Article Category: Last Refuge

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... 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,... 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... 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... 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... 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... 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... 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... 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... 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... 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... 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 –... 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... 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,... 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... 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... 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... 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... 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... 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... 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... 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... 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... 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... 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% –... 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... 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... 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... Read more »