Last Refuge Archives

Last Refuge

PASCHAL DONOHOE’S CAREER CURVE

October 21, 2021

FINANCE MINISTER Paschal Donohoe is presumed, much like Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar, to be merely marking time before jumping ship to take... Read more »

McDOWELL EYES UP DÁIL — AGAIN

October 21, 2021

AN INTERESTING Irish Times column from Michael McDowell recently dwelled on the former PD leader, AG and justice minister’s obsessive dream of a... Read more »

FF: PARTITION ROWS, SEAT BATTLES AND WHAT TO DO WITH MICHEÁL

October 21, 2021

THAT LIST of Fianna Fáil TDs noted in the Sunday Times as being opposed to the government sending ministers to mark the centenary... Read more »

ANTHONY COUGHLAN’S LATEST BROADSIDE

October 21, 2021

THE EU’S most formidable Irish opponent for half a century is Tony Coughlan, associate professor emeritus at TCD and long-time political campaigner. Five... Read more »

AK47, THE LADY IVANA AND LEFT BATTLES

October 7, 2021

IT WILL be interesting to see just how much prominence Labour leader Alan ‘AK47’ Kelly affords the party’s Dublin Bay South byelection victor... Read more »

FLANAGAN BIFFS COVENEY — AGAIN

October 7, 2021

FINE GAEL ministers and especially Simon ‘Covetous’ Coveney were apoplectic at former foreign minister Charlie Flanagan’s recent remarks criticising the government’s handling of... Read more »

AG GALLAGHER IN AND OUT OF COURT

October 7, 2021

THE CURRENT allegation of a conflict of interest in attorney general Paul Gallagher’s work for a private client is not the first time... Read more »

CHU’S CHAIR: GREENS LOOK RIGHTWARD

October 7, 2021

THREE ISSUES highlighted in the media last week by Green party leader Eamon Ryan and Senator Pauline O’Reilly, among others in the leadership,... Read more »

KATE WRITES FOR HER SUPPER

September 23, 2021

WHAT A mature, non-contentious and carefully calibrated article former TD Kate O’Connell wrote for the Sunday Independent last weekend. In a piece that... Read more »

MARC EYES MICHEÁL … AND MARION

September 23, 2021

MARC MACSHARRY may have resigned the Fianna Fáil whip but he has not lost his penchant for the dramatic soundbite. Expounding on the... Read more »

GREENS’ DEFENCE NON-POLICY

September 23, 2021

MYSTERY SURROUNDS the Green party’s position on defence, neutrality and foreign policy despite the deliberations of a foreign policy and security group for... Read more »

LEO VARADKAR’S AGENDA

September 9, 2021

FINE GAEL is not as convulsed with incipient leadership rumours, plots and heaves as is Fianna Fáil, but everybody knows that Leo Varadkar’s... Read more »

BUS PLAN (DIS) CONNECTS

September 9, 2021

DUBLIN BUS management will have been gratified to learn that the rhetoric from Dublin Bus union leaders about the “gutter based opposition” to... Read more »

MICHEÁL MARTIN AND PLAYING BOTH SIDES

September 9, 2021

WITH SPECULATION about a Fianna Fáil leadership heave almost a constant since the general election, party TDs as well as contenders would do... Read more »

COLLUSION ONCE AGAIN

September 9, 2021

IF DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson was cheeky in demanding that the Dublin government investigate alleged collusion between “gardaí and the IRA” during the... Read more »

MARTIN’S SHRINKING SUPPORT

August 26, 2021

HANDLERS OF An Taoiseach, Fianna Fail leader, Micheál Martin, are busy spreading the suggestion that contender, Jim O’Callaghan, has no bottle. Failure to... 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

MARTIN’S DEFT TIMING

August 26, 2021

THE PREPARATION of Fianna Fåil’s post mortem on the February 2020 general election, its worst ever election result, is now said to be... Read more »

HEATHER’S 1916 AMNESIA

August 26, 2021

IS HEATHER HUMPHREYS trying to start another civil war now that we have begun commemoration of events leading up to the same conflict?... Read more »

VARADKAR TO FACE DPP SCRUTINY?

August 12, 2021

IT HAS been said that former FF agriculture minister Dara Calleary, was not big enough to be given a free pass for his... Read more »

ZAPPONE’S FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

August 12, 2021

KATHERINE ZAPPONE’S title of special envoy for freedom of expression was bestowed on her by the minister for foreign affairs, Simon ‘Covetous’ Coveney,... Read more »

HOTEL CALIFORNIA, DUBLIN 2

August 12, 2021

ZAPPER’S MERRION hotel guests included tánaiste Leo Varadkar, for obvious reasons, ie, Vlad is leader of the party to which Simon Coveney –... Read more »

LEADERLESS BLUESHIRTS

August 12, 2021

GENERAL EOIN O’DUFFY must be gyrating in his grave as Fine Gael resembles a rudderless, high-born rabble with neither its most capable nor... Read more »

SOC DEMS LEADERSHIP HEAVE

July 29, 2021

LABOUR’S BYELECTION triumph was not the root cause of the current split in the Social Democrats but it was certainly the catalyst to... Read more »

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S TIMELINE

July 29, 2021

THAT MIDDLE ground group of Fianna Fáil TDs that has recently formed “to support Martin”, according to a headline in an Irish Times... Read more »

DAMNED LIES AND MARTIN’S STATS

July 29, 2021

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S PR maestro, Paul Clarkson, has been busy and successful in commandeering media exposure for the Fianna Fáil leader in recent months... Read more »

LABOUR’S SEAT TARGETS?

July 29, 2021

IVANA BACIK’S Dublin Bay South byelection triumph has emboldened Labour and there has been much talk of a possible resurgence of the party’s... Read more »

IVANA’S COMRADES OLD AND NEW

July 15, 2021

MEMBERS OF the Labour family clasped byelection winner Ivana Bacik to their bosom last week in a heart-warming display of comradeship, with former... Read more »

FINE GAEL KNEW DEFEAT WAS NIGH

July 15, 2021

FINE GAEL handlers – director of elections Simon Harris, Leo Varadkar and others – knew well before the day of the byelection vote... Read more »

BACIK’S MANY ISSUES

July 15, 2021

IVANA BACIK’S brand of south Dublin liberal feminism was more than enough to secure the support of Ireland’s media class ahead of the... Read more »

RIGHT-WING RETREAT

July 15, 2021

IT’S BEEN a bad year for former chairperson of the Irish Freedom Party Dolores Cahill, forced to resign from the party last March... Read more »

FINE GAEL’S CUNNING BYELECTION PLAN

July 1, 2021

WHAT A clever ploy Fine Gael came up with in the Dublin Bay South (DBS) byelection (before that Irish Times poll) with minister... Read more »

BLUESHIRTS REVOLT

July 1, 2021

DISCONTENT AMONG the Fine Gael grassroots at what is described as the control freakery of Leo Varadkar and the party’s career officials has... Read more »

MINUTE MEATH MATTERS

July 1, 2021

EFFORTS BY nine Meath county councillors to prise from council officials the recordings of their own council deliberations on the county development plan... Read more »

LABOUR’S MESSAGE NOT FOR PROLES

June 17, 2021

LABOUR LEADER Alan Kelly put on a lot of pressure to have Labour first in the Dublin Bay South (DBS) byelection field with... Read more »

KATE O’CONNELL’S SUCCESSOR?

June 17, 2021

UNLESS JAMES GEOGHEGAN totally bombs in the Dublin Bay South byelection, he is most likely to stand for Fine Gael in the general... Read more »

PROTESTANTS AND PROTOCOLS

June 17, 2021

RTÉ’S CLAIRE BYRNE was not available to protect DUP hard man Gregory Campbell last week as she did recently when closing down sports... Read more »