Article Category: Last Refuge

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

PASCHAL VS MARY LOU VS PARTY RIVALS

October 4, 2018

FINANCE MINISTER Paschal Donohoe has made a bold move in his Dublin Central constituency. He has taken on a running mate, even though... Read more »

HIGGINS NO-SHOWS

October 4, 2018

MICHAEL D HIGGINS has shown yet again that he is anything but a naïve aesthete, as his deft political footwork and PR manipulation... Read more »

SHERLOCK GETS BACK ON THE WAGON

October 4, 2018

LABOUR TD Seán Sherlock, caused some concern among party TDs and senators recently as he appeared to have succumbed to the demon drink... Read more »

HOWLIN’S MASTER PLAN

September 20, 2018

BRENDAN HOWLIN appears to have survived the leadership heave orchestrated by Alan Kelly and his chief aide, Declan Walsh. The scenario now unfolding... Read more »

KEAVENEY COMEBACK?

September 20, 2018

FORMER Fianna Fáil TD and ex-Labour Party chairman Colm Keaveney received quite a splash in the Sunday Times last weekend, indicating that FF... Read more »

THE ‘REAL’ OPPOSITION

September 20, 2018

THE SCHIZOPHRENIA inside Fianna Fáil – is the party in government or opposition? – is being hammered home by Kilkenny TD John McGuinness,... Read more »

COVENEY BACKSLIDES ON ISRAEL AGAIN

September 20, 2018

SUDDENLY the government and the EU has become scrupulously attached to the spirit and the letter of EU commercial policy and is using... Read more »

GRANNY GRANT GYRATIONS

September 6, 2018

SHANE ROSS’S granny grant budgetary demand to finance minister Paschal Donohoe provoked the obligatory denunciation from Fine Gael-inspired media commentary. But this issue... Read more »

ZAPPER VARADKAR’S FAVOURITE

September 6, 2018

CHILDREN’S MINISTER Katherine Zappone is a model Independent minister and never gives Leo Varadkar or Fine Gael any trouble over policy issues or... Read more »

O’ROURKE SELLS BRIDGE TO VOTERS

September 6, 2018

Kildare North is one of the few Fianna Fáil success stories, with James Lawless and Frank O’Rourke taking two seats out of four... Read more »

LABOUR LEADERS LOST

September 6, 2018

THERE is something tragi-comic about the bitter in-fighting over the Labour Party leadership when it is distinctly possible that none of the putative... Read more »

SEÁN GALLAGHER’S VENGEANCE

August 23, 2018

IT WAS never a question of if but rather when Seán Gallagher would enter the presidential contest. Even before any declaration, he has... Read more »

TO HELL OR SLIGO

August 23, 2018

FIANNA FÁIL’S Roscommon-Galway AGM was expected to be dominated by the controversy surrounding Mary Devine O’Callaghan, the party’s constituency director of organisation and... Read more »

TWO LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES LOOMING?

August 23, 2018

THE Fianna Fáil offer – or capitulation to Leo Varadkar’s offer of a 2020 summer election – to extend the confidence and supply... Read more »

AK47 SALVO AGAINST HOWLIN

August 9, 2018

BRENDAN HOWLIN fought back against a flurry of statements from various councillors and other Labour Party members demanding his replacement as party leader... Read more »

O’DEA SLAPS IT UP TO MARTIN

August 9, 2018

REPORTS claiming that Willie O’Dea is part of a simmering revolt against Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin are well wide of the mark.... Read more »

SF BORDER POLL ‘U-TURN’

August 9, 2018

SINN FÉIN has done a U-turn of sorts on the timing of a border poll, but its political opponents as well as some... Read more »

SOC DEMS: STALE BUT NOT MALE

August 9, 2018

CONGRATS to the Social Democrats, whose political ambition belies their effete image as cuddly, social justice champions and who recently eclipsed their left-wing... Read more »

FIANNA FAIL FLEES VULTURE FUNDS

July 26, 2018

EXTRAORDINARY scenes occurred in the Dáil chamber recently when outspoken Fianna Fáil TD John McGuinness rose to introduce his private members’ bill, the... Read more »

THE REBEL MAYOR NIAL RING

July 26, 2018

NEWLY elected Lord Mayor of Dublin Nial Ring was a perfect gent when hosting royal couple Harry and Meghan in Dublin’s Docklands recently.... Read more »

HOWLIN’S HOPEFULS

July 26, 2018

LABOUR leader Brendan Howlin laid out his candidate stall recently, naming nine contestants that would sweep into the Dáil at the next election.... Read more »

DUBLIN FINE GAEL POLL SURGE

July 26, 2018

ONE reason why some Fine Gael ministers want to force a general election is that their own polls say the party is riding... Read more »