Last Refuge Archives

Last Refuge

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 »

GOODBYE MUIRSHEEN DURKAN?

April 4, 2019
FINE GAEL’S supposed coup in recruiting former SDLP leader, Mark ‘Muirsheen’ Durkan, as their Dublin Euro candidate looks like bombing, despite Leo Varadkar’s initial... Read more »

KEEPING UP WITH NOEL ROCK

April 4, 2019

IT’S NOT often that a backbench TD makes three of his own party’s government ministers, including the Taoiseach, look foolish and out of... Read more »

RUN RABBITTE RUN FOR DÁIL AND EU

April 4, 2019
RUNNING TWO candidates in the Midlands-North-West (MNW) European constituency in 2014 split the Fianna Fail vote (between Pat ‘The Cope’ Gallagher and Thomas Byrne),... Read more »

LEFT, LEFT AND LEFT AGAIN

April 4, 2019

THREE OF the four Dublin EU seats are predictable with Fine Gael’s Frances Fitzgerald, Fianna Fail’s Barry Andrews and Sinn Féin’s Lynn Boylan... Read more »

DALY AND WALLACE FOR EUROPE?

March 21, 2019
THE FOURTH seat in the Dublin Euro constituency is seen as hard to call, with the first three going to Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael),... Read more »

RUTH COPPINGER’S BORDER LINE

March 21, 2019

THE CURIOUS fascination of the ‘bourgeois media’ with the attacks on TD Paul Murphy’s Socialist Party (SP) from its comrades on the Committee... Read more »

PASCHAL, SIMON AND VLAD

March 21, 2019

SOMEBODY IS stirring it for Simon Coveney, with the Sunday Times followed by the Irish Times both suggesting that Paschal Donohoe is now... Read more »

MARTIN LET DURKAN SLIP TO FG – TWICE

March 21, 2019
FINE GAEL’S acquisition of former SDLP leader Mark Durkan to its Euro election ticket in Dublin has been characterised as a brilliant coup by... Read more »

JIM O’CALLAGHAN UNDER THREAT

March 7, 2019

THERE WAS a time when Fianna Fáil’s justice spokesperson, Jim O’Callaghan, was Micheál Martin’s right-hand man in the parliamentary party and a member... Read more »

EXPELLING VICTOR ORBÁN

March 7, 2019

FINE GAEL’S four MEPs are keeping their heads down as a serious split breaks out over the proposed expulsion from the European People’s... Read more »

TROT SEATS AT RISK

March 7, 2019

THE Sunday Business Post’s story last weekend about the Socialist Party’s international and internecine factionalism is surprising, but nevertheless indicates a malaise in... Read more »

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... 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... 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... 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... 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... 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... 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... Read more »

IAN PAISLEY’S FIRST CLASS TICKETS

February 7, 2019
THE DUP’S Ian Paisley does not appear to be grateful for the first-class travel and accommodation enabling him to speak at Co-operation Ireland’s New... Read more »

BITCHIN’ BARRY BLAMELESS

February 7, 2019
LIBERAL BIGOTS and left-wing zealots have been routed by the Fine Gael national executive and former head of Young Fine Gael, Barry Walsh, with... 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... 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

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S THREE AMIGOS

January 24, 2019

THE SPECTACLE of three senior Fianna Fáil frontbenchers scrambling for places on the European election ticket in the South constituency says a lot... 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... 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... 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... 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... 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... Read more »

JOHN LYONS’S RESIGNATION

January 10, 2019

THE Trot alliance of People Before Profit (PBP) – aka Richard Boyd Barrett’s Socialist Workers Party – and Solidarity – aka Ruth Coppinger’s... 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... 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... 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... Read more »

CHARLIE FLANAGAN’S TACTICS

December 13, 2018

JUSTICE MINISTER Charlie Flanagan’s passive-aggressive attitude to the Oireachtas in the matter of Shane Ross’s pet project, the Judicial Appointments Bill, seems to... 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... 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... 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... Read more »