IssueM Articles

Archives: Articles

articles

Laura Whitmore

YOUNG BLOOD: LAURA WHITMORE

Date: October 8, 2020 - The Young Bloods

It has been a trying time of late for Bray’s sweetheart, Laura Whitmore, who struggles with balancing the demands of her rapidly ascending star in the UK and fending off the media, with whom she has a finely honed love-hate relationship. Having shot to fame in 2008 when she successfully saw off “thousands of applicants”… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Simon Coveney

COVENEY YIELDS TO TRUMP ON ISRAEL

Date: October 8, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

THE HIGHLY regarded Irish Times Middle East correspondent, Micheal Jansen, recently summarised the so-called breakthrough of the United Arab Emirate (UAE)-Bahrain-Israel deal as something that would finish off the long-sought-after, two-state Israel-Palestinian solution. Jansen also said it would consign five million Palestinians to permanent Israeli occupation. The ‘master plan’ is being negotiated by Donald Trump’s… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Alison Canavan

ALISON CANAVAN’S DREAM BUILDING

Date: October 8, 2020 - Brief Cases

GOLDHAWK WAS interested to see that California-based model-turned-new-age-guru Alison Canavan has pulled the plug on her Irish wellness coaching business, Tinky Tock Productions. It turns out that the previous involvement of the media-friendly “wellness facilitator” with an Irish company didn’t end all that, er, well at all. Tinky Tock Productions was incorporated in March 2012,… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Niall McFadden

NIALL McFADDEN’S OPTIMISM

Date: October 8, 2020 - High Society

AN IMPRESSIVE house on the Mount Juliet estate has gone on the market with a near E2m price tag. It turns out that this is one of a number of properties that were owned by Leisa Benner, wife of boom-time poster boy Niall McFadden. The latter is keeping busy these days with his bar investments… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Burning Heresies

BURNING HERESIES – KEVIN MYERS (MERRION PRESS)

Date: October 8, 2020 - BooksReviews

WHEN IS a victim not a victim? Apparently not when they’re single mothers whose children are described as “bastards”. Or a Traveller derided as belonging to a “patriarchal, caste-based, dirty, diseased, alcoholic, illiterate… culture”. Or someone without a job, who is denounced as a “feckless layabout”. Or a Muslim condemned as refusing to assimilate to… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Richard Bruton

BLUESHIRT CALL TO ARMS

Date: October 8, 2020 - Last Refuge

THAT’S A slightly unnerving group of right-wing Fine Gael TDs now ensconced in a political bunker hammering out a battle plan to revive the party and lead it back to power as the main party in government. Failed leadership contender of 10 years ago, Richard Bruton, heads up this studious group of Tory types as… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Beatrice Tollman

BEATRICE TOLLMAN’S HOTEL BILL

Date: October 8, 2020 - Brief Cases

WITH THE pandemic causing havoc in the hospitality sector – and little reason for believing things will change any time soon – it is not surprising that there are some serious concerns expressed in the accounts of the hugely indebted luxury Ashford Castle hotel in Mayo. Given the dependence on American tourists, its loaded owners… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Vol 38 No 20

Date: October 8, 2020 -

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Willie Walsh

WILLIE WALSH’S ROUTE MAP

Date: October 8, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

WITH FORMER Aer Lingus boss Willie Walsh having finally exited the giant International Airlines Group (IAG), where he had been chief executive for nine years, there may be some concern at Cork and Shannon airports that his successor could cause serious turbulence. Willie, meanwhile, will be looking at new routes for himself. Walsh garnered the… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Ed Guiney

ED GUINEY’S PLOT TWIST

Date: October 8, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

FANS OF Goldhawk are familiar with the costly development and change of ownership of the controversial Pálás cinema project in Galway, where the opening scene featured the sod-turning by Michael Twee in 2009 and the finale involved Element Pictures’ Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe riding to the rescue. Having landed themselves control of an asset… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

article-default

MATT COOPER’S MANY HATS

Date: October 8, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

MATT COOPER is a very busy chap, which may explain why he apparently forgot to mention his roles in Today FM and Virgin when taking his latest pop at RTÉ in the Business Post last weekend. Readers of Cooper’s ‘Last Post’ column will be familiar with his regular attacks on Montrose, although he usually identifies… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Charlie Flanagan

CHARLIE FLANAGAN TO BE SUED?

Date: October 8, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

IT’S RARE that a full-on riposte to Eoghan Harris’s attacks on those with the ‘wrong’ outlook is sanctioned by the Sunday Independent and even rarer that it would be published on the page opposite his weekly column, as it was last weekend. Perhaps the newspaper realised that, so contentious was the column in question, it… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Barry Ward

BLUESHIRT ETHICS

Date: October 8, 2020 - Affairs of the Nation

THE CHAIRPERSON of Dún Laoghaire Fine Gael constituency organisation, Edward Kennedy, takes his responsibilities seriously. ‘Ted’ informed members in a recent missive, “I am setting up an ethics committee to ensure adherence to the Fine Gael Party’s code of conduct in future elections.” The impetus for ethical re-education of the highly civilised milieu of Kingstown… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

HushHush-def

GENE MURTAGH’S GONG

Date: October 8, 2020 - Hush Hush

CONGRATULATIONS to Gene Murtagh, who has won the Irish Times’s Business Person of the Month Award for having “outperformed market expectations despite Covid-19”. As the IT breathlessly recounted, “While the pandemic led to an inevitable contraction in orders during the first half of the year, Kingspan’s profit performance beat analysts’ forecasts.” It’s a sign of… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Amanda Byram

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: October 8, 2020 - The Hot Air Brigade

Every morning, when you get out of bed, stand in front of a full-length mirror and give yourself some unconditional love: say out loud three times,“Damn, girl! You are one f**king foxy, funny, fabulous, fit, fantastic, fortuitous female!” Amanda Byram’s essential advice, Sunday Independent, Life magazine It’s important to note that golf was one of… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Boris Johnson

WHAT BREXIT WILL MEAN

Date: October 8, 2020 - Northwind

Naturally, all attention is focussed on Britain’s last-minute high-wire act in talks about a trade deal with the EU. However, the fact remains that, deal or no deal, the UK will leave the EU on December 31, which has many practical consequences for everyday life for people in Ireland, north and south. Few people remember… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Frank Clarke

SEPARATING JUDGES AND POLITICIANS

Date: October 8, 2020 - Last Refuge

SÉAMUS WOULFE has achieved the compelling feat of lowering the stock of judges to beneath that of politicians. But amid the reams of media analysis (overwhelmingly critical of Woulfe and, by implication, the judiciary), the cosy relationship between judges and Fine Gael – especially the principal players surrounding Golfgate – has merited little or no… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Mick Barry

MICK BARRY’S MEDIA STRATEGY

Date: October 8, 2020 - Last Refuge

OPPOSITION TDS and even Fianna Fáil have denounced the obsession with spin and media manipulation engaged in by Leo Varadkar in recent years. And left-wing TDs have been especially indignant at the PR-guided stratagems of Vlad and Fine Gael. But a rather self-serving press statement was issued recently by hard-left TD Mick Barry about the… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Niamh Smyth

FIVE-YEAR LIBEL CASE

Date: October 8, 2020 - Last Refuge

A SLOW-motion defamation action in the Northern Circuit Court is causing some confusion within and without Fianna Fáil. This is because the plaintiff – a county councillor who resigned from the party last June – and the defendant – a Cavan-based TD – have completely different recollections of whether any legal action is taking place…. Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Dara Bradley

HACK GOES DOWN ON GALWAY BAY

Date: October 8, 2020 - Fit to Print?

AN INCESTUOUS spat and legal action between Galway Bay FM and a journalist from the radio station’s owners, the Connacht Tribune, was settled in July, with damages and legal costs amounting to a sum not far off €100,000. A story penned in 2016 by the Tribune’s Dara Bradley referred to the then Galway City Fine… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Diageo Dana An Garda Síochána IT Trust No Stone Unturned Irish Times Black Friday Vicky Conway

EXCLUSIVE MATERIAL

Date: October 8, 2020 - Fit to Print?

THAT “FEARLESS” Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph correspondent, the late Chris Ryder, was for many years an inspiration to British hacks covering the Troubles, especially when it came to the daring exploits of the British security services. Older readers will recall his 1987 exposé on the IRA/Libyan plot to spring several IRA and Libyan prisoners… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Jane Suiter

NUIG JOB CONFLICT

Date: October 8, 2020 - Fit to Print?

EX-IRISH TIMES editor Conor Brady’s appointment as Honorary Professor of Journalism at NUI Galway (NUIG) underlines the ambition of the university’s top hack-ademic, Tom Felle. The go-getting head of journalism sees Galway as a sort of Dublin City University (DCU) of the west, forging conspicuous links with the (floundering) journalistic establishment, while crowing about ‘innovation… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Eamon Ryan

PREDATORY FRACKERS

Date: October 8, 2020 - Fowl Emissions

At first glance, John Mullins’s journey from his €400,000-a-year job as head of Bord Gáis to running his own renewable energy company, Amarenco Solar, sounds like a story for our age – gas boss turns his back on fossil fuels and embraces the clean energy of the future. So has Mullins seen the light? Not… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Climate Disinformation Coillte Climate Action EU Livestock NDC Claude Etchelamendy Ed Brophy Richard Boyd-Barrett Kish Dale Crammond Frank Mitloehner Shell Greenwashing Meta Data Centres Ireland

RYAN LEAVES DOOR OPEN

Date: October 8, 2020 - Fowl Emissions

A law to ban new oil and gas exploration licences “would be a historic change” and an inspiration “for the rest of the world”, Eamon Ryan told a rally outside Leinster House in March 2019 in support of Bríd Smith’s Climate Emergency Measures Bill. Leo Varadkar’s government was, he said, using “every trick in the… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Bog-Cuttings-Defaul

BOG CUTTINGS

Date: October 8, 2020 - Bog Cuttings

Red Card Michael Lyons of Stoneyview, Knockbrack, Burnfort, Cork, appeared before Cork District Court after abusing a referee during an under-age football match. The defendant, who supported the home team, accosted the referee after the official awarded the opposition a penalty. Lyons ran on to the pitch and got “in the face” of the referee,… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Jessica Harrington

MATT DEMPSEY’S HEADACHE

Date: October 8, 2020 - High Society

THE CHAIRMAN of the Irish National Stud (INS), Matt Dempsey, and his €140,000 pa chief executive, Cathal Beale, will have been chuffed at last weekend’s Kingdom of Bahrain Sun Chariot Stakes win at Newmarket by Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum’s Nazeef. While there was no joy for the Irish challengers in the €¼m contest, the result… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Consuelo O’Connor

CHARLES COLTHURST’S NEIGHBOURS

Date: October 8, 2020 - High Society

THE SQUIRE of Blarney Castle, Charles St John Colthurst, has been kicking up about a proposed housing development not too far from his famous pile. Unfortunately for Charlie, if the scheme (by Eoin Sheehan) gets the go ahead, the 150 residential units would “be a huge visual blemish”. These days, Colthurst has moved money beyond… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Champagne Football

CHAMPAGNE FOOTBALL – MARK TIGHE & PAUL ROWAN

Date: October 8, 2020 - BooksReviews

GIVEN THE recent trend for behind-the-scenes football documentaries, ex-FAI boss John Delaney could probably have solved the association’s car-crash finances simply by agreeing to a reality series focusing on himself and his fellow blazers. As laid bare in Champagne Football, his 14-year reign was box office material. And there is even a supporting role for… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Johnny Murtagh

CHAMPERS ALL ROUND

Date: October 8, 2020 - Sport of Kings

LUCK PLAYS a big part in the success or otherwise of horse racing, but one group of owners who must be pinching themselves are those involved in Fitzwilliam Racing. Set up around four years ago by private equity investor Mark Flood, the syndicate is now run by Paul McKeon and it pulled off a major… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Henry Beeby

TOUGH GOING AT GOFFS

Date: October 8, 2020 - Sport of Kings

FEARS THAT the value of bloodstock would plunge due to the effects of Covid-19 (see The Phoenix 25/9/20) were justified when Goffs staged its annual Orby Yearling Sale at the company’s sister UK complex in Doncaster. Travel restrictions, economic hurdles, spending hesitancy by the top-level owners and the prospects of poor prize money in Britain… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Brendan Duke Adrian Murray Mick Bailey

OISIN MURPHY’S DRUG WAR

Date: October 8, 2020 - Sport of Kings

THE NEWS that racing’s latest poster boy, Oisin Murphy, tested positive for metabolites of cocaine at Chantilly in July could prove a major blow to the career of the Kerryman and also to the image of the sport’s big attractions. While Murphy has strenuously denied having ever taken cocaine, with a hair sample analysis supposedly… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Aidan O'Brien

NO GAIN FOR AIDAN O’BRIEN

Date: October 8, 2020 - Sport of Kings

WITH HEAVY rain in Paris scuppering the participation of Aidan O’Brien’s main challenger, Love, in the Arc de Triomphe, a last minute scare involving a contaminated batch of horse feed put the rest of the Ballydoyle squad on standby for the big event. There could be further repercussions. O’Brien’s horses are normally fed on horse… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Nuala O'Connor

NUALA O’CONNOR’S NEW GIG

Date: October 8, 2020 - Behind the Scenes

THE APPOINTMENT of Nuala O’Connor to the government’s Future of Media Commission may draw some attention to one of the more successful production partnerships in the country. Until now, Dingle-based O’Connor has remained mostly in the background, while her partner and front man of the operation, Philip King, is best known as presenter of the… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Susan Bergin Marlowe Mullingar Film Studio RTÉ Self-Employment

ROSE MCHUGH’S GOOD NEWS

Date: October 8, 2020 - Behind the Scenes

ROSE MCHUGH, Crawford Art Gallery chair, was smiling last month when the government finally put some real money on the table for the long-overdue upgrading of the building. The announcement of €3.2m for the upcoming stage of the redevelopment is the second piece of good news. Former culture minister Josepha Madigan, on her way out… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Willie Walsh

WILLIE WALSH’S €2.7BN IAG LEGACY

Date: October 8, 2020 - Moneybags

WILLIE WALSH – the most admired airline executive in the world, according to Mick O’Leary – exited the IAG airline conglomerate (which owns British Airways, Aer Lingus, Iberia, Midland and Vueling) last month. He had just secured underwriting for the huge €2.7bn rights issue for IAG, but at a horrendous cost for its shareholders. It… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber

Joe Purcell

MINCON BUCKS THE TREND

Date: October 8, 2020 - Moneybags

WITH MINING in the doldrums, the multinational Irish drilling equipment manufacturer Mincon should be really feeling the pinch, especially on top of the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, it turns out that business is booming, although trading margins will need to improve if the share rating is to be justified. The company was set up by… Read more »

To access this content, you must be a Phoenix subscriber.

Get access to The Phoenix online for as low as €1.50 per week. Read all the regular online only Phoenix stories AND receive the packed digital edition every fortnight (25 per year). Great value for so many inside stories!

Subscribe Now! I’m a Subscriber