Article Category: Last Refuge

‘SERIOUSLY GOOD BIT OF STUFF’

March 23, 2023
Unnoticed by the Irish media – ie her former colleagues – European ombudsman Emily O’Reilly pulled off the rare feat last week of uniting... Read more »

---

O’REILLY V HOURIGAN

March 22, 2023
THE GREEN Party chairperson and ultra-loyal lieutenant of Eamon Ryan, senator Pauline O’Reilly, is gunning for Neasa Hourigan TD as the latter contributed greatly... Read more »

---

SOC DEMS LEADER TO LOSE SEAT?

March 8, 2023
THE BIG bounce that new Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns gave the party – up five points to 9% – says something about the... Read more »

---

GREEN PARTY DROPS TRIPLE LOCK

March 8, 2023
THE FIANNA FÁIL leader and Tánaiste, Micheál Martin, will be pleased with Cabinet colleague Eamon Ryan, who recently persuaded his now-domesticated Green Party members... Read more »

---

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S NUCLEAR RECORD

March 8, 2023
THE 2023 Conference on Disarmament in Geneva last month heard Tánaiste and foreign affairs minister Micheál Martin denounce Russia for its recent pronouncements on... Read more »

---

SINN FÉIN FLEES TO CENTRE

March 8, 2023
A RECENT statement by left-wing TDs and senators, excluding Sinn Féin, in the Irish Times made the ever so provocative suggestion that Ireland should... Read more »

---

FINE GAEL CROSSES THE BORDER

February 22, 2023
FINE GAEL’S move to set up its own organizational structures north of the border says as much about Fianna Fáil’s wavering commitment to a... Read more »

---

BERTIE’S GOOD OL’ BOYS

February 22, 2023
DOWN IN the constituency organisation of Fianna Fáil in Dublin Central (DC), one person who will have gritted her teeth while affecting to welcome... Read more »

---

VARADKAR TAILS FAR RIGHT

February 22, 2023
THE LATEST party political poll – from the Sunday Times/Behaviour and Attitudes (B&A) – shows again the almost secret war raging between Fianna Fáil... Read more »

---

WHO WILL WIN EXTRA DUBLIN DÁIL SEATS?

February 22, 2023
WITH ANYTHING from 11 to 21 extra seats likely to emerge from the impending constituency revisions to be brought in by the Electoral Commission,... Read more »

---

GREENS DIVIDE ON NEUTRALITY

February 9, 2023
THE ONGOING mystery continues surrounding the Green Party’s policy on defence, security and neutrality – for long the most sacred of Green principles –... Read more »

---

BRENDAN GRIFFIN’S EXIT

February 9, 2023
LEO VARADKAR may only have himself to blame for the departure from Fine Gael at the next election of the party’s only TD in... Read more »

---

EXPENSIVE TDs’ EXPENSES

February 9, 2023
THE HASTE with which Government parties and a concerned media seized on Sinn Féin’s election expenses errors to bury the saga of Paschal Donohoe’s... Read more »

---

‘IRISH TIMES’ V IVANA

February 9, 2023
LABOUR LEADER Ivana Bacik has been getting out and about recently, mainly in the media, in an effort to drag her party back into... Read more »

---

PUSSY CAT BARRY COWEN

January 26, 2023
MEDIA SURPRISE at the new model Barry Cowen’s merciful attitude to beleaguered Blueshirt minister Paschal Donohoe – normally a legitimate target in Cowen’s eyes... Read more »

---

GENERAL ELECTION TIMING

January 26, 2023
LEO VARADKAR’S stated preference for a general election to be held in the autumn of 2024 has not gone down well inside Fianna Fáil,... Read more »

---

VARADKAR’S SECOND COMING

January 26, 2023
LAST WEEKEND’S Behaviour and Attitudes/Sunday Times (B&A/ST) poll, showing Fianna Fáil six points ahead of Fine Gael (25-19), reflects the difference between B&A/ST poll... Read more »

---

MARIA BAILEY COMEBACK?

January 26, 2023
FORMER FINE GAEL TD Maria Bailey paid off a few scores in Simon Carswell’s Irish Times piece at the weekend, with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar... Read more »

---

A TAOISEACH ONCE AGAIN

January 12, 2023
ONE PRESUMES that former taoiseach, now Tánaiste, Micheál Martin, was not entirely gulled by the remarks of Leo Varadkar, then his second-in-command, to the... Read more »

---

ARISE LAZARUS O’DONNELL

January 12, 2023
THE PROMOTION of long-time Fine Gael backbench TD Kieran O’Donnell to the post of junior minister for local government and planning was described by... Read more »

---

BRENDAN GRIFFIN’S AMBITIONS

January 12, 2023
FINE GAEL TD and former junior sports minister Brendan Griffin walked off the pitch in what looked like a sulk as he was offered... Read more »

---

MARTIN’S PAYROLL VOTE CAPPED

January 12, 2023
THE WEEKS leading up to the most uneventful ministerial reshuffle in memory saw repeated references to a possible expansion of junior ministers by two.... Read more »

---

VARADKAR AT RISK FROM COVENEY FANS?

December 15, 2022
A STATE of fear and paralysis descended on Fine Gael members, especially at senior level, as that video of incoming Taoiseach Leo Varadkar kissing... Read more »

---

RTÉ DEFIES GOVERNMENT TDS

December 15, 2022
WHAT BEGAN as a run-of-the-mill targeting of Sinn Féin by Government members of the Oireachtas joint committee on the media developed into an embarrassing... Read more »

---

IS MARTIN NOW SAFE AS LEADER?

December 15, 2022
POLITICAL CORRESPONDENTS appear to be unanimous in their view — a view spun with assiduous intent by the party’s handlers — that Micheál Martin’s... Read more »

---

‘UNITED’ GREEN PARTY

December 1, 2022
THE GREENS put on a show of unity and purpose last Saturday in a convention that was several galaxies distant from traditional gatherings of... Read more »

---

IRELAND JOINS THE COLD WAR NEUTRALITY

December 1, 2022
AN ALARMING note recently from one of Goldhawk’s agents in Moscow’s sphere of interest advanced the proposition that the Irish Government is involved in... Read more »

---

CRAUGHWELL’S FORGOTTEN ARMY

December 1, 2022
SENATORS MICHAEL McDowell and Gerard Craughwell issued some aggressive statements about the refusal of Government and the Defence Forces to give official endorsement to... Read more »

---

EAST WALL’S GANDHI RESURFACES

December 1, 2022
AMONG THE speakers, mostly outsiders from the hard right, attempting to mobilise East Wall residents against refugees was a more exotic political personality, locally... Read more »

---

MISCOUNTING GENDER QUOTAS

November 17, 2022
ELEVATION TO the Fianna Fáil ard comhairle (AC) may not be everyone’s idea of political paradise but it caused a dispute between junior equality... Read more »

---

FF BALANCE OF FORCES

November 17, 2022
MUCH SPECULATION about minor adjustments to Cabinet members of both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in the December upheaval ignores the likelihood of greater... Read more »

---

ANNUAL 2022: GOVERNMENT – THE REAL WAR: VLAD V MARTIN

November 17, 2022
IF 2021 was the year in which Government parties and their praetorian guard in the media were rendered aghast by the rise of Sinn... Read more »

---

ANNUAL 2022: OPPOSITION – ALEXANDRA GIRL RULES OK!

November 17, 2022
FOR A man who has cultivated such a pugnacious image, Alan Kelly gave up the leadership of the Labour Party with less than a... Read more »

---

ANNUAL 2022: INDEPENDENTS/TROTS – INDEPENDENTS LEFT AND RIGHT

November 17, 2022
THE INDEPENDENTS and minor parties of the left continue to cheerlead from the sidelines but they have little tangible achievement of which to boast.... Read more »

---

MARTIN WANTS FOREIGN POST

November 2, 2022
IN THE increasingly fevered world of ministers obsessed with and angling for preferment in the December change-over and reshuffle, the word is that outgoing... Read more »

---

FF LEADER EYES UP COALITION WITH SF

November 2, 2022
ONE WISHFUL scenario being propagated by the media, and by the Irish Times in particular last week, is that even if Sinn Féin is... Read more »

---