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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 »

FF’S PR BLITZ PAYS OFF

December 16, 2021
THE BIGGEST surprise in recent polls is not Sinn Féin’s ongoing surge but the reversal of positions between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil with... 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 »

NO DESSERT FOR BARRISTERS

December 2, 2021
FURTHER EVIDENCE that throwing money at government party Fine Gael is not only a waste of time but positively counterproductive comes with the latest... Read more »

FLANAGAN FEUDS WITH COVENEY

November 18, 2021
IT’S GETTING hard to track the number of criticisms that former foreign minister Charlie Flanagan has levelled at his successor Simon Coveney in the... Read more »

ANNUAL 2021: GOVERNMENT – WHO BELIEVES THE POLLS?

November 18, 2021
2021 should have been the year that the somewhat artificial coalition – cobbled together to prevent rather than create a change of government –... Read more »

Mary Lou McDonald won’t repeat the ‘too few candidates’ error of the last election, but the issue of potential coalition partners is a tricky one.

ANNUAL 2021: OPPOSITION – MARY LOU FOR TAOISEACH?

November 18, 2021
If 2020 was the year of the historic breakthrough for Sinn Féin, when it surpassed all other parties in terms of first preference votes,... Read more »

ANNUAL 2021: LABOUR/INDEPENDENTS/TROTS – BOUTIQUE LEFT IS UNDER THREAT

November 18, 2021
As they strive for re-election, Ireland’s smaller parties and Independents face broadly two sorts of general election: there is the sleepy type of election... Read more »

MOVING STATUES AND THE BIG FELLA

November 16, 2021
AN TAOISEACH Micheál Martin’s enthusiasm for the memory of Michael Collins, in particular his support for the erection of a statue commemorating the centenary... Read more »

MARY LOU MCDONALD’S COALITION MUDGUARD

November 4, 2021
POLITICAL CORRESPONDENTS now appear to be in the final stages of grief and are moving from depression towards acceptance that Sinn Féin will almost... Read more »

NIGHTMARE ON MOUNT STREET

November 4, 2021
ESTABLISHMENT AND media fright at the latest spooky poll figures for Sinn Féin – its highest ever Red C figure at 33% – obscured... Read more »

MILITANT IFA BALL BREAKERS

November 4, 2021
MILITANT FARMER Conor O’Leary, chairman of the IFA (Irish Farming Association) executive in Cork Central, is an articulate and colourful polemicist when agitating on... Read more »

ISRAELI PR MACHINE RULES

November 4, 2021
WHAT A curious sequence of events and priorities manifested themselves last week in the abysmal reaction to events concerning Israel and Palestine. On Saturday,... Read more »

PASCHAL DONOHOE’S CAREER CURVE

October 21, 2021
FINANCE MINISTER Paschal Donohoe is presumed, much like Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar, to be merely marking time before jumping ship to take a... Read more »

McDOWELL EYES UP DÁIL — AGAIN

October 21, 2021
AN INTERESTING Irish Times column from Michael McDowell recently dwelled on the former PD leader, AG and justice minister’s obsessive dream of a return... Read more »

ANTHONY COUGHLAN’S LATEST BROADSIDE

October 21, 2021
THE EU’S most formidable Irish opponent for half a century is Tony Coughlan, associate professor emeritus at TCD and long-time political campaigner. Five years... Read more »

FF: PARTITION ROWS, SEAT BATTLES AND WHAT TO DO WITH MICHEÁL

October 21, 2021
THAT LIST of Fianna Fáil TDs noted in the Sunday Times as being opposed to the government sending ministers to mark the centenary of... Read more »

AK47, THE LADY IVANA AND LEFT BATTLES

October 7, 2021
IT WILL be interesting to see just how much prominence Labour leader Alan ‘AK47’ Kelly affords the party’s Dublin Bay South byelection victor Ivana... Read more »

FLANAGAN BIFFS COVENEY — AGAIN

October 7, 2021
FINE GAEL ministers and especially Simon ‘Covetous’ Coveney were apoplectic at former foreign minister Charlie Flanagan’s recent remarks criticising the government’s handling of the... Read more »

AG GALLAGHER IN AND OUT OF COURT

October 7, 2021
THE CURRENT allegation of a conflict of interest in attorney general Paul Gallagher’s work for a private client is not the first time confusion... Read more »

CHU’S CHAIR: GREENS LOOK RIGHTWARD

October 7, 2021
THREE ISSUES highlighted in the media last week by Green party leader Eamon Ryan and Senator Pauline O’Reilly, among others in the leadership, are... Read more »