Last Refuge Archives

JOSEPHA, SHANE, SHAY AND NEALE

August 8, 2019

SHAY BRENNAN’S win at the Fianna Fáil Dublin Rathdown convention last week is but a small step in the party’s seemingly hopeless quest... Read more »

BERNARD MCCABE’S RETURN

August 8, 2019

MANY OF the dinner ‘guests’ at the recent barristers fund raiser for Fine Gael (see The Phoenix, 28/6/19) would have political as well... Read more »

MICHELLE’S MAYO MADNESS

July 25, 2019

FINE GAEL farming members, a mainstay of the party for generations, are not enamoured of their Galway West TD, the fragrant Hildegarde Naughton,... Read more »

FALLING STAR DEIRDRE KINGSTON

July 25, 2019

THE REAL political drama in Kingstown involving Fine Gael TD Maria Bailey, as well as other high-profile candidates (see p10), was eclipsed briefly... Read more »

CHOPPING MARIA BAILEY

July 25, 2019

FOLLOWING recent adverse developments, Maria Bailey has lost her role as chair of the Oireachtas Committee on Housing, but the axe could fall... Read more »

TARGETING RICHARD BOYD BARRETT

July 25, 2019

With colourful political drama in Dún Laoghaire dominating headlines, the real political news has been submerged – namely, the rise of the Green... Read more »

GENDER IMBALANCE IN CORK FG

July 25, 2019

LEO VARADKAR and Fine Gael general secretary Tom Curran have a serious gender problem in Cork City and County with not a single... Read more »

MARY LOU RESHUFFLES SF DÁIL TEAM

July 11, 2019

SINN FÉIN’S post-election revamp will see the restructure of various layers of the party, but already Mary Lou McDonald’s Dáil reshuffle involves a... Read more »

BLUESHIRTS BATTLE FOR TOP JOBS

July 11, 2019

THE BACK-room machinations by EU states’ leaders in the divvy up of EU top jobs last week were naïve child’s play compared 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

ANYBODY BUT REILLY

July 11, 2019

ABR is the acronym of the message and mission handed down from Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to his chief of staff, Brian Murphy, in... Read more »

FINE GAEL BULLIES?

July 11, 2019

REPORTS OF bullying, racist remarks and persecution of female members in Meath East Fine Gael have led to an inquiry by the party’s... Read more »

VARADKAR TO BAIL OUT BAILEY?

June 27, 2019

LEO VARADKAR is again exhibiting a recently observed trait of indecision and prevarication, this time in the Maria Bailey ‘compo’ controversy. This characteristic... Read more »

BRENDAN AND RÓISÍN

June 27, 2019

STRATEGIC ARGUMENTS inside both the Labour Party and the Labour Party Mark II (aka the Social Democrats) concern not only whether to enter... Read more »

SOC DEMS TARGET EIGHT DÁIL SEATS

June 27, 2019

THE MEDIA’s new political love objects are the Greens, but the Soc Dems are also feeling some love, as illustrated by a recent... Read more »

KATE O’CONNELL AND MARIA BAILEY

June 27, 2019

THE SPECIAL relationship between VBFs Fine Gael TDs Maria Bailey and Kate O’Connell appears to have been challenged due to the unfortunate misunderstanding... Read more »

Ó RÍORDÁIN’S DOUBLE STRIKE

June 12, 2019

AODHÁN Ó RÍORDÁIN recently made a most paradoxical call for Labour leader Brendan Howlin to lead the party into the next general election... Read more »

DRUMCONDRA MAFIA RIP

June 12, 2019

FIANNA FÁIL’S local election success in north Dublin was not replicated by voters in the rare auld North Inner City (NIC) area, where... Read more »

RATHDOWN: BRENNAN OR BUCKLEY FOR FF?

June 12, 2019

THE FAILURE of former Fianna Fáil press officer Olivia Buckley to take a council seat in Dundrum has not deterred party HQ from... Read more »

DUBLIN — FIANNA FÁIL AT THE GATE

June 12, 2019

SUDDENLY DUBLIN, for long a desert for the party, has become Fianna Fáil’s oyster. While the local election swing from FF to Fine... Read more »

MARIA BAILEY: NOT THE REAL TARGET

May 29, 2019

THE FURORE created by Michael McDowell’s attack on Dún Laoghaire TD Maria Bailey and her compo case over that fall from a hotel... Read more »

MARIA WALSH’S MILITARISM

May 29, 2019

IT WAS a close-run thing in the end for Fine Gael EU candidate Maria Walsh in Midlands North West and her gung-ho military-style... Read more »

THE NEXT GOVERNMENT

May 29, 2019

NOW FOR the real election. Both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil (along with desperate pleas from Labour leader Brendan Howlin) posit the prospects... Read more »

OLIVIA BUCKLEY VS SHANE ROSS

May 29, 2019

FIANNA FÁIL’S local election results in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown will have given Micheál Martin much to consider as it has put a question mark... Read more »

CASEY STILL BENT ON DÁIL

May 16, 2019

RIVALS OF Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy have harped on his intention to run for a Cavan-Monaghan seat in the Dáil, regardless of... Read more »

FG’S TEENAGE PROHIBITION

May 16, 2019

FINE GAEL senator Catherine Noone had to back-pedal rapidly last week following her demand that the legal age limit for alcohol be raised... Read more »

POSTER GIRL ANNE RABBITTE

May 16, 2019

FIANNA FÁIL’S Midlands North West (MNW) EU candidate, Anne Rabbitte TD, continues to blunder in her election campaign, with the most recent boo-boo... Read more »

ELECTRIFYING DEIRDRE CLUNE MEP

May 16, 2019

ANOTHER MANUFACTURED row – similar to the spat between amazons Mairead McGuinness and Maria ‘Rose’ Walsh – broke out last week in the... Read more »

VARADKAR’S LEGAL PRECEDENT

May 2, 2019

WHAT AN interesting sequence of events has taken place since the New Year surrounding Shane Ross’s judicial appointments bill. Fine Gael and, in... Read more »

RABBITTE’S TUAM BABIES BLUNDER

May 2, 2019

FIANNA FÁIL has landed itself in la merde over the Tuam babies with a most disingenuous statement from TD Anne Rabbitte, expressing concern... Read more »

AK47 LIMBERS UP

May 2, 2019

ELECTORAL CATASTROPHE could be facing the Labour Party in the local elections if two recent polls are anything to go by. Labour had... Read more »

FG PEMBROKE BLUE BLOODS

May 2, 2019

WHAT A stellar trio of candidates Fine Gael has assembled in the local election barony of Pembroke – formerly Pembroke-South Dock – which... Read more »

21/07/2014 Aidan Eames of Eames Solicitors, reading a statement from Angela Kearns to the media outside the Four Courts yesterday(Mon) after a High Court hearing.Pic: Collins Courts

AIDAN EAMES’S CLIENTS

April 18, 2019

THE MOST influential man in the room at the recent Oireachtas Committee on Sport hearing was not Football Association of Ireland (FAI) demoted... Read more »

RABBITTE FEELS UNLOVED

April 18, 2019
FIANNA FÁIL’S two-candidate strategy in the Midlands-North-West (MNW) EU constituency – the, er, ‘dream ticket’ of Brendan Smith and Anne Rabbitte – is already... Read more »

McDOWELL’S FREE MEDIA PLATFORMS

April 18, 2019

DUBLIN BAY South TDs Jim O’Callaghan and Kate O’Connell must have been chewing their carpets at the flattering exposure granted to former minister... Read more »

GEMMA’S THEORIES

April 18, 2019

ADDING PUNGENCY to the EU elections is the candidacy of ‘investigative journalist’ Gemma O’Doherty in Dublin. If there is one live debate that... Read more »

HIGGINS’S LABOUR DEFECTORS

April 18, 2019

PRESIDENT HIGGINS’S new appointments to the Council of State do not include any party political members – not even from Labour, the political... Read more »