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MONTROSE matriarch Miriam O’Callaghan will have been quietly thrilled at the vote by Fianna Fáil ard fheis delegates last weekend to run a presidential candidate. She will also have been pleased to see Micheál Martin halt Bertie Ahern’s attempted rehabilitation in its tracks. He dismissed as “mischievous” efforts by the lads in Drumcondra to bestow… Read more »

KATIE ASCOUGH, the under-fire president of UCD’s student union (SU) will face her public next week when students vote on whether or not to impeach her over her removal of information about crisis pregnancy services from an SU handbook. At the moment, she’s having a tough time of it. Ascough, daughter of Iona Institute director… Read more »

GOLDHAWK’S old pal, Brian McDonagh, didn’t come out too well of last week’s High Court ruling on the huge Apple data centre in Athenry, Co Galway. Judge Paul McDermott said the Dublin businessman, who had objected to the Apple plan, had shown a “lack of candour” by not disclosing that he was centrally involved in… Read more »

HOW comforting for the Fine Gael-led government that new chief justice, Frank Clarke, a strong Blueshirt down the years, should go some way to capitulating to the measures in the Judicial Appointments Bill. Clarke also conceded that the proposed Judicial Council Bill should identify judges disciplined by a judicial conduct committee. But where does this… Read more »

WHILE MOST of the focus in relation to the Ryanair flight cancellation farce has been on Mick O’Leary and his airline, what about the role of the supervisory authority here – the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA), where the boss is/was Eamonn Brennan – which oversaw the airline’s modus operandi? The IAA is chaired by Anne… Read more »

CHAPTER 15 of the Comptroller & Auditor General’s 2016 report, ‘Grant Funding of Galway’s Art House Cinema’, will not come as news to readers of Goldhawk’s chronicling of Lelia Doolan and her group’s attempts to build that bijou but bloody expensive cinema (see The Phoenix 10/3/17). But elsewhere in Galway, things are heating up too…. Read more »

MINISTER for Culchies, Ringer (aka minister for rural and community development, Michael Ring) along with culture and the Gaeltacht minister Heather Humphreys and her junior minister, Joe McHugh, are in receipt of a letter pleading for intervention on the island of Inishbofin. There, the Inishbofin Development Company (IDC) is locked in mortal combat with the… Read more »

THINGS ARE looking up for Ireland’s best known GP, Ciara ‘Operation Transformation’ Kelly, who is itching to take over from George Hook on Newstalk’s primetime lunchtime radio slot, High Noon. With an array of media projects on the go, it is not surprising that Kelly has just incorporated her own company to manage her affairs… Read more »

AN intriguing death notice in The Irish Times recently announced the death of Michael John de Clare Studdert (78), who died in Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire. A former Church of England curate, ex-lieutenant in the British Army Ordnance Corps and a millionaire, Studdert was the son of Venerable Augustine John de Clare Studdert. But there was… Read more »

THE Humanist Association of Ireland (HAI) has had various differences in the last few years as its membership has increased in this secular age. Guest speakers at HAI gatherings, such as Ruth Dudley Edwards on the right and left-wing feminist Ailbhe Smyth, indicate the political bear pit that the movement can sometimes resemble. And four… Read more »