Article Category: Last Refuge

WHO FEARS TO SPEAK OF UNITED IRELAND?

March 7, 2019
FIANNA FÁIL senator Mark Daly stuck it to the government in a Sunday Independent interview last weekend over its lamentable failure to prepare for... Read more »

SINN FÉIN GOES BACK TO BASICS

February 21, 2019
SINN FÉIN is still struggling in the polls following its disastrous presidential campaign and appears to have reverted to harder, more Republican and leftist... Read more »

FRANK O’ROURKE TD: SIMPLY THE BEST

February 21, 2019
“IF A cow calved in Ardclough, Frank would claim to be its father” is how Kildare Independent councillor Bernard Caldwell described Kildare North Fianna... Read more »

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S STRATEGY

February 21, 2019
SIGNS OF establishment anxiety about the government’s durability were visible last weekend and they were not eased with a poll that showed Fine Gael... Read more »

FINE GAEL FLEES FROM HEALY-RAES

February 21, 2019
DANNY HEALY-RAE’S clownish antics on climate change and sundry issues are beginning to wear thin, even amongst the family’s large fan base in the... Read more »

VLAD PLOTS COVENEY’S EXILE

February 7, 2019
INTENSE SPECULATION about Phil Hogan being a shoe-in for reappointment to the EU Commission has been largely stimulated by Big Phil himself. But unbeknownst... Read more »

GRAND COALITION LOOMING

February 7, 2019
ENDA KENNY was not so bad after all, is the growing sentiment among certain frontbench Fianna Fáil members who are wistfully recalling his 2016... Read more »

KINGSTOWN LADIES AT RISK

January 24, 2019
MARY HANAFIN’S unquenchable ambition has not been dulled by her 30 years in politics, some of it in cabinet. She intends running for Fianna... Read more »

FINE GAEL VS TICKET TOUTS

January 24, 2019
THE GOVERNMENT’S effort to slay ticket touts – on street corners around Croker and the reselling of concert tickets online – is certainly a... Read more »

TIERNAN BRADY’S RACE

January 24, 2019
THE DUBLIN Fianna Fáil Euro nomination contest is tightening, with gay campaigner Tiernan Brady narrowly in front. However, ex-minister and party grandee Barry Andrews... Read more »

LABOUR’S MOVEABLE VALUES

January 24, 2019
LABOUR LEADER Brendan Howlin’s wheeze in sponsoring outgoing INTO general secretary Sheila Nunan as a European election candidate in Ireland South could provoke a... Read more »

VLAD’S VARIOUS ELECTION STRATEGEMS

January 10, 2019
RECEIVED WISDOM has it that Leo Varadkar will not allow any sitting party TD to go for the European elections because the Dáil arithmetic... Read more »

HOWLIN AND CORBYN TO UNITE?

January 10, 2019
EAGER NOT to get left behind, Labour leader Brendan Howlin told the party conference last November that, if Fianna Fáil and the SDLP merged,... Read more »

HONOHAN MASTERS MARTIN AND O’CALLAGHAN

January 10, 2019
TWO STINGING letters winged their way to Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin over the Christmas and new year period. One was from FF’s enfant... Read more »

MARTIN’S UNWILLNG FAVOURITE

December 13, 2018
A CONVENTION to select Fianna Fáil’s Dublin candidate in the European elections is likely early in the New Year and is shaping up to... Read more »

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S MUTINOUS MEMBERS

December 13, 2018
FIANNA FÁIL leader Micheál Martin’s March reshuffle was intended to supplement and beef up his senior team, not to replace them. However, divisions about... Read more »

DE REAL LEADER IN CORK?

December 13, 2018
THE UNSP0KEN but very real tension between Fianna Fáil’s leader, Micheál Martin, and his constituency ‘colleague’, party finance spokesperson Michael McGrath, is about to... Read more »

BRIAN HAYES’S FLAK OVER BANK JOB

November 29, 2018
THE PHOENIX readers will recall that, when MEP Brian Hayes departs the EU Parliament next summer, his new job will be chief executive of... Read more »

MCALEESE BOWS OUT

November 29, 2018
FIANNA FÁIL HQ’s strenuous efforts to foist Justin McAleese on Dublin Rathdown have blown up in their faces – and local party members are... Read more »

FEMALE, PALE BUT NOT STALE

November 29, 2018
A SURPRISINGLY tense selection battle recently took place for the honour of representing the Labour Party in the local elections for Cabra-Finglas – part... Read more »

FINE GAEL’S HARD TARGETS

November 29, 2018
THOSE WHO wonder why Leo Varadkar is afraid to pull the trigger and go for a general election, despite Fine Gael’s continuing poll lead... Read more »

CORK DAUPHIN BOWS TO SAUDI PRINCE

November 1, 2018
THE most remarkable aspect of Tánaiste and foreign minister Simon Coveney’s feeble reaction to the Saudi murder of Jamal Khashoggi was not that it... Read more »

‘TIGER’ O’DONOGHUE’S POLITICAL COMEBACK

November 1, 2018
WHAT on earth is former justice minister, arts minister and Ceann Comhairle John O’Donoghue doing in his bid to become a humble county councillor... Read more »

CANNEY’S NEW ALLIANCE

October 18, 2018
NEW JUNIOR minister Seán Canney may or may not be grateful to his former colleagues in the Independent Alliance, but they are responsible (along... Read more »

BEWARE PERFIDIOUS ALBION!

October 18, 2018
HISTORIC FEAR of treacherous England has provoked the government into warning ministers to “resist unwarranted advances” from their British counterparts. The fear is that... Read more »

VARADKAR TO PULL PLUG?

October 18, 2018
LEO VARADKAR and some of his Fine Gael cabinet members now regret that they did not act on their political instincts last summer and... Read more »

HAS BYRNE BURNED HER BRIDGES?

October 18, 2018
FOLLOWING her threat not to vote confidence in housing minister Eoghan Murphy, junior minister Catherine Byrne emerged from her meeting with Murphy and Leo... Read more »