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Susan Bergin Marlowe Mullingar Film Studio RTÉ Self-Employment

OPEN CALL WINNERS

Date: April 22, 2021 - Behind the Scenes

WHILE ARTS minister Catherine Martin has been throwing millions of euro at the arts during the pandemic, the Arts Council has also been getting in on the act, and this month dished out €1m to “innovative arts projects” by the likes of Dublin Fringe Festival (DFF) and Poetry Ireland under the Open Call 2020 banner,… Read more »

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THE ART OF FALLING – DANIELLE McLOUGHLIN

Date: April 22, 2021 - BooksReviews

ONE OF Danielle McLoughlin’s writing strengths comes from her powerful depictions of everyday life, often with undertones of sinister uncertainty. This was evident in Dinosaurs on Other Planets, her 2015 collection of short stories, many of which featured volatile characters whose lives were in transition. McLoughlin’s debut novel – set mainly in contemporary Cork and… Read more »

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Michael O'Leary

O’LEARY PROVES POINT

Date: April 22, 2021 - Sport of Kings

AS IF Michael and Eddie O’Leary needed another opportunity to annoy the wider racing community, then their recent handling of Tiger Roll served such a purpose. Their well-publicised spat with the English handicapper over Tiger Roll’s allotted weight in the Grand National led the O’Leary boys to throw their toys out of the pram and… Read more »

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Douglas Taylor

DOUG’S ROLL OF THE DICE

Date: April 22, 2021 - Sport of Kings

A SURPRISE name among the entries for Punchestown this year is the grade 1 winning mare Laurina, who was retired from racing by her former trainer Paul Nicholls last winter. She was then put up for auction by former owner Jared Sullivan and was snapped up as a broodmare prospect by Douglas Taylor for a… Read more »

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Rachael Blackmore

GAME ON FOR BLACKMORE

Date: April 22, 2021 - Sport of Kings

AS THE jumps season draws to a close, there is one final task to be achieved by wonder jockey Rachael Blackmore – to win the jockeys’ championship. It looked like it was game over in this particular race at Easter when she trailed Paul Townend by 10 winners but a foot injury sustained by Blackmore’s… Read more »

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Michael O'Callaghan

MICHAEL O’CALLAGHAN FLIES THE FLAG

Date: April 22, 2021 - Sport of Kings

A SIZEABLE cohort of Irish horse traders drew a collective sigh of relief after the first Breeze Up sale of the season took place in Newmarket. With 90% of horses in the catalogue supplied by Irish vendors, the mood beforehand could only be described as cautiously optimistic despite the double whammy of Covid-19 and Brexit…. Read more »

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Gary Morrison

HOSTELWORLD PRIMED FOR 2022 BOUNCEBACK

Date: April 22, 2021 - Moneybags

IT LOOKED bad for Hostelworld when it released its 2020 results revealing a loss of a whopping €50m on the back of an 80% fall in turnover from more than €80m in 2019 to a mere €15m last year. The company is, however, on a very solid footing and set to make hay when the… Read more »

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Albert Manifold

‘GLOBAL’ CRH CONTINUES TO SHRINK

Date: April 22, 2021 - Moneybags

MAYBE SOMEBODY should tell CEO Albert Manifold to stop claiming “CRH is the leading global building materials business in the world”. In fact, the group is effectively only trading in North America and Europe and retrenchment has been the order of the day. Nevertheless, with the construction sector set to get back on track this… Read more »

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Paul Holden

THE HOLDENS’ GYM WORKOUT

Date: April 22, 2021 - Brief Cases

AMONG THE businesses banjaxed by Covid-19 are gyms, and one high-profile player here, Ben Dunne, has been in retrenchment mode. Oddly, a company he controlled until earlier this year is now going into liquidation with a new name and different directors. Three weeks before a creditors’ meeting was advertised by Gymvalue1 Ltd (for later this… Read more »

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Jim Durie

ÉNERGIE SAPPING

Date: April 22, 2021 - Brief Cases

THE GYM business continues to find it difficult during the pandemic and a number of unhealthy looking outfits haven’t been able to get back into shape. One of these is the company that had been behind the Énergie Fitness franchise. A number of individual operators signed on as franchisees of the Énergie Fitness chain of… Read more »

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Natale Ferrara

NATALE FERRARA’S IRISH OUTFIT

Date: April 22, 2021 - Brief Cases

WITH BITCOIN and other cryptocurrencies attracting a significant boost in value in recent weeks, it is interesting to look at an operation incorporated here to provide Italian investors with a ticket to ride on the digital currency rollercoaster. As is clear from documents filed, this is a high-risk business. Blockchain Invest Ltd (BIL) was incorporated… Read more »

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Tiina Jauhiainen

SHEIKH MAKTOUM’S GOOD GOING?

Date: April 8, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

HORSE RACING Ireland (HRI) finds itself in the spotlight again as the sport faces new pressure to acknowledge the toxic issues surrounding Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum. But, where is the stewards’ enquiry? Dubai ruler al Maktoum, who has significant bloodstock and racing interests in Ireland, continues to be embroiled in a well-documented controversy over the… Read more »

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Stephen Donnelly

STEPHEN DONNELLY: ZERO TO HERO?

Date: April 8, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

THE BIGGEST cabinet split between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael ministers since the formation of government occurred last week over health minister Stephen Donnelly’s plan to extend the number of countries on the mandatory quarantine list. This produced reams of media coverage, with both sides expressing outrage at the leaks, underlining a mutuality of guilt…. Read more »

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Paul Clarkson

PROFILE: PAUL CLARKSON

Date: April 8, 2021 - Pillars of Society

IS THE taoiseach’s new government press secretary, former editor of the Irish Sun Paul Clarkson, Micheál Martin’s Andy Coulson? Emphatically not. The then British prime minister David Cameron hired Coulson – formerly editor of the now defunct News of the World – as his media handler following which the journalist went to jail for phone hacking. And both… Read more »

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Brian Leddin

YOUNG BLOOD: BRIAN LEDDIN

Date: April 8, 2021 - The Young Bloods

UNEASY LIES the head which has just won a Dáil seat, and nowhere is this uneasiness more prevalent than in the ranks of the Green Party, which has seen its polling figures plummet 43% since the general election and the party beset by internal wrangling and bitter differences. Forty-year-old Limerick TD Brian Leddin, chairperson of… Read more »

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Sarah McInerney

SARAH’S PRIME TIME HAS COME

Date: April 8, 2021 - Fit to Print?

COVERAGE OF the cabinet row over new countries to be earmarked for quarantine states and queue jumping vaccine grabbers were nearly eclipsed by saturation coverage – in the ‘quality’ print titles – of photogenic journalist Sarah McInerney, who this week begins her new role as an RTÉ Prime Time presenter. Did RTÉ’s marketing experts carry… Read more »

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Mary Keane

MARY KEANE’S NEW JOB

Date: April 8, 2021 - High Society

CONGRATUALTIONS TO Mary Keane, the chair of the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI), who has just landed the sought-after job of director general of the Law Society. She looks set for a nice pay rise. Keane, the first woman DG, has been based at the Law Society as Ken Murphy’s No 2, so she clearly… Read more »

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Zion Road, Rathgar

NOELLE MAGUIRE’S IRFU RUCK

Date: April 8, 2021 - High Society

A RATHER nice pile on Zion Road in Rathgar, D6, is now on the market, with the owners looking for a tasty €2.65m. Norham Mains (named after a village in England apparently) is the abode of tough tackling legal eagles Noelle Maguire and Manus McClafferty, who currently have the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) in… Read more »

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Masaaki Matsushima

COOLMORE’S JAPANESE BACKER

Date: April 8, 2021 - Sport of Kings

AIDAN O’BRIEN’S team is not normally quick off the blocks at the start of the flat season, with his horses often improving markedly after their first runs of the year. O’Brien was obviously keen to hit the ground running this year, however, and his string have made an explosive start to the flat season, operating… Read more »

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2 Johnnies podcast

THE 2 JOHNNIES PODCAST

Date: April 8, 2021 - PodcastsReviews

SINCE ACHIEVING wide popularity with a series of viral music videos in 2017, comedy duo the 2 Johnnies have had a trajectory similar to the Rubberbandits, with the freshness and humour of their early output swiftly dulled by over-exposure. Of course, the fact that the Tipp pair of Johnny McMahon (Johnny Smacks) and Johnny O’Brien… Read more »

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Eamonn Rothwell

EAMONN ROTHWELL’S LANDBRIDGE STRATEGY LOOKS ALL AT SEA

Date: April 8, 2021 - Moneybags

WITH THE demand for direct Ireland to France RoRo ferry services cresting since Brexit docked on January 1, three of the competitors of Irish Continental Group (ICG) have increased capacity or added services on the direct route to the Continent in order to bypass the UK landbridge. Eamonn Rothwell, however, has done nothing to capture… Read more »

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Vol 39 No 07

Date: April 8, 2021 -

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KERRY GUINAN’S UNION

Date: April 8, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

IT’S NOT every day that a new union comes along but the arrival of the Artists’ Union of Ireland (AUI) looks set to shake up the relatively staid culture sector here. And, given that the miles of red tape associated with Arts Council funding applications is the first campaign chosen by the AUI, it should… Read more »

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TV’S ROYAL FAMILY

Date: April 8, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

IN CASE you missed it, the ‘RTS Irish Television Awards’ had its inaugural outing last week on Virgin Media One, where many of the usual suspects found themselves competing in the assorted categories. For the uninitiated, RTS stands for, er, Royal Television Society – a UK charity that “promotes the art and science of television, from… Read more »

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Breege O'Donoghue

BREEGE O’DONOGHUE’S SUCCESSOR?

Date: April 8, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

THERE IS still no sign of a new chair being appointed by Leo Varadkar at the Design and Crafts Council of Ireland (DCCI), where Penneys matriarch Breege O’Donoghue stepped down last year in confusing circumstances after one term. She also exited the board of Fáilte Ireland after a trip to sunny Spain proved controversial. Kilkenny-headquartered… Read more »

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‘IRISH MEDICAL TIMES’ PACIFIST

Date: April 8, 2021 - Affairs of the Nation

THE WINDS of austerity have swept through the Irish publishing industry, with even the medical media feeling the chill in recent years. Chief among these is the Irish Medical Times (IMT), which was for decades seen as a publishing goldmine, raking in millions in pharmaceutical advertising revenue. IMT was founded by Dr John O’Connell, who… Read more »

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Bishop Paul Dempsey

CLERICS HOT UNDER THE COLLAR

Date: April 8, 2021 - Clerical Errors

MARY MCALEESE’S tirade against Pope Francis’s unexpected endorsement of the Vatican doctrinal watchdog’s banning of blessings for same-sex couples has elicited a guardedly positive response from the youngest member of the Irish hierarchy, but not from the primatial archdioceses of Armagh and Dublin. Responding to a question about the Vatican’s harsh language, Archbishop Eamon Martin explained… Read more »

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Derek Scally

IN PRAISE OF DEREK SCALLY

Date: April 8, 2021 - Clerical Errors

DEREK SCALLY, of the Irish Times, has emerged from his Berlin bunker to become the transcendental seer of the lost souls of Irish youth with the publication of his much hyped The Best Catholics in the World: The Irish, the Church and the End of a Special Relationship. “At once intimate and epic”, drooled the paper’s High… Read more »

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Francie Mackey

WHO IS BEATING THE WAR DRUMS?

Date: April 8, 2021 - Hush Hush

IT MAY seem a little surprising in the midst of a global pandemic and the costly Brexit process that British prime minister Boris Johnson has budgeted an extra £16bn to be spent on the UK military over the next four years, a whopping 10% increase. Do the little Englanders who backed Brexit see themselves setting out… Read more »

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Eoghan Harris

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: April 8, 2021 - The Hot Air Brigade

Trawl through my past columns and you find my favourite writers are lesbian feminists. Eoghan Harris, Sunday Independent, submitted by reader If there’s anyone on television here or in Britain or the States that’s worth mentioning, they were on it. Twink describing a compilation of video messages she received for her 70th birthday, RTÉ Radio… Read more »

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Arlene Foster

EXECUTIVE HANGS BY A THREAD

Date: April 8, 2021 - Northwind

ON MARCH 29 Simon Coveney told the Seanad that the north’s institutions were “just about hanging on after a bruising number of years”. Well actually, after one year when Sinn Féin and the DUP signed up to the New Decade New Approach (NDNA) deal and re-established the executive. Since then the north, like everywhere else,… Read more »

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Jim O'Callaghan

MARTIN SET FOR LONG HOT SUMMER

Date: April 8, 2021 - Last Refuge

THE LATEST polls have concentrated minds in Fianna Fáil in a way they have not done since the general election and this could serve to shorten Micheál Martin’s leadership span and even his time as taoiseach. After FF sunk to a nadir of 10% last September, several successive polls showed a possible revival to the… Read more »

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Michael Leahy

IRISH FREEDOM PARTY’S NEW CHAIR

Date: April 8, 2021 - Last Refuge

PROF DOLORES Cahill’s resignation from the Irish Freedom Party (IFP) following some whacky – not to say dangerous – statements about face masks and the pandemic, was accepted with some alacrity by the party’s ard chomhairle just days after her resignation last month. Simultaneously, the IFP appointed Michael Leahy, an architect from Corofin, Co Clare,… Read more »

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Michael Healy-Rae

DANNY V MICHAEL HEALY-RAE

Date: April 8, 2021 - Last Refuge

THE DIVIDE between the Healy-Rae brothers – TDs Michael and Danny – is an open secret in Kerry and it appears to be reflected in two adverts, situated side by side, for their respective services in the Killarney Advertiser recently. In their adverts, the two TDs both proclaim their connection to the cross-border arrangement for… Read more »

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Richard Bruton

BRUTON DOES STRUMPET CITY

Date: April 8, 2021 - Last Refuge

SOUNDS LIKE Fine Gael chairperson Richard Bruton believes in method acting judging by his performance as William Martin Murphy at a virtual on-screen shoot (or re-enactment of Strumpet City) with SIPTU/Irish Equity organiser Martin O’Rourke recently. O’Rourke responded angrily to an advert from FG seeking two professional actors – one male, one female – to… Read more »

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Deirdre Heenan

‘BUSINESS POST’ REVISIONISM

Date: April 8, 2021 - Fit to Print?

TIME WAS when the Business Post dissented from the mainstream media in several ways, chief among them being a nationalist interpretation of the north that was not always a simple regurgitation of the SDLP view or that of soft unionism. The Post often differed from the Iveagh House line and claimed to be based on the interests of northern… Read more »

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