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Bono Book Award Gold trophy Award

ANNUAL 2025: GOLDHAWK’S AWARDS FOR THE PASSING PARADE – 2025

Date: November 12, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

CONOR MCGREGOR Under Tánaiste and foreign minister Simon Harris, the Government recently opened five new overseas missions through the Global Ireland programme as part of its strengthening of Ireland’s global presence. But this is puny compared to the worldwide diplomatic initiative of Conor McGregor, whose considered, sophisticated forays at home and abroad have raised Ireland’s… Read more »

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The most appropriate epithet of the year may well be Micheál Martin’s new nickname – Louis XIV.

ANNUAL 2025: GOVERNMENT – HUBRIS OVERWHELMS GOVERNMENT

Date: November 12, 2025 - Last Refuge

AS 2024 culminated with a general election, the abiding impression exuded by party leaders Micheál Martin and Simon Harris was one of entitlement and presumption, with a dash of contempt stirred in. What was probably the worst period Sinn Féin had endured for many years, coupled with successful local and EU summer elections for Fianna… Read more »

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Following the Sinn Féin-backed presidential campaign, Mary Lou McDonald’s party has a more realistic chance of getting into government.

ANNUAL 2025: OPPOSITION – SINN FÉIN’S NEW ROUTE TO POWER

Date: November 12, 2025 - Last Refuge

Sinn Féin is looking forward to 2026 in a far more optimistic mood than was the case last year. Then the party had looked on in bewildered horror as its commanding lead in the opinion polls – with 34% in October 2023 – shrank to less than 12% in the local elections of summer 2024…. Read more »

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Sinn Féin first minister Michelle O’Neill attended the cenotaph in Belfast at the annual Somme commemoration, insisting that she has to show respect for unionist traditions if she is to live up to her slogan as ‘first minister for all’.

ANNUAL 2025: POLITICS – PARALYSIS SEIZES NORTH

Date: November 12, 2025 - Last Refuge

At least one item was missing in the north in 2025. There was no election. People might have expected that, in the absence of the usual annual rancourous campaigns, there would be less confrontation between the two main parties, Sinn Féin and the DUP. It was not to be. One of the reasons the two… Read more »

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Following the Jim Gavin fiasco, Micheál Martin's party colleagues have their knives out.

ANNUAL 2025: PROFILE – MICHEÁL MARTIN

Date: November 12, 2025 - Pillars of Society

Micheál Martin began 2025 with a bang, elected Taoiseach in January, albeit a day late. He returned from the November 2024 general election with 48 TDs – 10 more than before. It was also 10 more than identikit coalition partner Fine Gael and nine more than the main Sinn Féin opposition. He strengthened Fianna Fáil’s… Read more »

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Peter Vandermeersch

ANNUAL 2025: FIT TO PRINT? – ROCKY ROAD FOR DUBLIN’S BIG TWO

Date: November 12, 2025 - Fit to Print?

The departures of rival business bosses Deirdre Veldon from the Irish Times and Peter Vandermeersch from Indo-owner Mediahuis Ireland were major events in their own right. But weighed alongside the exits of senior editors – Alan English leaving the Sunday Independent and Tom Fitzpatrick’s definitive departure in late September from the IT-owned Irish Examiner –… Read more »

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ANNUAL 2025: AIR WAVES – HOLLYWOOD DAYS ARE OVER

Date: November 12, 2025 - Air Waves

AND SO it came to pass, in the year 2025, that the long age of that most greedy of dinosaurs – the highly paid RTÉ star – came to an end and the last survivors of the species became extinct. Just over two years after the Ryan Tubridy scandal and the mismanagement of RTÉ finances… Read more »

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Pope Leo XIV: Mary McAleese has criticised the new pontiff as ‘cautious, conservative and anything but forward thinking’.

ANNUAL 2025: CLERICAL ERRORS – MAKE PAPACY GREAT AGAIN

Date: November 12, 2025 - Clerical Errors

The most important ecclesiastical event of 2025 was the death on April 18 of Pope Francis, the most consequential pontiff since Pope John Paul II (but inspired by Pope John XXIII’s Second Vatican Council 1962-65). For several months the ailing Argentine’s fight for life in Rome’s Gemelli hospital attracted world media. Just when he appeared… Read more »

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Helen MEducation minister Helen McEntee has promised the biggest national conversation on education ever. cEntee

ANNUAL 2025: ACADEMIA – McENTEE’S PREROGATIVE

Date: November 12, 2025 - Academia

Norma Foley gave two hospital passes to Helen McEntee when she decamped from education to children. Both are related to the Leaving Certificate, that most politically sensitive topic. Norma avoided being tackled over inflated grades simply by letting them rip last year. This meant that the Saoirses and Ronans of the world could still get… Read more »

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Gerry Adams successfully took a libel case against the BBC and, after being awarded €100,000 in compensation, he donated it all to charity.

ANNUAL 2025: WIGS ON THE GREEN – JUSTICE: IN EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

Date: November 12, 2025 - Wigs on the Green

THROUGHOUT THE winter season generally, and Yuletide in particular, there is much in the way of mulling going around. The best kind, of course, is the wine but there are other sorts of mulling to be done as well. The public service media giant, the BBC, Old Auntie herself, probably won’t enjoy mulling over the… Read more »

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Donald Trump’s ‘liberation day’ set off a panicked scramble as those on the receiving end of his swingeing tariffs attempted to negotiate lower percentages.

ANNUAL 2025: FOREIGN FROLICS – BOWING TO THE DON

Date: November 12, 2025 - Foreign Frolics

Throughout 2025 Irish foreign affairs policy negotiated shark-infested waters. Large foreign predators continually threatened peace on Earth. World leaders displayed nervous smiles, apart from Benjamin Netanyahu who, with Donald Trump’s assistance, killed as many Palestinians as possible, bombed Israel’s neighbours, and started – and then tried to maintain – a new forever war with Iran…. Read more »

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While attempts to cancel author John Boyne failed, the Polari Prize was cancelled and so was Boyne’s award from the L&H Society in UCD. Maureen Kennelly (below) didn’t survive long as Arts Council boss after new culture minister Patrick O’Donovan took charge.

ANNUAL 2025: BEHIND THE SCENES – COCK-UPS, CANCELLATIONS AND KNEECAP

Date: November 12, 2025 - Behind the Scenes

ANOTHER YEAR of flops and farce in the arts and entertainment world hurtles to a close with the a huge question mark over the State’s main funding body, the €140m per annum Arts Council. It found itself very much centre stage as the politicians (finally) took notice of a near €7m cock-up. With TDs and… Read more »

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Rosie Connolly says her fashion business is set to top last year’s stylish €4m profit, while John Magnier (left) saw his credibility take a bashing when he unwisely decided to head to the Four Goldmines.

ANNUAL 2025: HIGH SOCIETY – HIGH TIMES FOR HIGH-NET-WORTH INDIVIDUALS

Date: November 12, 2025 - High Society

THIS YEAR it turned out that there was more moolah than ever sloshing about the country, with the number of millionaires on the rise and the cost of high living on the up. The ‘old’ money, however, was still very much front and centre – most notably courtesy of John Magnier’s disastrous High Court action… Read more »

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Colin Hunt

ANNUAL 2025: MONEYBAGS – IRISH SHARES THAT WILL MAKE THEIR MOVE IN 2026

Date: November 12, 2025 - Moneybags

WITH INCREASING numbers of major Irish-quoted companies migrating their quotation away from the home market in the last couple of years – in particular major stocks such as CRH, Flutter and Smurfit Kappa, which migrated to New York in the wake of stocks like Greencore, Grafton and DCC that migrated to London – the Irish… Read more »

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Eamonn Crowley

ANNUAL 2025: MONEYBAGS – WINNERS AND LOSERS IN 2025

Date: November 12, 2025 - Moneybags

It is quite the surprise to find that this year’s top-performing stock is Eamonn Crowley’s PTSB, which Moneybags had written off but where the shares are up 124%. Although the CEO managed to push profits up to €166m in 2023 and €180m last year, the bank was back down to €51m for the first half… Read more »

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Tom Hickey

ANNUAL 2025: MONEYBAGS PROFILE – TOM HICKEY

Date: November 12, 2025 - Moneybags

DOWN IN Mozambique, an Irish company has been responsible for a huge minerals mine producing ilmenite (a heavy metal ore of titanium and iron used to produce the pigment found in white paint, plastics and paper). The firm operates on a vast scale and apparently is responsible for around 5% of the African country’s GDP…. Read more »

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Philip Marley

ANNUAL 2025: BRIEF CASES – FOOD (AND DRINK) FOR THOUGHT IN 2025

Date: November 12, 2025 - Brief Cases

DJ CAREY may have grabbed all the headlines for his conviction and jailing but at just as fascinating was the sentencing of Celtic Tiger poster boy Philip ‘Philo’ Marley over a plethora of fraud charges. Marley stood accused of theft, money laundering and property registration offences, involving sums between €22,000 and €246,000 and, for several… Read more »

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Micheál Martin

HOW LONG CAN MARTIN HOLD ON?

Date: October 30, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S leadership currently survives because of the sullen toleration of most of his TDs and the reluctance of leader-in-waiting Jim O’Callaghan to unsheathe his sword. We have listed the numbers of TDs regarded as now willing to vote against Martin’s continuing leadership (see p10) but not all of these are willing to do so… Read more »

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Ben Collins

PROFILE: BEN COLLINS

Date: October 30, 2025 - Pillars of Society

IRELAND’S FUTURE, the main proponents of the growing call for a border poll on Irish unity, is sometimes accused of not engaging with unionists. Such critics will be a little non-plussed at the publication of not one but two books in three years by Ben Collins – Irish Unity: Time to Prepare and his recently… Read more »

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Ashley McDonnell

YOUNG BLOOD: ASHLEY MCDONNELL

Date: October 30, 2025 - The Young Bloods

You have to hand it to Ashley McDonnell – she certainly knows how to put a positive spin on things. Having spent the past five years bigging up her role in PUIG, a group that owns and operates luxury fashion and beauty brands, the Galway woman has now parted ways with the Spanish company. With… Read more »

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Paul Durcan

KEVIN KIELY V PAUL DURCAN

Date: October 30, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

THE IRISH ‘poetic community’ is a small one so it is not too surprising that there has been plenty of chatter about the bad taste exposed in an article penned by controversial biographer, critic and poet Kevin Kiely in The Village magazine last month. Titled “Reading in the Durc”, the piece dismisses the work of… Read more »

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Virginia Giuffre

PRINCE ANDREW’S PR

Date: October 30, 2025 - Fit to Print?

VIRGINIA ROBERTS GIUFFRE, who was abused by Prince Andrew, died by suicide last April after completing her book, Nobody’s Girl, which has just gone on sale. By amazing coincidence, a wave of about 20 books on Giuffre have suddenly flooded Amazon, all of which are “independently published”. One is a mere 82 pages long. Anyone… Read more »

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Matt Cooper

MATT COOPER FIBS ABOUT BEN DUNNE

Date: October 30, 2025 - Fit to Print?

THERE ARE not many editors and authors who would admit to telling a “deliberate mistruth” about a national corruption story on the front page of their newspaper and one has to congratulate Matt Cooper, author of Dynasty, his recently published book on the Dunnes Stores family, for coming clean on his deception back in 1996…. Read more »

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DERMOT DESMOND V BRENDAN RODGERS

Date: October 30, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

MOST OBSERVERS will have been surprised by Dermot Desmond’s uncharacteristic tactic of lunging two-footed at outgoing Glasgow Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers. This has not been Der Kaiser’s style and, despite being easily the biggest shareholder in the club, he generally prefers to keep as far behind the scenes as possible (hence Peter Lawwel’s role as… Read more »

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Ian Lawlor

IAN LAWLOR’S SHEKELS

Date: October 30, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

IAN LAWLOR, of private equity development funder Round Tower Capital, has been very vocal lately about the housing crisis, most recently discussing the imminent (?) revision of the Housing For All plan (“Another season, another national housing plan”) in newspapers and on the telly, where he has appeared on the likes of Virgin Media’s The… Read more »

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James Bridgeman

GLENCREE’S BAIL-OUT

Date: October 30, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

GOOD NEWS for all the worthies in the Glencree Centre For Peace And Reconciliation. Despite the level of dysfunction exposed in the organisation in the recent past, its main funder, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), has decided to release over €¼m “on an exceptional basis”. When Goldhawk last looked at the carry-on in Enniskerry… Read more »

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Dan MacDonnell

DESPERATE TIMES FOR DAN MACDONNELL

Date: October 30, 2025 - Brief Cases

EARLIER THIS month a creditors’ meeting was called for event marketing operation Neon Agency, founded by 100% shareholder Dan MacDonnell. This followed an attempt by brand consultancy creditor Image Now to have it wound up by the High Court and also after a Scarp rescue attempt had failed in September. On top of this, a… Read more »

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Alan Clancy

ALAN CLANCY EXITS ONE CENTRAL PLAZA

Date: October 30, 2025 - Brief Cases

GOLDHAWK WAS surprised to see that bar and club supremo Alan Clancy has resigned as a director of the company behind his much-vaunted new venue – the soon-to-open Díon on the top two floors of the old Central Bank building on Dame Street (now called One Central Plaza). Maybe he just has too much on… Read more »

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VOL 43 NO 22

Date: October 30, 2025 -

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Ted Heath

SOLDIER F GOES FREE

Date: October 30, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

SOLDIER F, recently acquitted of murder and attempted murder on Bloody Sunday, has returned to his comfortable life in England. He became a rich man in the 1990s after being awarded a series of lucrative construction contracts from the British government. In what is beyond irony – and the self-serving concept of British justice –… Read more »

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BACIK’S RIGHT CHOICE

Date: October 30, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

FIANNA FÁIL’S latest poll rating of 17% has intensified Micheál Martin’s leadership crisis but another stat in the same poll is also linked to leadership tensions inside the Labour Party. While Labour was on a low, static rating of 4% in the same Business Post poll, its arch rival, the Social Democrats, was soaring to… Read more »

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Paschal Donohoe

DONOHOE CROSSES THE RUBICON

Date: October 30, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

PRESIDENT-ELECT Catherine Connolly was accused by Fine Gael of insulting our allies in Europe by referring, accurately, to the military industrial complex in states such as Germany, so Goldhawk was relieved to see finance minister and Eurogroup president Paschal Donohoe using harmless – not to say meaningless – terms to describe the latest EU militarist-minded… Read more »

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Declan Ganley

‘SPOIL THE VOTE’ PLAYERS

Date: October 30, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

RTÉ was quick to publish an article online before the election count was completed. While 213,738 spoiled votes certainly warranted analysis, RTÉ’S online article, “Who was behind the ‘Spoil The Vote’ campaign?”, did not examine the political agenda of several leading figures in the campaign. The RTÉ report outlines that Elaine Mullally’s posts online “often… Read more »

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Fred Holroyd

DENTON WHITEWASH FOR BRITS AND MI5

Date: October 30, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

A leak from the upcoming Operation Denton report on the 1974 Dublin-Monaghan bombings indicates that the inquiry will exonerate the British Army and MI5, something long predicted by this magazine. The formal report is expected in a few weeks. According to the leak, the army is portrayed as honourable and trustworthy, so much so that… Read more »

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Keith Woods

TALE OF TWO RIOTS

Date: October 30, 2025 - Hush Hush

FOLLOWING THE riots at Citywest, a series of articles contrasted the Garda response in Saggart to the Dublin riots in November 2023. These honed in on more usable riot shields, having a water canon ready to be deployed and a graduated Garda response plan. All this misses the point. After the 2023 riots, then justice… Read more »

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Bob Geldof

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: October 30, 2025 - The Hot Air Brigade

“I would have walked” the presidential election, said Bob Geldof. “I think I’d have walked the f…ing thing,” Geldof added. “I think I would have won.” Bob Geldof, The Journal In the process, he transformed the thin blue line into the Maginot Line. Paul Williams opts for a surprising metaphor in his glowing account of… Read more »

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