IssueM Articles

Archives: Articles

articles
Bog-Cuttings-Defaul

BOG CUTTINGS

Date: May 29, 2025 - Bog Cuttings

THREAT, NOT PROMISE Sligo District Court heard the case of a man accused of verbally abusing gardaí on two occasions. On January 17 officers received reports of an intoxicated and argumentative individual at the Clayton Hotel in Sligo. They arrived to find Declan Cunnane (48) being asked by staff to leave the hotel. Cunnane, 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

Maura McGrath

THE BIG GIG

Date: May 29, 2025 - Behind the Scenes

AN ADVERT for one of the more prestigious jobs in the arts sector has just been posted by the National Concert Hall (NCH) on its website. It turns out that the well-regarded institution is seeking applications for the role of chief executive, the position held since 2021 by Robert Read. Given the massive redevelopment project… 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

Tony Mullins

TONY MULLINS’S MEMORIES

Date: May 29, 2025 - Sport of Kings

EARLIER THIS month, Tony Mullins – brother of Willie – failed to overturn a Workplace Relations Commission award of a chunky €86,000 made to Yasir Ali, a former stable hand at the trainer’s Watree Stud in Co Kilkenny. Probably the most eyebrow-raising evidence from Mullins was that he did not recall if he had attended… 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

Ted Walsh

TED WALSH’S WOES

Date: May 29, 2025 - Sport of Kings

Ted Walsh – the trainer, pundit and patriarch of the Walsh family of racing TV presenters – was back in hot water with the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) stewards earlier this month. Following the running of the TC Cullen Memorial Novice Steeplechase at Wexford, the race-day stewards enquired into the running and riding 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

IHT CHL The Lion in Winter Racing Royalty Le Brocquy City of Troy Fitzwilliam Square AIRO Dermot Smurfit Ballinacarrig Park Club Cosgrave Fitzpatrick Keith Jameson National Gallery Collection Marissa Carter VG Tom Higgins Neil Jordan Laura Bonner Paul Ward Variety Jones Dtat Eathos Sharon Keegan Angela Scanlon Desmond Canouan Bellair Estate Bobby Flay John O’Conor Portrait of Omai Eibhlín Ní Chonghaile Wedding NGI Board Rachel Flynn JP McMahon Ash Quinn Pamela Laird Abdullah Al Naboodah Boundless Ocean

IMAGE’S TAX DEAL

Date: May 29, 2025 - High Society

THE MCDONNELL sisters, Jane and Sarah, had an outing in The Currency last week, where they got to plug their latest venture, Design Week Dublin. Not surprisingly, there were also mentions of times gone by, including a lengthy stint at Image magazine. The latter business has just filed its figures for 2024, which reveal a… 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

Tom Higgins

TOM HIGGINS’S FLIGHT PLAN

Date: May 29, 2025 - High Society

IN THE wake of the high-profile ‘gals in space’ media stunt by Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, it is interesting to note that the market has recently taken a shine to Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic (VG) space flight operation, where Goldhawk’s old pal, Tom ‘Psychics Live’ Higgins stumped up €¼m almost 20 years to book a… 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

Paul O'Donnell

UNDERPOWERED GREENCOAT RENEWABLES RIPE FOR PICKING

Date: May 29, 2025 - Moneybags

IT IS difficult to know what Paul O’Donnell and Bertrand Gautier – the so-called investment managers in Schroders Greencoat Capital who run Greencoat Renewables for a juicy fee – are up to. They are earning a very handsome fee not linked to performance, while the company’s share price has been plummeting. For investors, matters are… 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

Dermot Crowley

JUST WHY IS THE BOARD TRYING TO SELL DALATA?

Date: May 29, 2025 - Moneybags

IT REMAINS difficult to know who is pushing to have Dalata Hotels Group bought out. AS CEO, Dermot Crowley is clearly front and centre but, given his stated strategy, a sell-off would be hard for him to stomach. Also, it is very hard to justify the excuse being put forward by the company for 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

Dermot Smurfit

DEREK MADDEN’S PRIME PROBLEM

Date: May 29, 2025 - Brief Cases

FANS OF Goldhawk with long memories will recall an interesting little bioenergy company called Prime Energy Power Ltd (PEP), where Nicholas O’Dwyer of Grant Thornton was installed as liquidator after it ran out of moolah (see The Phoenix 20/4/2018). The principal player here, Derek Madden, has now been restricted for five years under Section 150… 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

Matt Gleeson

BIG NOISE MATT GLEESON

Date: May 29, 2025 - Brief Cases

A COMPANY called Blackberry Hearing Ltd has just had a charge registered against it by non-bank lender InvoiceFair Ltd, which now trades as FinanceFair. This follows on foot of a most upbeat outing in the Sunday Times by Blackberry boss and pal of Denis O’Brien, Matt Gleeson. The ST article made it clear that Blackberry… 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

Clodagh Edwards

‘IMAGE’ MAKEOVER

Date: May 29, 2025 - Brief Cases

ELSEWHERE IN this issue, Goldhawk notes the agreement between Image Publications Ltd (IPL) and the Revenue in relation to repayment of warehoused pandemic-period taxes (see p18). It is also worth noting that the publisher has been steadily reducing its significant accumulated deficit. These days IPL is owned by a holding company called Zernicke Ltd, which… 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

Lord Mountbatten

NO BAFTA FOR KINCORA FILM

Date: May 15, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

The BBC has just secured a prestigious Bafta (British Academy Film and Television Arts) award for Clive Myrie’s Caribbean Adventure made by Alleycats of Derry and directed by Des Henderson. The series dwells on the culture of the Caribbean and also its history of slave sugar production…. Read more »

Ruadhán Mac Cormaic

PROFILE: RUADHÁN MAC CORMAIC

Date: May 15, 2025 - Pillars of Society

THE PRESS COUNCIL’S recent confirmation of a Press Ombudsman’s decision underlines the Irish Times’s one-sided coverage of clerical child abuse. An IT article last September inaccurately reported that the 2009 Ryan Report on residential child abuse was exclusively “about” Catholic institutions. This bias has resulted in a virtual IT blackout of reportage on the abuse… 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

Eoghan Kenny

YOUNG BLOOD: EOGHAN KENNY

Date: May 15, 2025 - The Young Bloods

WHILE THE Labour Party nearly doubled its Dáil representation in 2024 with only a marginal increase in the percentage of votes it received in the 2020 general election, the big question is whether its new TDs, such as Cork North Central’s Eoghan Kenny, can hold on and repeat the trick next time out. Kenny was… 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 McDonagh

WINDING DOWN LAND-HOARDER NAMA

Date: May 15, 2025 - Moneybags

AFTER THE furore surrounding the mooted appointment of Nama CEO Brendan McDonagh as the head of the Government’s new housing activation office, the focus can now turn to his performance as head of the agency. Nama is currently in wind-down mode and, despite many claims made by it and on its behalf, the truth is… 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

Colum Eastwood

EASTWOOD ROUNDS ON TAOISEACH

Date: May 15, 2025 - Northwind

At the end of April Colum Eastwood, MP for Foyle and former leader of the SDLP, had an article published in the Irish Times that is a scathing criticism of what he called “southern establishment views”. He said those views on “partition, the nature of reconciliation and the need to finally wage war on want,… 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

Lyra

LYRA’S COMFORT ZONE

Date: May 15, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

CAROLINE DOWNEY must be delighted with the latest outing for the singer-songwriter she manages, Lyra, who continues to benefit from a remarkably high profile despite her relative lack of music success. Of course, being represented by the co-owner (with Denis Desmond) of music venue and promotion behemoths MCD presumably does help when it comes 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

Bertie Ahern

BERTIE BANGS ON ÁRAS DOOR

Date: May 15, 2025 - Last Refuge

MUCH MEDIA attention was given – as intended – to a rather self-serving organisation, which is entitled the InterAction Council. It is composed of former world leaders and has been co-chaired since 2016 by none other than one of our own, ex-taoiseach and former leader of Fianna Fáil Bertie Ahern. The council was founded in… 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

Donald Trump

TRUMP’S PLOT(S) SPOILER

Date: May 15, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

WITH ARTS minister Patrick O’Donovan having just reappointed four directors of Screen Ireland (SI), including chairman Ray Harman, at least the state film funding agency has a full complement at a time when the sector is faced with Donald Trump’s 100% tariffs on non-American movie and TV productions. Of most immediate concern to the SI… 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

DUBLIN PRIDE’S PREDICAMENT

Date: May 15, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

SINN FÉIN has been carrying out a damage limitation exercise after comments by health spokesman David Cullinane saw Trans and Intersex Pride Dublin ban the party from its annual march in July. The good news is that there is no such move by the larger Dublin LGBTQ+ Pride march next month, although the organisers must… 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

John Magnier

MAGNIER ON THE ROPES

Date: May 15, 2025 - Sport of Kings

IF LEINSTER’S European semi-final exit to Northampton was a bona fide sporting shock, the drubbing handed out to John Magnier and the gang at Coolmore was also a bruising affair. There will surely be an inquest. In the opening classic of the season, the Betfred 2,000 Guineas, Sheikh Mohammad al Maktoum’s Godolphin fielded Ruling Court,… 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 43 NO 10

Date: May 15, 2025 -

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

RTÉ’S LATEST HOT SEAT

Date: May 15, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

WITH THE Oireachtas committees finally in place, certain state board vacancies can now be filled. One place they could start is RTÉ, which is facing its latest scandal with an underpowered board in place. Kevin Bakhurst et al have confirmed that RTÉ wrote off €3.6m on its partly failed IT system. This is the kind… 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 Comiskey

AFTER COMISKEY

Date: May 15, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

SENIOR CLERICS such as Bishop Brendan Comiskey could hardly complain about being targeted for covering up child abuse by priests in their diocese but the platitudes of politicians and others in authority in this field are hard to endure. Before Comiskey resigned in 2002, senior government politicians had resisted the efforts of victims’ parents and… 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

Matt Dempsey

DEMPSEY’S ACADEMIC DISCOURSE

Date: May 15, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

Back in June 2010, UCD conferred one of its highest accolades, an honorary Doctor of Science, on Irish Farmers Journal (IFJ) editor Matt Dempsey. Thanks to his leadership, the journal “has a unique strength in that it makes available to farmers and other readers the most up-to-date interpretation of scientific research”, the UCD citation read…. 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 Mann

THE MANN WHO KEPT HIS BALLS INTACT

Date: May 15, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

Notorious ex-SAS officer and soldier of fortune Simon Mann has died. In 2004 he led a failed plot to topple President Teodoro Obiang of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea. Baroness Thatcher and her son, Sir Mark, invested $300,000 in the doomed venture. Born in 1952, Mann went to Eton from where he progressed to Sandhurst and joined… 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

Matt Carthy

LEFT V RIGHT MARCHES

Date: May 15, 2025 - Affairs of the Nation

In the weeks that followed the recent large anti-immigration protest in Dublin, right-wing activists have tried to tap into that energy by calling a series of local demonstrations. This has created a dilemma for Sinn Féin and other groups in how to appropriately respond. In Dublin TDs Paul Donnelly and Louise O’Reilly as well 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

Justin Barrett

FAR-RIGHT COUPS

Date: May 15, 2025 - Hush Hush

THAT LARGE anti-immigrant march in Dublin recently masked upheavals and faction fighting among new-right corporals jostling for ascendancy. Two casualties appear to be Justin Barrett – still claiming to be leader of the National Party (NP) and also head of Clann Éireann – and Hermann Kelly, president of the Irish Freedom Party (IFP) until its… 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

Sharon Osbourne

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: May 15, 2025 - The Hot Air Brigade

They should follow the masters, who are U2. Bono goes on, he talks about Palestine. He does it in peace. He’s pro-Palestine, that’s his opinion, Bono, God bless him, but he does it in such a way that it doesn’t incite violence from a crowd. Sharon Osbourne’s advice for Kneecap, Piers Morgan Uncensored Kneecap have… 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

John O'Dowd

GOLD MINE PROJECT FOYLED AGAIN

Date: May 15, 2025 - Fowl Emissions

In a saga of government department hypocrisy that Strabane man Brian O’Nolan (aka Myles na gCopaleen) may have considered perfect fodder for his Cruiskeen Lawn column, the Sinn Féin-led Northern Ireland Department of Infrastructure (DfI) has reluctantly admitted that environmental issues must indeed be viewed on an all-Ireland basis. This has always been the case… 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

Duncan Smith

‘INSECURE’ OIREACHTAS COMMITTEE

Date: May 15, 2025 - Last Refuge

THERE WAS consternation among certain members of the Dáil reform committee when it met to ratify the draft Orders of Reference and Establishment of Committees Report. A one-line footnote in the report nearly derailed the whole long-awaited process of creating Oireachtas committees, provoking a fraught and nervous debate. The only footnote in the report said: “National… 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

Ivana Bacik

HAS BACIK BACKED OFF LEFT UNITY?

Date: May 15, 2025 - Last Refuge

THE GROWING movement pushing for broad left unity among the opposition received two signals last week at a large rally to retain the triple lock that involved most, but not all, the left political parties and like-minded individuals. Firstly and positively was the attendance of Sinn Féin and a considered speech from its leader, Mary… 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

Ronan O'Domhnaill

LOW-COST MEDIA FREEDOM

Date: May 15, 2025 - Fit to Print?

UNSURPRISINGLY, THERE has been little or no media coverage of the pay-outs to media organisations recently from the Government or, rather, the taxpayers’ largely unknowing munificence so generously enabled by the Government. Sums amounting to €5.7m have been dished out to a struggling media across… Read more »

Ivan Yates Nell McCafferty RTÉ Lord Laird Intro Matchmaking NewsBrands Martin McGuinness Dún Laoghaire Pat Leahy Cormac Lucey John Cooney Irish Journalism Awards Steve Aiken Anton Savage John Downing Lucinda Creighton Marina Sologub Eilis O'Hanlon Ian Kehoe Danny McConnell Sindo O'Connor Mediahuis Stephen Collins Book Justine McCarthy Rewriting the Troubles Lynn Ruane Sinn Féin

CLARE DALY V ‘SUNDAY TIMES’

Date: May 15, 2025 - Fit to Print?

GOLDHAWK PREDICTED as far back as 2022 that then MEP Clare Daly would come for those sections of the media that had, as she saw it, set out to politically target herself and partner Mick Wallace, also an MEP at the time. This was because Daly in particular had been an especially powerful advocate 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

Andrew Neil

FUNDING GREAT BRITISH NEWS

Date: May 15, 2025 - Fit to Print?

IRISH TAXPAYERS will be equally happy – in the spirit of our shared island and its history – to learn that the Government’s media largesse has spread to the north. DUP communications minister Gordon Lyons last month “unlocked” extra funding for the Ulster-Scots Agency, an entity that claims parity for Ulster-Scots with Irish as a… 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: May 15, 2025 - Bog Cuttings

THIRSTY WORK The actions of a Roscommon man charged with theft and leaving a restaurant without paying were described as “the lowest of the low” when the case came before Judge James Faughnan at Castlerea District Court. Thomas Lawrence of Macdara Frawleys, Galway Road, was before the court for stealing 16 cans of Budweiser from… 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