Article Category: Pillars of Society

Profile: Barry Andrews

April 5, 2018
IF Fianna Fáil has a royal family it is the extended Andrews clan and former minister Barry Andrews was once seen as its crown... Read more »

Profile: John ‘SCU’ Concannon

March 22, 2018
BECOMING the story rather than creating it is regarded as the kiss of death for any spin doctor, but John Concannon, head of the... Read more »

Profile: President Michael D Higgins

March 8, 2018
IS Michael D Higgins a shoo-in for a second term as president? The dotty professor aura built up around him over the years has... Read more »

Profile: Mary McAleese

February 22, 2018
THE VATICAN’S boycott of former President of Ireland and devout Catholic feminist Mary McAleese – The Outsider as her unofficial biographer Justine McCarthy christened... Read more »

Profile: Michael McGrath FF

February 8, 2018
UNEASY LIES the head that wears the crown and, as opinion polls continue to show Fianna Fáil lagging behind Fine Gael in the great... Read more »

Profile: Mary Lou McDonald

January 25, 2018
CORONATIONS, as the British establishment knows well, require a carefully staged build-up to a climactic occasion and a strong message about a new era.... Read more »

Profile: MacDara Kelleher

December 14, 2017
THE IRISH movie business is characterised by huge levels of public lolly being poured into productions either via tax breaks or ‘loans’ from the... Read more »

Profile: Dr Ciara Kelly

November 30, 2017
THAT Dr Ciara Kelly, one of Ireland’s most articulate feminist journalists, should replace George Hook in his prime time Newstalk slot is beyond irony.... Read more »

Profile: Emily Logan

November 2, 2017
CHIEF Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) Emily Logan recently made the most forthright statement on abortion at the Oireachtas... Read more »

Profile: John ‘Glenveagh’ Mulcahy

October 19, 2017
IT IS hard to believe the audacity involved in the truly gobsmacking €550m IPO float of Glenveagh Properties last week, at the centre of... Read more »

Profile: Matt Cooper

October 5, 2017
HAS Matt Cooper’s self esteem got the better of his professional judgment? Signing up to a TV3 duet – or duel? – with Ivan... Read more »

Profile: Neil Jordan

September 21, 2017
THE HUGE audiences attracted to Sky TV’s recent blockbuster series, Riviera, tuned in despite, not because of, its creator, Neil Jordan (with John Banville),... Read more »

Profile: Fintan O’Toole

September 7, 2017
IRISH Times writer Fintan O’Toole is regarded as the media’s pre-eminent political intellectual and literary critic. Globally he is certainly the best known Irish... Read more »

Josepha Madigan TD

August 24, 2017
Josepha Madigan JOSEPHA MADIGAN TD is one of Leo Varadkar’s vamps, politically speaking of course, ticking all the right (and right-wing) boxes on tax... Read more »

Billionaire property tycoon Luke Comer and his horseracing handicap

August 10, 2017
Luke Comer THE PROPERTY boom is again making some people very rich, none more so than Luke Comer and his younger brother, Brian, who... Read more »

PROFILE: SUSAN DENHAM

July 27, 2017
Susan Denham AS SHE heads into bucolic retirement, Chief Justice Sue Denham will have ample time to enjoy the “horses and gardens” she once... Read more »

Vincent Browne

July 13, 2017
IT IS not exactly characteristic of Vincent Browne to walk out of a €400,000 pa contract which still has a year to run. So... Read more »

Dee Forbes

June 29, 2017
THAT RTÉ should scoop €107.5m for its Montrose land bank and yet still be in financial straits says it all about the apparently insuperable... Read more »

Ailbhe Smyth

June 15, 2017
THE archetypal feminist in today’s Ireland is a Labour or Fine Gael supporting, middle class professional with aggressive secularist leanings. This brand of feminist... Read more »

Leslie Buckley

June 2, 2017
THESE ARE testing times for the chairman of Independent News and Media (INM), Leslie Buckley, trusted lieutenant and boardroom representative of the group’s biggest... Read more »

Kate O’Connell

May 17, 2017
IS Kate O’Connell a transient backbench TD whose election in Dublin Bay South (DBS) owed more to various forces intent on burying the troublesome... Read more »

Garry Hynes

May 3, 2017
WITH THE recent exit of Michael Colgan as artistic director of the Gate Theatre after 33 years attracting oodles of media attention, it is... Read more »

Paddy Prendergast

April 19, 2017
EXACTLY 100 years after John Pentland Mahaffy, the much-celebrated provost of Trinity College, distinguished himself by suppressing the college’s Gaelic Society (over its plans... Read more »

Alan Kelly, TD

April 5, 2017
THERE is an official and an unofficial agenda at this month’s Labour Party conference. The first is an attempt to breathe life into the... Read more »

Tim Collins

March 23, 2017
WHEN in January 2016 Tim Collins became Newstalk’s fifth CEO in 11 years, he was presumably unaware that its owner, Denis O’Brien, was already... Read more »

Paul Reynolds

February 23, 2017
COMMISSIONER Nóirín O’Sullivan is the cop in the eye of the storm over Sgt Maurice McCabe but RTÉ crime correspondent Paul Reynolds is also... Read more »

Dara Murphy

February 9, 2017
THE perverse priorities of An Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s political appointments are personified by the undistinguished Dara Murphy, junior minister for European affairs. Murphy has... Read more »

BRENDAN OGLE

January 25, 2017
BRENDAN OGLE is a dangerous man. You can tell that from the media reaction to the Ogre’s leadership role in the Apollo House homeless... Read more »

Jim O’Callaghan

January 12, 2017
OVER the past five years, while his position as leader of Fianna Fáil was open to question on all sides, Micheál Martin very shrewdly... Read more »

Denis Naughten

December 14, 2016
Once regarded as a potential leader of Fine Gael, then expelled from the party five years ago, Denis Naughten has managed to claw his... Read more »

Brendan Howlin

December 1, 2016
LEADER of the smallest Labour Party in its century long existence, Brendan Howlin must now have a keen understanding of the phrase, Be careful... Read more »

Ruth Coppinger TD

November 3, 2016
RUTH COPPINGER’S clever manipulation of the abortion issue has helped to give the AAA/PBP a three-point boost to 9% in the latest Red C... Read more »

Frances Fitzgerald

October 20, 2016
NOT merely a safe pair of hands, as compared to the irascible Alan Shatter, but a potential successor to Enda Kenny was how Frances... Read more »

Jim Sheridan

October 5, 2016
FILM DIRECTOR Jim Sheridan has had a helluva ride since he struck lucky with his very first film, My Left Foot, in 1989. He’s... Read more »