Affairs, 7 January 2020

THE INCREASINGLY DEFENSIVE  tenor of Fine Gael plans to officially commemorate the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) would indicate a growing sense of nerves behind the scenes. Public appetite for such “remembrance” is slim, even among a minority of sentimental Redmondites The issue has been promoted by the “Historical and Reconciliatory Police Society” or HARP Society… Read more »

Affairs, 23 December 2019

HAS Fianna Fail leader Micheál Martin misjudged his own members’ mood and even that of the public about a united Ireland and a border poll? A definite shift in media attitudes to a border poll has followed Westminster election results in the north that showed a nationalist political majority for the first time in its… Read more »

Affairs, 20 December 2019

AT A time when Dee Forbes and RTÉ have again been crying wolf about the death of public-service broadcasting, Montrose has given a plum commission to the BBC’s international sales and production outfit, BBC Studios, for London-based Kate O’Riordan’s Smother – a six-part whodunnit family drama to be filmed in Lahinch, Co Clare. But, if… Read more »

Affairs, 20 December 2019

The new Glenanne Gang terror probe announced recently has attracted a surprisingly high level of support from collusion campaigners. But the fact that this probe will be carried out by English police chief Jon Boutcher and his Operation Kenova team has not impressed relatives of Belfast pensioner Francisco Notarantonio, whose murder by Loyalists – acting… Read more »

Affairs, 20 December 2019

It has been a fruitful year for former Union of Students in Ireland (USI) presidents like Kevin Donoghue and Annie Hoey, who both secured local council seats in May’s elections for the Labour Party (see The Phoenix, 17/5/17). Now party colleague Laura Harmon a former USI president herself, has just launched her own campaign for… Read more »

Affairs, 19 December 2019

KEVIN MYERS will be grateful for an extraordinary slip up by RTÉ in his High Court action for libel against a Morning Ireland report, a blunder that occurred in the midst of litigation triggered by a broadcast over two years ago. Myers was incorrectly described by broadcaster Audrey Carville as a “Holocaust denier” in her… Read more »

Affairs, 19 December 2019

VERY LATE in the day, the Abbey Theatre has got around to advertising the three long-unfilled vacancies on its board. Unusually, however, the call for expressions of interest has been placed on the Public Appointments Service (PAS) website, stateboards.ie, unlike previous adverts seeking expressions of interest for those seats that are filled by the board… Read more »

Affairs, 12 December 2019

IF DARA MURPHY has long since jettisoned his domestic career boosters – ex-taoiseach Enda Kenny, as well as Cork moneybags and Fine Gael trustee Jerry Carey (see p10) – as dispensable, he has made new friends in the right places in Euroland. These alliances explain his meteoric and most-lucrative rise to the cabinet of new… Read more »

Affairs, 12 December 2019

THE RAPTUROUS review of super-smooth gynaecologist Peter Boylan’s book, In the Shadow of the Eighth, by Indo columnist Martina Devlin, referred to his “courageous stance in working closely with… a female-led social movement” (the repeal the eighth referendum). Devlin also told how Boylan had worked “selflessly in the best interests of women” and much more… Read more »

Affairs, 12 December 2019

ONE OF Fine Gael’s most trumpeted policies is the sprawling Rebuilding Ireland “action-driven plan to dramatically increase the delivery of homes nationwide”. The person who has been benefitting most from this “innovative and future-facing plan of action” is one Richard Barrett of Bartra Capital, the private group that has bulldozed its way into the social… Read more »

Affairs, 4 December 2019

Spare a thought for Goldhawk’s old pal, online publisher and self-promoter extraordinaire Niall McGarry, who has taken the decision to step aside from “all executive responsibilities” in the Irish side of his business. The Maximum Media founder behind brands like JOE and HER.ie faced uncomfortable questions after it was revealed that audience numbers have been… Read more »

Affairs, 3 December 2019

A mark of how extraordinary this political moment is can be seen in just how quickly the DUP’s opposition to abortion has withered. Just weeks ago in the Belfast Telegraph, Arlene Foster wrote that her party’s positions remains “resolute and unchanged”. The substance of the opinion piece meanwhile only underlined how the DUP, under her… Read more »

Affairs, 3 December 2019

Lucinda Creighton popped up in the European Parliament Magazine this month in her current role as an er, online extremism expert. In a two page advertorial dressed up as an interview, the former Renua leader outlines her view that online platforms have failed to self-regulate and the need for clear rules at EU level. Here… Read more »

Affairs, 3 December 2019

The advent of figures like Dr. Peter Boylan becoming household names, with bookdeals to boot, demonstrates how the ‘Masters’ can be elevated to positions of public authority. The CervicalCheck scandal however, which has now been in the public domain for almost two years, has caused great discomfort among those sections of the medical profession where… Read more »

Affairs, 28 November 2019

AS EVENTS in the Middle East degenerate, Simon Coveney’s masterful Palestinian strategy has been laid bare. This follows Fine Gael’s revelation that its commitment in the programme for government to recognise Palestinian statehood was a verbal con trick. Apparently, what they meant all along was that recognition of Palestine could only be ceded if and… Read more »

Affairs, 28 November 2019

THE ROW over the designation of part of Dublin 2 as the Grafton Quarter continues to reverberate and Dublin City Council remains under pressure to review the decision, which was taken by the low-profile Dublin Town organisation, funded mainly by rates levies on local business. From the public’s point of view, not a lot is… Read more »

Affairs, 28 November 2019

NOT TOO many observers realise that the ongoing Boeing 737 Max debacle has had a beneficial side-effect for Ryanair shareholders, as it has put a stop to Mick O’Leary’s growth gallop. Given the ramifications from the tragic air accidents in Indonesia and Ethiopia in late 2018 and early 2019, the delivery of the 737 Max… Read more »

Affairs, 28 November 2019

EVOKE.IE, website of the Mail titles newspaper group (DMG Media Ireland), hosts a timely and most cautionary article this week about the perils of foolish, drink-fuelled behaviour at office Christmas parties. It warns that uninhibited activity can lead to “issues with sexual harassment” and the like, leading to serious repercussions such as “forced resignations”. Also… Read more »

Affairs, 28 November 2019

THE RECENT appointment of Mary Rose Gearty SC to the High Court bench means that two female barristers involved in the prosecution of Anglo-Irish Bank-related cases – Gearty and Úna Ní Raifeartaigh (now on the Court of Appeal) – have been made judges. But Gearty made her mark in a different judicial arena recently with… Read more »

Affairs, 28 November 2019

INDEPENDENT TD Noel Grealish was the first politician of substance to emit nakedly racist and even sectarian remarks before stealing away from public glare; job done with the recruitment of that roughly 20% of the electorate whose rage and frustration leads them to such ‘politics’. His Galway West constituency has an arty, bohemian, left-wing image… Read more »

Affairs, 21 November 2019

WITH EVERY seat vital in a possible hung Dáil after the next general election, there is consternation in Fine Gael at the possibility of Fianna Fáil taking two seats to FG’s one in Kerry (currently they have one each). Both parties have their eye on Martin Ferris’s Sinn Féin seat as daughter Toiréasa Ferris, the… Read more »

Affairs, 20 November 2019

CONGRATULATIONS to outgoing Arts Council director Orlaith McBride, who has landed the I100,000 pa job of director of the National Archives of Ireland (NAI). Although her qualifications for the role are not immediately obvious, she is undoubtedly suited to it. Possibly the most striking aspect of McBride’s CV when she landed the top job in… Read more »

Affairs, 20 November 2019

Peter Sutherland was “possibly the most influential Irish person ever to have lived”, says this book, a smidge hyperbolically but with some justification. However, as it doesn’t pause to observe, he was never elected by anyone anywhere – unlike ‘influencers’ such as Dev, Mary Robinson and Gerry Adams. He didn’t leverage his influence from mass-culture,… Read more »

Affairs, 20 November 2019

IT LOOKS like red tape rather than red carpets is increasingly on the minds of the nation’s hard-pressed movie moguls following the imposition by the taxman of a raft of pesky new rules covering the multi-million euro film tax relief scheme. One high-profile casualty is the influential lobby group Screen Producers Ireland (SPI), where former… Read more »