Last Refuge Archives

Last Refuge

CALLEARY BACK AT COURT

September 8, 2022
THE UNASSUMING if still ambitious figure of ex-minister Dara Calleary can be seen stalking the corridors of power again, albeit as a mere junior... Read more »

PASCHAL DONOHOE’S VIRTUE SIGNALLING

September 8, 2022
BENEATH THE Blueshirts bonding bonhomie at their Kilkenny think-in this weekend, there will undoubtedly lurk some malicious thoughts and no small resentment at various... Read more »

LEO TO SWITCH CONSTITUENCY?

September 8, 2022
SPECULATION SURROUNDS the personal intentions of Leo Varadkar at the next general election and in particular whether he will leave Dublin West for southside... Read more »

Neasa Hourigan Green Party Martin NPT Ivana Bacik Independents Limerick Hospital Overcrowding Barry Cowen

BARRY COWEN’S CAMPAIGN

August 25, 2022
BARRY COWEN’S supporters in Fianna Fáil have been working overtime, pushing out a leadership election message via the sympathetic pages of the Irish Mail... Read more »

BARRISTERS FIGHT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

August 25, 2022
THE BAR of Ireland’s human rights committee has had a mixed press recently, with its front-of-house personalities offering different perspectives on human rights depending... Read more »

WHITHER THE GREENS?

August 25, 2022
RECENT POLL figures for the Green Party by the Business Post/Red C (4%), Irish Times (3%) and Sunday Independent (4%) will have many of... Read more »

Michael Leahy MANY PEOPLE would have been surprised to learn that the chair of the right-wing, anti-immigrant Irish Freedom Party

IRISH FREEDOM PARTY CHAIR

August 25, 2022
MANY PEOPLE would have been surprised to learn that the chair of the right-wing, anti-immigrant Irish Freedom Party (IFP), Michael Leahy, was the An... Read more »

SABINA HIGGINS’S CRITICS

August 11, 2022
WHAT AN interesting group of politicians vied with each other to stick it to Sabina Higgins over her outrageous suggestion that negotiations for peace... Read more »

DOGS THAT DIDN’T BARK

August 11, 2022
WHERE WERE the radical opposition parties when the Government let slip the dogs of war from among their favourite media servants against Sabina Higgins... Read more »

NORMA FOLEY’S SCHOOL RUN

August 11, 2022
While Government party leaders and whips worked frenetically to fend off a no-confidence vote just before the Dáil broke for its summer recess, some... Read more »

MARTIN’S LOYAL MINISTERS

August 11, 2022
WHAT A curious story the Irish Mail on Sunday published last weekend, headlined “Martin’s loyalists hit back at rebels” and spread over the front... Read more »

ANTI-MARTIN CAMP DIVIDES

July 28, 2022
IT’S NOT exactly a split but Micheál Martin will be pleased enough to detect a disagreement about tactics among those members of his parliamentary... Read more »

CATHAL CROWE’S PLANNING PROBLEM

July 28, 2022
FIANNA FÁIL TD, Cathal Crowe, a key member of the parliamentary party, is embroiled in a planning row over the construction of his new... Read more »

FINE GAEL MOONLIGHTERS

July 28, 2022
LEO VARADKAR is incensed with those members of his parliamentary party that have followed the lead of TD, John Paul Phelan, in their crusade... Read more »

MARTIN “DANCES ON LEMASS’S GRAVE”

July 28, 2022
MICHEÁL MARTIN would be foolish to dismiss the most concerted attack on any Taoiseach that has ever emanated from what is effectively the voice... Read more »

McCONALOGUE TAKES THE MICA

July 14, 2022
JOE McHUGH TD appears to be in the firing line of mica campaigners in his Donegal constituency given that he felt compelled to honour... Read more »

GEOGHEGAN COMEBACK

July 14, 2022
THE NOTION that James Geoghegan, model Fine Gael candidate and a barrister possessed of an unrivalled judicial pedigree, was going to walk off the pitch... Read more »

RUNNERS AND RIDERS IN NAVAN

July 14, 2022
PARTY DISCIPLINE has gone out the window in both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael when it comes to Our Lady’s hospital in Navan. The... Read more »

MARTIN FACES NEW REVOLT

July 14, 2022
JUST WHEN the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin thought things had finally quietened down in Fianna Fail another rising has broken out, and the occupation of... Read more »

DON’T MENTION THE WAR!

June 30, 2022
THE MYSTERY surrounding Green Party policy on defence, security and — once that most cherished Green principle of all — neutrality, had, until recently,... Read more »

FRIENDLY, PEACEFUL NATO

June 30, 2022
MANY PEOPLE will have heard of the splendidly titled ‘Nato Partnership for Peace’, which Ireland joined more than 20 years ago amid earnest assurances... Read more »

DARRAGH O’BRIEN V. CLIFFORD LEE

June 30, 2022
THE FIRST signs of just how horrid supporters of current housing minister, Darragh O’Brien, were behaving towards Darragh’s ‘colleague’ and Fianna Fáil running mate,... Read more »

COVENEY ABANDONS HIS CONSTITUENCY

June 16, 2022
FEVERISH SPECULATION about the future political intentions of Simon ‘Covetous’ Coveney, already rife, have greatly intensified due to not only the usual gossip and... Read more »

CARDINAL RICHELIEU’S MISSUS

June 16, 2022
A RELATIVELY unknown Green Party councillor, Caroline Conroy, is set to become lord mayor of Dublin as a result of the deal struck with... Read more »

“PERSONAL ANTIPATHIES”

June 16, 2022
rise of Sinn Féin in the polls has unnerved many in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael but some of the more hard-nosed handlers in... Read more »

‘NEGLIGENT BEHAVIOUR’

June 16, 2022
NO POLITICIAN in the current Dáil typifies how instant political success can sometimes be followed by rapid decline than Fine Gael’s Josepha Madigan who... Read more »

POLLS: LEO V MARTIN AS MARY LOU RISES

June 2, 2022
THE STATISTIC that jumped off the Red C/Business Post page at the weekend was that showing Sinn Féin at 36%, up two points from... Read more »

FG’S FACTION FIGHTS IN MEATH EAST

June 2, 2022
JUSTICE MINISTER Helen McEntee certainly came to her ministerial post well equipped with the knowledge of legal and other altercations in her Meath East... Read more »

MICHEÁL’S BORDER POLL COYNESS: RICHMOND ET AL POUNCE

June 2, 2022
MUCH CONFUSION surrounds the political parties’ positions on the mooted issue of a border poll and, Fine Gael in particular, is playing a very... Read more »

VLAD’S UNHAPPY CREW

June 2, 2022
MY, BUT what a coincidence – and one that will surely have been clocked by Leo Varadkar as well as leadership hopefuls, Simon Harris,... Read more »

VARADKAR FACES PARTY CRISIS

May 19, 2022
THE ROW over the maternity hospital has many fathers and chief among the suspects is a certain panic in the ranks of Fine Gael,... Read more »

WHITHER STEPHEN DONNELLY?

May 19, 2022
HEALTH MINISTER Stephen Donnelly has become a convenient target again in health controversies, this time at the national maternity hospital. The minister now has... Read more »

FF-FG COALITION STRAINS

May 19, 2022
THE OUTRAGED accusations from Fianna Fáil TDs and ministers against alleged dirty tricks by their Fine Gael counterparts over the National Maternity Hospital (NMH)... Read more »

BLUESHIRT KULAKS REGROUP

May 19, 2022
NOT SINCE Stalin massacred the Kulaks in the USSR did farmers receive such treatment as that meted out to the 11-year-old Fine Gael Agriculture... Read more »

McENTEE’S SOFT FOCUS MEDIA PITCH

May 5, 2022
JUSTICE MINISTER and Fine Gael leadership aspirant Helen McEntee made a rather obvious sales pitch for the post in the Irish independent last Saturday... Read more »

VARADKAR, DPP AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST

May 5, 2022
WHAT A speedy riposte came from the Irish Times last week to the Sunday Independent’s unnerving front page story that said the DPP would... Read more »