACNEILL DEVOURS HEALTH OFFICIAL

September 18, 2025

FOLLOWING HER long-range sniper shot at party leader Simon Harris, appropriately enough at Béal na Bláth last month, news emerged of health minister... Read more »

CARROLL MacNEILL AMBUSHES HARRIS

September 4, 2025

THE PRESIDENTIAL splits in Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and Labour are timid affairs compared to the titanic political assault being prepared by Fine... Read more »

JIM O’CALLAGHAN’S HIGH-WIRE ACT

September 4, 2025

AFTER LESS than a year in Cabinet – the most high-achieving minister so far among their number – justice minister Jim O’Callaghan did... Read more »

THOMAS BYRNE: ‘NO PRESS GANG’

September 4, 2025

EUROPEAN AFFAIRS minister Thomas Byrne was most indignant at Sinn Féin’s recent suggestion that conscription was on the cards if abolition of the... Read more »

FINLAY ‘COULDA BEEN A CONTENDER’

September 4, 2025
FORMER GOVERNMENT spin doctor Fergus Finlay made a right Horlicks of explaining away his latest, mortifying effort to win the Labour Party’s nomination for... Read more »

MARY LOU POISED TO RUN FOR PARK

August 21, 2025

A STRONG indication of the decision that the Sinn Féin leadership will likely take in the presidential election came with the circulation of... Read more »

FIRST, SECOND AND THIRD ITEM

August 21, 2025

THE GRAND old gentleman of the Irish left, the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI), has undergone much in its 100-plus years of existence,... Read more »

OFF THE BUSES

August 21, 2025

UNIONS SIPTU and the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU) have for several years now exhorted successive transport ministers to create a dedicated... Read more »

IS FF LEADERSHIP BACKING JACK CHAMBERS?

August 21, 2025

IS MICHEÁL MARTIN really intent on retiring as Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader in September and then going for the presidency? That’s the... Read more »

BERTIE AHERN TO LOSE OUT

August 7, 2025

THAT SUNDAY INDEPENDENT poll showing Bertie Ahern ahead even of Micheál Martin in a Fianna Fáil presidential candidate survey (by the somewhat embarrassing... Read more »

WILL MARY LOU BACK CONNOLLY?

August 7, 2025

SINN FÉIN strategists may claim they are engaging in mature reflection about their choice of presidential nominee but the reality is that the... Read more »

DON’T FUND THE GENOCIDE

August 7, 2025

WHILE THE Dáil argues about the Occupied Territories Bill, Palestinian supporters in Galway have decided to make the global local by organising a... Read more »

‘COMRADES’ MICHAEL D AND CATHERINE C

August 7, 2025

GIVEN THE alarming prospect of leader Ivana Bacik’s support for Catherine Connolly’s presidential campaign being rejected by her own party, Labour’s members grudgingly,... Read more »

IIEA SPLIT ON ISRAEL?

July 24, 2025

FEW PEOPLE would regard the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) as a front for Hamas, but neither is it a cheer... Read more »

DPP V DPP

July 24, 2025

MUCH CRITICISM was levelled at the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) by various media and others for failing to prosecute... Read more »

SHANE ROSS’S RECOMMENDATION

July 24, 2025

SHANE ROSS comes over as the essence of sweet reason these days as exemplified by his proposal in the Sindo last weekend that... Read more »

JAMES CONNOLLY IS ALIVE AND WELL!

July 24, 2025

IT IS hard to say what Labour’s policy on neutrality and EU militarisation actually is given the confusion in the anti-war movement about... Read more »