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YULETIDE PROJECT FEAR

Date: January 15, 2026 -

GOLDHAWK HAS never witnessed such a full-on campaign by government, media, academia and other power centres as in the run-up to Christmas when propagators of a European army and a European war went into overdrive. Fearful that EU states would disrespect us, the Irish comprador elite fought as never before in a near-hysterical attack on… Read more »

PROFILE: BEN TONRA

Date: January 15, 2026 -

BEN TONRA, a ‘full professor of international relations’ in UCD, fully backs ending Irish military neutrality. The academic persuader is also linked to arms manufacturers in the Irish Defence and Security Association (IDSA), which he founded in 2021. As a polemicist, Tonra prefaces prescribed conclusions with preferred facts. He researches and arranges factual material in… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: RYAN O’MEARA

Date: January 15, 2026 -

AS FIANNA Fáil gears up for the new political year, with members of the parliamentary party jockeying to resolve the issue of the leadership – when Micheál Martin will go and who will replace him – attention is turning to the batch of newly elected TDs, such as Tipperary North’s Ryan O’Meara, who have the… Read more »

UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE IN CORK

Date: January 15, 2026 -

GOLDHAWK SPIES a juicy-looking gig that is up for grabs in UCC, carrying a very nice €200,000 pa salary package. The position, however, does require the applicants to deal with the erratic finances of the college, which in the not-too-distant past found itself in hot water with the Higher Education Authority (HEA). The chief financial… Read more »

ALAN SHATTER ON IRISH ANTISEMITISM

Date: January 15, 2026 -

FORMER MINISTER Alan Shatter’s article in the Jerusalem Post last week, headlined “Ireland, Israel, and the Normalization of Antisemitism”, is largely a critique of the Irish Government’s policies on Israel and Palestine as well as the solidarity shown by Irish civil society for Palestinians. Shatter lambasts Ireland’s politicians, trade unions, civil society, NGOs, activist groups… Read more »

ALISON REVISITS GAZA — AGAIN

Date: January 15, 2026 -

GOLDHAWK HAS listened to some sophisticated arguments from those who resist action in support of Palestinians even as they still face daily slaughter but Sunday Times columnist Alison O’Connor deserves some sort of award for meaningful, original thinking in the face of genocide. Last weekend she argued that the Mercosur deal, Donald Trump’s Venezuelan piracy,… Read more »

CILLIAN MURPHY’S CAST

Date: January 15, 2026 -

WHILE JESSIE Buckley is the hot favourite to land the Oscar this year, actual Academy Award winner Cillian Murphy will be back in the headlines shortly thanks to the upcoming release of Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, a movie version of the hit TV series. Meanwhile, there have been a number of significant cast choices… Read more »

DERMOT DESMOND’S MIXED BAG

Date: January 15, 2026 -

IT IS, unsurprisingly, rather difficult to say just how much billionaire Dermot Desmond made from the recently announced audacious sale of British nursing home chain Barchester but the signs are that he filled his boots. Elsewhere, however, the financial wizard has found good news hard to come by. Barchester was a £5.2bn whopper of a… Read more »

SIMONE’S STYLISH NUMBERS

Date: January 15, 2026 -

WITH THE Christmas consumer spending blitz receding into the background, London-based designer Simone Rocha presumably managed to shift plenty of her expensive clobber, having attracted a fair degree of attention at London Fashion Week for a spring/summer 2026 collection that “returned to her obsessions, fixations and fetishes”. Fans of Simone can currently add to their… Read more »

VOL. 44 NO. 01

Date: January 15, 2026 -

PATRICK O’DONOVAN’S EMPTY SEATS

Date: January 15, 2026 -

AS 2026 gets under way, there is no sign of the board vacancies at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Imma) being filled, despite applications having been sought six months ago. There are currently three empty seats on the Ali Curran-chaired board with another set to be vacated next month. The terms of fundraiser Mary… Read more »

HATRED’ IN THE KINGDOM

Date: January 15, 2026 -

AN INTRIGUING tale of antisemitic persecution in Killorglin, Co Kerry, was referred to by the Irish Times before Christmas, which the Jewish Representative Council is to include in a report of over 100 incidents of alleged “hatred against Jewish people in Ireland” over a four-month period in 2025. The report is to be released soon…. Read more »

READY, AIM …

Date: January 15, 2026 -

THE Project Fear campaign, designed to strike the fear of God into the citizenry so that they tolerate expenditure of extra billions in high-tech weaponry, is itself costing many extra millions, much of which will be spent on “providing security for world leaders at a time when there is war on the continent”. That’s the… Read more »

STAKEKNIFE: MI5’S CREATURE

Date: January 15, 2026 -

The recently published final report of Operation Kenova marks a significant shift from its interim findings regarding MI5’s involvement with Agent Stakeknife, aka Freddie Scappaticci. Contrary to the interim report, which placed the blame on the British Army’s Force Reconnaissance Unit, the final report makes it clear that MI5 was deeply involved with Scappaticci during… Read more »

IRISH RIGHT WING AND VENEZUALA

Date: January 15, 2026 -

THE US military operation that saw Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro and his wife kidnapped revealed a similar analysis that Ireland’s new right shares with Fine Gael. Eighteen months ago Fine Gael MEPs, along with their colleagues in the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), lined up with far-right members of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR)… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: January 15, 2026 -

The Gorgeous, Unglamorous Work of Freedom. Notes from an “actualist” on what liberation requires. Title to Bono’s article in The Atlantic Cloud Dancer is setting the tone in the interiors world this year. The wispy white shade evokes a sense of calm and comfort within your home. Brown Thomas website The public relations industry plays… Read more »

‘NAYCE’ UNIONISTS

Date: January 15, 2026 -

At the end of this month the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) will appoint a new leader. He will be Jon Burrows, a former PSNI chief inspector who only joined the party last year and was co-opted to the Stormont assembly after the UUP’s North Antrim assembly member, Colin Crawford, resigned. Crawford’s resignation came after a… Read more »

ROB HENEGHAN’S BEACH HOUSE

Date: January 15, 2026 -

A TIPPING website for gamblers has been displaying some top-quality form and the chief jockey here, Rob Heneghan, must be a happy man. Indeed, it turns out that his company – Pro Sports Advice Ltd (PSA) – recently splashed out just over a million spondoolicks on a large “Malibu-lifestyle home” at Silver Beach outside Gormanston,… Read more »

OISIN FANNING’S APPEAL

Date: January 15, 2026 -

EVER SINCE stockbroker-turned exploration exec Oisin Fanning’s San Leon company delisted from the London Stock Exchange, it has been hard to get a close read on the status of the oil firm’s fundraising efforts. Rather easier to keep tabs on has been the activity around Fanning’s personal finances, which have been played out in courts… Read more »

TOO MUCH INFORMATION

Date: January 15, 2026 -

RESEARCH PUBLISHED by University College Cork in early December pointed to the “alarming” climate impact of the glut of data centres being built in Ireland. Report author Prof Hannah Daly warned that data centre demand is simply “incompatible with Ireland’s climate commitments”. Worse still, data centres are connecting directly to Ireland’s fossil gas network to… Read more »

MERCUSOR MANURE

Date: January 15, 2026 -

Eamon Ryan is also out of step with the mainstream environmental movement in broadly supporting the Mercosur agreement between the EU and South America. While there is much to debate on the eco impacts of this deal, what clearly motivated the Irish beef sector’s vigorous anti-Mercosur campaign was naked protectionism. The industry demands deregulation at… Read more »

MARTIN V MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

Date: January 15, 2026 -

IN CHINA last week Micheál Martin was drawn into commentary on international conflicts in Venezuala, Ukraine, Taiwan and Greenland; human rights in China; and, of course, the Mercosur trade deal. He was also inveigled into fleeting commentary on allegations that China posed security risks to Ireland via academic exchanges with Irish universities but he brushed… Read more »

FIONNÁN V MICHEÁL

Date: January 15, 2026 -

IT’S COME to something when the Irish Independent takes to lecturing Fianna Fáil on its neglect of the party’s primary principle, Irish unity. But Micheál Martin as presented as so opposed to Irish unity in recent years that the Indo’s Ireland editor, Fionnán Sheahan, last week described him as more John Bruton than Éamon de… Read more »

FINE GAEL ENFORCER O’DONOVAN

Date: January 15, 2026 -

MINISTER for Kulture Patrick O’Donovan has emerged as the hard man of the coalition, on the Fine Gael side of the house at any rate, but hard men should know that if you live by the sword then that’s how you die. O’Donovan has been especially active in recent months, particularly during the presidential nomination… Read more »

FINE GAEL LEADER’S WAITING ROOM

Date: January 15, 2026 -

TÁNAISTE AND Fine Gael leader Simon Harris’s position is regarded by party members as relatively safe for now, even if he ‘could do better’, as the saying goes. But this does not mean that future contenders are lolling about the place waiting for the starting pistol to crack, as indicated by more than one off-record… Read more »

BLIND FAITH IN ANTON SAVAGE

Date: January 15, 2026 -

COMMUNICATIONS CLINIC MD Eoghan Tomás McDermott declined an invitation to appear before the Oireachtas media committee last November to discuss Coimisiún na Meán’s Media Service Code and the controversy about conflicts of interest in the broadcast media à la Ivan Yates (see The Phoenix 28/11/25). At first it looks as though this does not reflect… Read more »

PAT KIELY’S GOOD NEWS

Date: January 15, 2026 -

CULTURE MINISTER Patrick O’Donovan launched the latest taxpayer crutch for the nation’s voracious television producers, saying: “This new tax credit is about backing Irish storytellers, producers and crews, while ensuring that Irish and European culture is clearly reflected on screens at home and around the world.” Just to be clear, the Limerick West minister is… Read more »

MUSEUM PIECES

Date: January 15, 2026 -

NO GREAT surprise to see board seats on national cultural institutions being advertised a few months after the vacancies arose, as is the case this month with the National Museum of Ireland (NMI). This follows the exit early last year of former acting chairman, legal-eagle Ambrose Loughlin – whose term was not due to expire… Read more »

TALK THE PR TALK

Date: January 15, 2026 -

THE MUCH-HYPED Talk The Talk, owned by Isaac Souede and Simon Munir, has been the subject of chat and PR bluster since his recent stumble in Leopardstown’s Paddy Power Future Champions Novice Hurdle (Grade 1). Rider Sam Ewing, who managed to picked up two winning Grade 1 spare rides at the big Christmas meet, missed… Read more »

SAM EWING’S SUCCESS

Date: January 15, 2026 -

LAST MONTH Barry Connell’s Marine Nationale ran a most impressive race, albeit ending in defeat, in Leopardstown’s Grade 1 Paddy´s Rewards Club Steeplechase but the big winner at the post-Christmas meet was rider Sam Ewing. Having all but unseated his rider at the second fence, Marine Nationale was nursed back into contention by Sean Flanagan… Read more »

PALMERSTON ROAD RELOAD

Date: January 15, 2026 -

RETIRED FINANCE suit Michael Cullen and his wife, Marian, stuck their impressive six-bed abode in D6 on the market with a very hefty €5.25m price tag back in 2023. It turns out that they had acquired a nearby smaller abode on Moyne Road, Ranelagh for a mere €1.3m. According to the Property Price Register, the… Read more »

BRIGADIER GENERAL AHERNE’S NEW RECRUITS

Date: January 15, 2026 -

WHILE THE wheels continue to move slowly at the planned new museum at 12 Lower Fitzwilliam Street in D2, there are signs of activity at the joint promoters of the multimillion-euro project, the Irish Heritage Trust (IHT). The agency has just advertised for expressions of interest in filling vacancies on the board and the closing… Read more »

AILING TULLOW OIL COULD OFFER GAMBLE ON OIL PRICE

Date: January 15, 2026 -

AFTER THE sudden exit last February of Rahul Dhir as Tullow Oil’s CEO and his interim replacement by CFO Richard Miller, next out the door was heavyweight exec Sheila Khama (ex-DeBeers). The trickle became a flood of sorts last month when the chairman, Phuthuma Nhleko, also jumped ship with immediate effect, along with three other… Read more »

IRELAND DELIVERS AT DONEGAL INVESTMENT GROUP

Date: January 15, 2026 -

HAVING SOLD off five of its business operations, it looked likely that Donegal Investment Group (DIG) was set to concentrate on its remaining worldwide seed and potato breeding business with a view to growing this into a more substantial enterprise. This, however, was not the strategy adopted and instead, on October 30, shareholders voted to… Read more »

LOADED LUAS OBJECTORS

Date: January 15, 2026 -

FOLLOWING ON from the high-profile judicial review proceedings lodged (briefly) by assorted well-heeled D6 denizens in response to plans for the MetroLink service, a separate obstacle has emerged in relation to the extension of the Luas to Finglas. In this case, the pockets are very deep indeed. While a prompt settlement of the legal action… Read more »

CONOR HARRINGTON’S GIANT STEPS

Date: January 15, 2026 -

WITH THE Irish film sector in the spotlight right now, courtesy of Jessie Buckley et al, it is interesting to note that a number of companies associated with the successful Giant Animation group were wound up just before Christmas. This follows on foot of a complicated plot involving one of the group’s founders, producer and… Read more »