Article Category: Last Refuge

CIAN O’CALLAGHAN V AODHÁN Ó RÍORDÁIN

April 20, 2022
NEW LABOUR leader Ivana Bacik’s dead cat bounce has not deterred Labour handlers from predicting seat gains that will double their complement of seven... Read more »

MICHAEL D HIGGINS’S NEUTRALITY WARNING TO GOVERNMENT

April 20, 2022
MESSRS MARTIN, Varadkar and Ryan cannot say they were not warned should there be open confrontation between them and President Higgins over neutrality and... Read more »

MARTIN’S PACKED AGENDA

April 7, 2022
PAUL CLARKSON is turning out to be the most effective spin doctor that an taoiseach Micheál Martin could have hoped for. In particular he... Read more »

‘UPPITY’ BOGUE ET AL VS CORK ‘BOYS’ CLUB’

April 7, 2022
THE CREATION of a women’s caucus on Cork City Council has not been greeted with enthusiasm by their male counterparts and the females have... Read more »

VARADKAR: FOLLOW ME UP TO MALLOW

March 24, 2022
PREPARATIONS FOR the replacement of the Fine Gael Agriculture Affairs Group (FGAAG) (see The Phoenix, 25/2/22) have not been running smoothly. This is despite... Read more »

LABOUR AND SOC DEMS TO UNITE?

March 24, 2022
UNITY OF the left – or the Labour/Social Democrats part of the left – is highly prized by the former of these two parties... Read more »

PRINCESS IVANA TAKES THE CROWN

March 10, 2022
GOLDHAWK AS well as the few remaining old Labour types in the party were surprised at the omission of Ged Nash TD from media... Read more »

BIG PHIL AND FINE GAEL’S NEXT LEADER

March 10, 2022
CONTRADICTORY POLL messages indicating that Simon Coveney is still the favourite to take the Fine Gael leadership will have surprised the media cognoscenti, most... Read more »

LABOUR’S FEMINIST ALBATROSS

March 10, 2022
JUSTIFICATION FROM Alan Kelly’s assassins relied greatly on the view that the former minister’s role in government hung like an albatross around his neck... Read more »

FG’S ‘GENDERGATE’ PAY-OFF

March 10, 2022
IT IS indeed heartening for Goldhawk to know that senior Fine Gael persons not only read his scribblings but, from time to time, even... Read more »

IS MARTIN’S REVIVAL FOR REAL?

February 24, 2022
‘IRISH TIMES’ readers could almost smell the strong odour of relief wafting from political editor Pat Leahy’s analysis of Micheál Martin’s apparent comeback in... Read more »

TRINNERS LOVES INDEPENDENTS

February 24, 2022
ALMOST EVERY candidate in the Trinners (Dublin University) byelection is standing as an Independent but some are more Independent than others. While four of... Read more »

FG MUCKS OUT FARMERS’ GROUP

February 24, 2022
A SIGN of Leo Varadkar’s fear at the decline of his party’s future election prospects came recently with an email from Vlad to members... Read more »

CARROLL MACNEILL REVIVES FRIENDS OF ISRAEL CLUB

February 24, 2022
EFFORTS TO revive the cross-party oireachtas Friends of Israel group begin with an invitation to a pro-Israel speaker – who has served in the... Read more »

CALLEARY TO BE REINSTATED?

February 10, 2022
THE APPARENT acceptance by media following the freeing of the Golfgate Four that former minister Dara Calleary could be reappointed to cabinet by Micheál... Read more »

COMRADES GREALISH AND MCDOWELL

February 10, 2022
IT WAS only right and fitting that Michael McDowell should travel west to tell Judge Mary Fahy to dismiss the ‘golfgate’ charges against his... Read more »

GENDERGATE PANICS BLUESHIRTS

February 10, 2022
OH DEAR, Goldhawk’s predictions two years ago that a simmering row within Fine Gael over mandatory staff retirement at 65 would bubble over seems... Read more »

WHO WILL SF COALESCE WITH?

February 10, 2022
SUNDAY INDEPENDENT pundit Jody Corcoran appears to have given up at last on both Fianna Fáil and taoiseach, Micheál Martin in his latest analysis... Read more »

‘CHE’ VARADKAR

January 27, 2022
FORMER FIANNA Fáil handler and Sunday Times columnist Gerry Howlin put it well at the weekend when calling Fine Gael under Leo Varadkar as... Read more »

O’CALLAGHAN’S ELECTION MANIFESTO

January 27, 2022
JIM O’CALLAGHAN’S offering to Fianna Fáil’s commission on the party’s “aims and objectives” – the title says much about the party’s problems – is... Read more »

SINN FÉIN APPEASES FIANNA FÁIL

January 27, 2022
IT HAS taken Micheál Martin, or should that read Leo Varadkar (with help from Simon Coveney), the best part of two years but Fianna... Read more »

MEATH MATTERS

January 27, 2022
WEXFORD COUNTY councillors may love their chief executive Tom Enright despite (or perhaps because of) him leaning heavily on the local radio station, but... Read more »

IS PASCHAL RECONSIDERING?

January 13, 2022
THE CONCLUSION reached many months ago by many of his own Fine Gael colleagues is that finance minister Paschal Donohoe – and more importantly,... Read more »

REPUBLICAN BOWEL MOVEMENT

January 13, 2022
THE REACTION from Charlie Flanagan, Michael McGrath and Ged Nash to Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald’s remarks on a “constipated” civil service can... Read more »

COMRADE MCCOURT

January 13, 2022
IRISH-AMERICAN BILLIONAIRE David McCourt is a master of spin and soft PR, but revelations in December about the murky corporate structure and questionable financial... Read more »

STATE PAPERS: JOHN BRUTON’S DIPLOMACY

January 13, 2022
IN ITS coverage of state papers released after 25 years, the Irish Times treatment of the then taoiseach John Bruton’s stewardship of the peace... Read more »

BLUESHIRTS PRESS PANIC BUTTON

December 16, 2021
THE BYELECTION in Dublin Bay South last July should have warned Leo Varadkar and Paschal Donohoe about the way things were going; not just... Read more »

LEFT SPLINTER GROUP SPLINTERS

December 16, 2021
THE MAINSTAY for decades of the non-republican left in Ireland – north and south – was the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI), but recent... Read more »

‘IRISH TIMES’ Q&A POLL REBOUNDS

December 16, 2021
THE IRISH TIMES recently fought valiantly against President Higgins’s refusal to mark the anniversary of partition and also the results of its own poll... Read more »

BIG PHIL AND VLAD TO MAKE UP?

December 2, 2021
THE PROPOSITION that Big Phil Hogan would be amenable to reconciliation with tánaiste and Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar, if the latter would only... Read more »

REGINA DOHERTY’S COMEBACK

December 2, 2021
THE COMEBACK campaign of former minister Regina Doherty, who lost her Meath East seat at the last general election, has been revving up to... Read more »

LABOUR’S PROSPECTS

December 2, 2021
HOW APPROPRIATE that ‘Austerity junkie’ Brendan Howlin, former public expenditure minister who damaged Labour’s credibility with its working-class base perhaps beyond repair, should have... Read more »