Last Refuge Archives

Last Refuge

KATE WRITES FOR HER SUPPER

September 23, 2021
WHAT A mature, non-contentious and carefully calibrated article former TD Kate O’Connell wrote for the Sunday Independent last weekend. In a piece that read... Read more »

MARC EYES MICHEÁL … AND MARION

September 23, 2021
MARC MACSHARRY may have resigned the Fianna Fáil whip but he has not lost his penchant for the dramatic soundbite. Expounding on the failings... Read more »

GREENS’ DEFENCE NON-POLICY

September 23, 2021
MYSTERY SURROUNDS the Green party’s position on defence, neutrality and foreign policy despite the deliberations of a foreign policy and security group for most... Read more »

LEO VARADKAR’S AGENDA

September 9, 2021
FINE GAEL is not as convulsed with incipient leadership rumours, plots and heaves as is Fianna Fáil, but everybody knows that Leo Varadkar’s grip... Read more »

BUS PLAN (DIS) CONNECTS

September 9, 2021
DUBLIN BUS management will have been gratified to learn that the rhetoric from Dublin Bus union leaders about the “gutter based opposition” to the... Read more »

MICHEÁL MARTIN AND PLAYING BOTH SIDES

September 9, 2021
WITH SPECULATION about a Fianna Fáil leadership heave almost a constant since the general election, party TDs as well as contenders would do well... Read more »

COLLUSION ONCE AGAIN

September 9, 2021
IF DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson was cheeky in demanding that the Dublin government investigate alleged collusion between “gardaí and the IRA” during the Troubles,... Read more »

MARTIN’S SHRINKING SUPPORT

August 26, 2021
HANDLERS OF An Taoiseach, Fianna Fail leader, Micheál Martin, are busy spreading the suggestion that contender, Jim O’Callaghan, has no bottle. Failure to act... Read more »

Ukraine War Micheál Martin Middle East Philip Ryan Seán Clancy Simon Coveney Hugo MacNeill Mountbatten Neasa Hourigan Green Party Martin NPT Ivana Bacik Independents Limerick Hospital Overcrowding Barry Cowen

MARTIN’S DEFT TIMING

August 26, 2021
THE PREPARATION of Fianna Fåil’s post mortem on the February 2020 general election, its worst ever election result, is now said to be imminent... Read more »

HEATHER’S 1916 AMNESIA

August 26, 2021
IS HEATHER HUMPHREYS trying to start another civil war now that we have begun commemoration of events leading up to the same conflict? Speaking... Read more »

VARADKAR TO FACE DPP SCRUTINY?

August 12, 2021
IT HAS been said that former FF agriculture minister Dara Calleary, was not big enough to be given a free pass for his Golfgate... Read more »

ZAPPONE’S FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

August 12, 2021
KATHERINE ZAPPONE’S title of special envoy for freedom of expression was bestowed on her by the minister for foreign affairs, Simon ‘Covetous’ Coveney, a... Read more »

HOTEL CALIFORNIA, DUBLIN 2

August 12, 2021
ZAPPER’S MERRION hotel guests included tánaiste Leo Varadkar, for obvious reasons, ie, Vlad is leader of the party to which Simon Coveney – the... Read more »

LEADERLESS BLUESHIRTS

August 12, 2021
GENERAL EOIN O’DUFFY must be gyrating in his grave as Fine Gael resembles a rudderless, high-born rabble with neither its most capable nor patrician... Read more »

SOC DEMS LEADERSHIP HEAVE

July 29, 2021
LABOUR’S BYELECTION triumph was not the root cause of the current split in the Social Democrats but it was certainly the catalyst to the... Read more »

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S TIMELINE

July 29, 2021
THAT MIDDLE ground group of Fianna Fáil TDs that has recently formed “to support Martin”, according to a headline in an Irish Times analysis... Read more »

DAMNED LIES AND MARTIN’S STATS

July 29, 2021
MICHEÁL MARTIN’S PR maestro, Paul Clarkson, has been busy and successful in commandeering media exposure for the Fianna Fáil leader in recent months –... Read more »

LABOUR’S SEAT TARGETS?

July 29, 2021
IVANA BACIK’S Dublin Bay South byelection triumph has emboldened Labour and there has been much talk of a possible resurgence of the party’s electoral... Read more »

IVANA’S COMRADES OLD AND NEW

July 15, 2021
MEMBERS OF the Labour family clasped byelection winner Ivana Bacik to their bosom last week in a heart-warming display of comradeship, with former party... Read more »

FINE GAEL KNEW DEFEAT WAS NIGH

July 15, 2021
FINE GAEL handlers – director of elections Simon Harris, Leo Varadkar and others – knew well before the day of the byelection vote that... Read more »

BACIK’S MANY ISSUES

July 15, 2021
IVANA BACIK’S brand of south Dublin liberal feminism was more than enough to secure the support of Ireland’s media class ahead of the Dublin... Read more »

RIGHT-WING RETREAT

July 15, 2021
IT’S BEEN a bad year for former chairperson of the Irish Freedom Party Dolores Cahill, forced to resign from the party last March for... Read more »

FINE GAEL’S CUNNING BYELECTION PLAN

July 1, 2021
WHAT A clever ploy Fine Gael came up with in the Dublin Bay South (DBS) byelection (before that Irish Times poll) with minister Simon... Read more »

BLUESHIRTS REVOLT

July 1, 2021
DISCONTENT AMONG the Fine Gael grassroots at what is described as the control freakery of Leo Varadkar and the party’s career officials has simmered... Read more »

MINUTE MEATH MATTERS

July 1, 2021
EFFORTS BY nine Meath county councillors to prise from council officials the recordings of their own council deliberations on the county development plan (see... Read more »

LABOUR’S MESSAGE NOT FOR PROLES

June 17, 2021
LABOUR LEADER Alan Kelly put on a lot of pressure to have Labour first in the Dublin Bay South (DBS) byelection field with posters,... Read more »

KATE O’CONNELL’S SUCCESSOR?

June 17, 2021
UNLESS JAMES GEOGHEGAN totally bombs in the Dublin Bay South byelection, he is most likely to stand for Fine Gael in the general election.... Read more »

PROTESTANTS AND PROTOCOLS

June 17, 2021
RTÉ’S CLAIRE BYRNE was not available to protect DUP hard man Gregory Campbell last week as she did recently when closing down sports pundit... Read more »

BARRY (WO)MANS UP

June 17, 2021
HAS FORMER Young Fine Gael president Barry Walsh been emasculated by Blueshirt harpies following his social media outbursts about ‘bitches’ back in 2017? Barry... Read more »

CORRECTION: TATE DONNELLY

June 17, 2021

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GEOGHEGAN’S MEMORY LAPSES

June 3, 2021
FINE GAEL’S perfectly modelled candidate in the Dublin Bay South byelection, James Geoghegan, has had the shine taken off him since declaring his intention... Read more »

MEATH MINUTES UNDER LOCK AND KEY

June 3, 2021
A STAND-OFF between elected councillors and executive officials in Meath could be heading for an embarrassing public confrontation. Seven Independent councillors, as well as... Read more »

JOHN PAUL PHELAN’S ANGST

June 3, 2021
JOHN PAUL PHELAN certainly has a way with words. His description of Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney bluffing their way through a Fine Gael... Read more »

BOYLAN WON’T BE PRESS-GANGED INTO DUBLIN BAY SOUTH

May 20, 2021
MUCH AGONISING in Sinn Féin about its choice of candidate in the Dublin Bay South (DBS) byelection with electoral asset, former MEP Lynn Boylan... Read more »

KATE GETS DOSE OF THE BLUES

May 20, 2021
KATE O’CONNELL’S melodramatic wail about a Leo Varadkar leadership faction undermining her prospects of a nomination in the Dublin Bay South byelection is wide... Read more »

THE FIRST (AND LAST) ITEM …

May 20, 2021
BRENDAN BEHAN suggested that the first item on the agenda of any organisation should be the Split. It seems that this same proposition is... Read more »

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