Article Category: Last Refuge

McCONALOGUE MARTIN’S MAN

April 21, 2016

FIANNA FÁIL’S team negotiating with Fine Gael is a little lopsided, with big beasts Michael McGrath and Jim O’Callaghan alongside second team players... Read more »

SINN FÉIN ON THE SIDELINES

April 7, 2016

THE party political leader watching the slow dance towards a government – more monochrome (blue) than rainbow coloured – with greater anxiety than... Read more »

FF Coalition Split

April 7, 2016

AT least five senior Fianna Fáil figures are now in favour of a ‘grand’ coalition with Fine Gael, and it comes as no... Read more »

ENDA’S POTENTIAL NEW CABINET

April 7, 2016

THAT 50:50 gender-based cabinet pledged by Enda Kenny before the election can be binned under the new circumstances. The appointment of probably four... Read more »

MORE POWER TO LEO’S LEADERSHIP BID

April 7, 2016

WHAT is Leo Varadkar playing at with his outspoken support for Averil Power in the TCD Senate election? The Irish Independent, edited by... Read more »

FAR LEFT: FIRST ITEM

March 24, 2016

THE ‘united front’ of AAA/PBP aka, the SP (Paul Murphy) and SWP (Richard Boyd Barrett), have six TDs between them, three each, whereas... Read more »

Lisa Chambers’s appeal

March 24, 2016

IF Micheál Martin experienced a bitter sweet moment at Mary Hanafin’s election defeat in Dún Laoghaire he was gratified by the victory of... Read more »

WASTED WEST WINGERS

March 24, 2016

HAVE former advisers, Fine Gael’s Frank Flannery and would-be Fianna Fáil handler, Noel Whelan, over-extended themselves just a tad? Flannery, in particular, has... Read more »

SIMON COVENEY MOVES TO SUCCESSION SLOT

March 24, 2016

SIMON COVENEY is now playing a central role in Fine Gael’s efforts to construct a rainbow coalition and is acting in tandem with... Read more »

LABOUR MINISTERS SURVIVE BLOODBATH

March 9, 2016

THE most fascinating statistic in the entrails of Labour’s general election massacre is that out of the seven surviving TDs, no less than... Read more »

PARTIES’ (MIS)FORTUNES

March 9, 2016

THE new Dáil arithmetic occupied the minds of various parties’ leaders and handlers post-election, but attention quickly turned to the knock-on effects on... Read more »

Kenny to Survive?

March 9, 2016

IS Enda Kenny really a dead duck? Enda may not be Francois Mitterrand or Winston Churchill but he is one of the canniest... Read more »

KENNY TO FORCE FF COALITION

March 9, 2016

ENDA KENNY is determined to drag Fianna Fáil into coalition government – by any other name – and will threaten a general election... Read more »

INTRIGUING SCENARIO AHEAD FOR SENATE

February 25, 2016

THE most intriguing scenario will transpire should Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil TDs not form a joint majority in the Dáil and a... Read more »

Sexist Labour

February 25, 2016

WOMEN voters in Louth will surely flock to support Senator Mary Moran following her persecution by Labour’s ‘sexist old boys’ club’. Moran’s running... Read more »

ENDA’S NEXT CABINET

February 25, 2016

IF Enda Kenny only has eight places to fill in a Fine Gael/Fianna Fáil cabinet, then who are the winners and losers, and... Read more »

FIANNA FÁIL’S CABINET MEMBERS

February 25, 2016

IF the Dáil arithmetic breaks down the way the polls predict and if Micheál Martin can persuade Fianna Fáil delegates to support a... Read more »

O’Callaghan AG?

February 25, 2016

HAS Jim O’Callaghan’s time come at last? The Fianna Fáil legal advisor’s election record is not a happy one but he has had... Read more »

ADAMS TO LOSE TOP SPOT IN LOUTH?

February 11, 2016

GERRY ADAMS will not be deposed as Sinn Féin leader nationally any time soon, but he could well lose his pre-eminence in Louth... Read more »

Union Blueshirts

February 11, 2016

WHO are the Larkinites in the Fine Gael parliamentary party and why did five of them (out of 94) sign up for the... Read more »

MONEY ON FF TO TAKE SIX IN DUBLIN

February 11, 2016

DUBLIN is supposed to be a graveyard for Fianna Fáil but perusal of Paddy Power’s constituency odds – a combination of research and... Read more »

KATE O’CONNELL Vs LUCINDA IN DBS

February 11, 2016

ENDA KENNY and most of Fine Gael in Dublin Bay South would be ecstatic if they were able to retain two seats in... Read more »

Gender Fodder

January 28, 2016

FEMINISTS will hardly be impressed at the remarkable appetite that Enda Kenny and Micheál Martin are exhibiting for candidate gender quotas in recent,... Read more »

HANAFIN’S FAUSTIAN PACT

January 28, 2016

MARY HANAFIN’S electoral strategy in Dún Laoghaire is converging with that of Fine Gael nationally as she delivers daily two-finger gestures to her... Read more »

JOAN’S GOOD NEWS

January 14, 2016

JOAN BURTON’S Department of Social Protection jumped to her defence recently against a most impertinent suggestion from rival general election candidate, Dublin West... Read more »

PERRY DISASTER FOR FG

January 14, 2016

PRESUMABLY the Standards in Public Office (Sipo) will not insist that the massive half-a-million euro legal costs for Fine Gael’s High Court case... Read more »

HOWLIN’S BALANCING ACT

January 14, 2016

IT has gone largely unreported but Brendan Howlin has blown a large hole in Joan Burton’s central election message that Labour’s return to... Read more »

JIMMY DEENIHAN’S GENDER AGENDA

December 17, 2015

THAT damned gender quota being imposed on the Good Ol’ Boys in Fine Gael has led to internal convulsions among candidates and one... Read more »

Noel McCarthy’s Skills

December 17, 2015

YOU have to hand it to political chameleon Cllr Noel McCarthy in Cork East whose recent electoral journey has been chronicled in The... Read more »

LABOUR SPLIT OVER FINE GAEL

December 17, 2015

REMARKS from various Labour backbenchers about the dangers of returning to the grizzly embrace of Fine Gael unless Labour return with at least... Read more »

CORK ELECTION FEUDS

December 4, 2015

CONVULSIONS inside the four main parties in Cork East could result in three sitting TDs out of four – David Stanton and Tom... Read more »

BRENDAN HOWLIN’S LEADERSHIP CAMPAIGN

December 4, 2015

FINGER pointing at Alan Kelly for the recent leak about Labour’s election prospects to both The Irish Times and Irish Independent could be... Read more »

AK47 OUTGUNNED BY ALL SIDES

November 20, 2015

ENVIRONMENT minister Alan ‘AK47’ Kelly is facing not only vastly superior fire power from the much bigger guns on Fine Gael finance minister... Read more »

BLUESHIRT SPLIT IN CORK

November 20, 2015

ENDA KENNY has gone out of his way to support his beleaguered junior minister for Europe, Dara Murphy, in Cork, as well as... Read more »

Keaveney Feeling Insecure?

November 20, 2015

FIANNA FÁIL TD Colm Keaveney is facing security issues on more than one front. While he has requested that the Dáil authorities investigate... Read more »

THE LEFT AND SINN FÉIN

November 20, 2015

THE hysterical media reaction to Sinn Fein’s electoral transfer proposal ignores several factors, the chief one being that a natural pattern of transfers... Read more »