Article Category: Last Refuge

ISRAELI IRISH OFFENSIVE

August 22, 2019
THE ONSLAUGHT against alleged anti-semitism in Britain is driven by efforts to undermine Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership, while in Ireland the claim that criticism... Read more »

BITCHIN’ BLUESHIRT BARRY

August 22, 2019
WITH ONE Young Fine Gael (YFG) leader, Killian Foley-Walsh, in a spot of bother about his attendance at a right-wing youth conference in the... Read more »

LABOUR AND BIG TOBACCO

August 22, 2019
WHAT IS it about the Labour Party and Big Tobacco? Several leading Labour players down the years have been involved in lobbying and PR... Read more »

TIMMY DOOLEY’S DEMISE

August 8, 2019
TIMMY DOOLEY’S public dressing down by his boss, Micheál Martin, for his unpatriotic remarks on the Taoiseach as he confronted the old foe, represent... Read more »

JOAN BURTON’S LAST STAND

August 8, 2019
THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT was kind to former Labour leader, Joan Burton, in its recent front page splash about tens of thousands of pensioners being... Read more »

JOSEPHA, SHANE, SHAY AND NEALE

August 8, 2019
SHAY BRENNAN’S win at the Fianna Fáil Dublin Rathdown convention last week is but a small step in the party’s seemingly hopeless quest to... Read more »

CHOPPING MARIA BAILEY

July 25, 2019
FOLLOWING recent adverse developments, Maria Bailey has lost her role as chair of the Oireachtas Committee on Housing, but the axe could fall even... Read more »

MICHELLE’S MAYO MADNESS

July 25, 2019
FINE GAEL farming members, a mainstay of the party for generations, are not enamoured of their Galway West TD, the fragrant Hildegarde Naughton, but... Read more »

GENDER IMBALANCE IN CORK FG

July 25, 2019
LEO VARADKAR and Fine Gael general secretary Tom Curran have a serious gender problem in Cork City and County with not a single woman... Read more »

MARY LOU RESHUFFLES SF DÁIL TEAM

July 11, 2019
SINN FÉIN’S post-election revamp will see the restructure of various layers of the party, but already Mary Lou McDonald’s Dáil reshuffle involves a refocus... Read more »

BLUESHIRTS BATTLE FOR TOP JOBS

July 11, 2019
THE BACK-room machinations by EU states’ leaders in the divvy up of EU top jobs last week were naïve child’s play compared to the... Read more »

FINE GAEL BULLIES?

July 11, 2019
REPORTS OF bullying, racist remarks and persecution of female members in Meath East Fine Gael have led to an inquiry by the party’s national... Read more »

VARADKAR TO BAIL OUT BAILEY?

June 27, 2019
LEO VARADKAR is again exhibiting a recently observed trait of indecision and prevarication, this time in the Maria Bailey ‘compo’ controversy. This characteristic is... Read more »

BRENDAN AND RÓISÍN

June 27, 2019
STRATEGIC ARGUMENTS inside both the Labour Party and the Labour Party Mark II (aka the Social Democrats) concern not only whether to enter coalition... Read more »

SOC DEMS TARGET EIGHT DÁIL SEATS

June 27, 2019
THE MEDIA’s new political love objects are the Greens, but the Soc Dems are also feeling some love, as illustrated by a recent Irish... Read more »

Ó RÍORDÁIN’S DOUBLE STRIKE

June 12, 2019
AODHÁN Ó RÍORDÁIN recently made a most paradoxical call for Labour leader Brendan Howlin to lead the party into the next general election and... Read more »

DRUMCONDRA MAFIA RIP

June 12, 2019
FIANNA FÁIL’S local election success in north Dublin was not replicated by voters in the rare auld North Inner City (NIC) area, where its... Read more »

RATHDOWN: BRENNAN OR BUCKLEY FOR FF?

June 12, 2019
THE FAILURE of former Fianna Fáil press officer Olivia Buckley to take a council seat in Dundrum has not deterred party HQ from its... Read more »

DUBLIN — FIANNA FÁIL AT THE GATE

June 12, 2019
SUDDENLY DUBLIN, for long a desert for the party, has become Fianna Fáil’s oyster. While the local election swing from FF to Fine Gael... Read more »

MARIA BAILEY: NOT THE REAL TARGET

May 29, 2019
THE FURORE created by Michael McDowell’s attack on Dún Laoghaire TD Maria Bailey and her compo case over that fall from a hotel swing... Read more »

OLIVIA BUCKLEY VS SHANE ROSS

May 29, 2019
FIANNA FÁIL’S local election results in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown will have given Micheál Martin much to consider as it has put a question mark over... Read more »

MARIA WALSH’S MILITARISM

May 29, 2019
IT WAS a close-run thing in the end for Fine Gael EU candidate Maria Walsh in Midlands North West and her gung-ho military-style soundbytes... Read more »

THE NEXT GOVERNMENT

May 29, 2019
NOW FOR the real election. Both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil (along with desperate pleas from Labour leader Brendan Howlin) posit the prospects of... Read more »

CASEY STILL BENT ON DÁIL

May 16, 2019
RIVALS OF Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy have harped on his intention to run for a Cavan-Monaghan seat in the Dáil, regardless of whether... Read more »

FG’S TEENAGE PROHIBITION

May 16, 2019
FINE GAEL senator Catherine Noone had to back-pedal rapidly last week following her demand that the legal age limit for alcohol be raised from... Read more »

POSTER GIRL ANNE RABBITTE

May 16, 2019
FIANNA FÁIL’S Midlands North West (MNW) EU candidate, Anne Rabbitte TD, continues to blunder in her election campaign, with the most recent boo-boo coming... Read more »

ELECTRIFYING DEIRDRE CLUNE MEP

May 16, 2019
ANOTHER MANUFACTURED row – similar to the spat between amazons Mairead McGuinness and Maria ‘Rose’ Walsh – broke out last week in the South... Read more »

VARADKAR’S LEGAL PRECEDENT

May 2, 2019
WHAT AN interesting sequence of events has taken place since the New Year surrounding Shane Ross’s judicial appointments bill. Fine Gael and, in particular,... Read more »

RABBITTE’S TUAM BABIES BLUNDER

May 2, 2019
FIANNA FÁIL has landed itself in la merde over the Tuam babies with a most disingenuous statement from TD Anne Rabbitte, expressing concern about... Read more »

FG PEMBROKE BLUE BLOODS

May 2, 2019
WHAT A stellar trio of candidates Fine Gael has assembled in the local election barony of Pembroke – formerly Pembroke-South Dock – which has... Read more »