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HIT-AND-RUN DRIVER AN ‘INFORMER’

Date: June 12, 2025 -

THE UNSTINTING state apology delivered in the Dáil recently by justice minister Jim O’Callaghan to the family of Shane O’Farrell – killed in 2011 near his Carrickmacross home by hit-and-run driver Zigimantas Gridziuska, who should have been in jail at the time – was welcomed by O’Farrell’s family. So were the sincere speeches by not… Read more »

PROFILE: DANIEL LAMBERT

Date: June 12, 2025 -

As manager of the Irish-speaking, hip-hop/rap trio Kneecap, Daniel Lambert has found himself increasingly in the spotlight as he is called upon to defend the group over their pro-Palestinian commentary and messaging. These values appear to align with the passionate and pragmatic Dubliner’s own views on the subject and his measured defence of the band… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: KEIRA KEOGH

Date: June 12, 2025 -

Guaranteeing the succession is always a fraught task in politics but 37-year-old Keira Keogh managed to climb back from a poor local election outing to hold Michael Ring’s Fine Gael seat in West Mayo at the general election. FG has had a strong grip on this constituency since the watershed election of 2011, when Fianna… Read more »

OOH AH, YOU’RE IN THE ’RA, SAID THE BBC

Date: June 12, 2025 -

THE BBC must cough up millions and lose face over its astonishing decision to broadcast an allegation of murder against Gerry Adams, citing on television just one anonymous source. But the reaction of the southern legal and political ruling classes to the Adams libel action tells its own story. While much was made by some… Read more »

NED O’SULLIVAN’S REVENGE

Date: June 12, 2025 -

FANS OF Goldhawk are well aware of the disastrous IT project debacle in the Arts Council – including arts department secretary general Feargal Ó Coigligh, who told the Public Accounts Committee earlier this month that he only became aware of the €7m balls-up after being forwarded queries from The Phoenix. The most high-profile casualty has… Read more »

SETBACK FOR SUZANNE O’CONNELL

Date: June 12, 2025 -

GOLDHAWK SPIES a winding-up meeting has been called for a charity called Outreach Moldova, which raised funds for orphans in the eastern European country that borders Ukraine. The writing was, however, on the wall for some time. A message on the now-defunct social media platform for the charity stated: “After 25 years of caring for… Read more »

MAGNIER’S NEW WORLD

Date: June 12, 2025 -

DISCONTENT WITH Coolmore’s near stranglehold on Irish racing had been a talking point at bloodstock sales in recent seasons but that has all changed. But the result is a significant hike in prices for top-quality horseflesh. Tattersalls and Goffs sales have seen records tumble, with Sheik Mohammed al Maktoum’s Godolphin, Kia Joorabchian and John Stewart’s… Read more »

ALAN CLANCY’S TAXING MATTER

Date: June 12, 2025 -

ONE OF the most high-profile players in the club and bar scene in Ireland, and especially Dublin, in recent years has been Alan ‘House’ Clancy, who is associated with numerous well-known venues. Alas, one of his many companies has come to the attention of the dreaded taxman, who is seeking to have it liquidated in… Read more »

DER KAISER’S TRUSTEES

Date: June 12, 2025 -

DERMOT DESMOND’S favourite charity, the Chester Beatty Library (CBL) – where he is a trustee “for life” – is set to get some new blood courtesy of arts minister Patrick O’Donovan. This week is the deadline for expressions of interest from suitable candidates to fill three upcoming vacancies on the 12-member CBL board of trustees,… Read more »

VOL 43 NO 12

Date: June 12, 2025 -

SUSAN FITZPATRICK’S TURBULENCE

Date: June 12, 2025 -

THE LIQUIDATION of a raft of firms next week turns out to be linked to one Ivor Fitzpatrick, the high-flying legal eagle, businessman and good pal of Charlie Haughey’s, who died last year. The Squire of Castle Howard had fingers in many pies and was reported to have been worth around €100m when he died… Read more »

DPP MAN VERSUS TAOISEACH AND HACK

Date: June 12, 2025 -

IAN BAILEY would not have expected to play a posthumous role in last year’s general election but Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s public endorsement of a book claiming that Bailey should have been charged with Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s murder has provoked legal action by DPP official Robert Sheehan. He has sought a date from Dún Laoghaire… Read more »

NAEEM MANIAR’S MANY HATS

Date: June 12, 2025 -

LIAM CUNNINGHAM was in the headlines this week for his spat with Conor McGregor after the latter mocked the actor’s role in supporting the Gaza aid boat’s attempt to breach the 18-year-old blockade. Cunningham has also been a regular critic of the government, particularly over current attempts to dump the triple-lock system, while another target… Read more »

LIFTING THE LID ON MOUNTBATTEN

Date: June 12, 2025 -

Richard Kerr and Stephen Waring, two former residents of Kincora Boys’ Home, were trafficked by Kincora warden Joseph Mains to members of a paedophile network in the 1970s. The ring included Lord Mountbatten. Kerr is now taking a case against the UK state, which is progressing through the north’s legal system at a snail’s pace…. Read more »

CYBER INSECURITY

Date: June 12, 2025 -

IRELAND WAS one of 41 countries participating in last month’s Locked Shields 2025 in Tallinn, Estonia. The rationale given for Irish involvement in this “live-fire cyber defence exercise”, co-ordinated by the Nato Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE), was to ensure collective security and the protection of critical national infrastructure. How reassuring. Shortly after… Read more »

PATRIOT GAMES IN DONEGAL

Date: June 12, 2025 -

Donegal man Niall McConnell has been central to anti-immigration protests in Monaghan and Donegal over the last two months. His links to loyalists and British fascists may help explain why much of his online content in relation to these protests targets Sinn Féin. A sheep farmer from Castlefin, Donegal, McConnell has been active on Ireland’s… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: June 12, 2025 -

“Money doesn’t mean much to me. It’s just to keep the score, that’s all.” Asked if he was a billionaire and not a millionaire, Magnier said: “I hope so.” John Magnier giving evidence in the High Court, Sunday Independent The racehorse breeder said he had people to advise him. Asked if he was resident in… Read more »

GOVERNMENT DATA BULLIES

Date: June 12, 2025 -

In a chilling public display of loyalty to our Big Tech overlords, Fianna Fáil heavyweights have been putting the boot into a senior civil servant who dared to question the divine right of data centres to monopolise Ireland’s precious resources and scarce infrastructure. Oonagh Buckley, secretary general at the Department of Environment, Climate and Energy,… Read more »

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S ROADWORKS

Date: June 12, 2025 -

“Roads are also important for environment, this doesn’t get said often enough.” That was Micheál Martin’s hot take in Galway last week as he pledged support for the city’s planned ring road. He said the health and environmental benefits of new roads are often overlooked. Indeed. In 2023 the High Court quashed the road proposal… Read more »

NOD IS AS GOOD AS A WINK

Date: June 12, 2025 -

Last month Winston ‘Winkie’ Irvine, the top UVF boss in Belfast’s Shankill district, was jailed for 30 months, half on licence. That sentence, for possession of a haul of guns and ammunition in his car boot, sparked outrage across the political divide in the north. Former UUP leader Doug Beattie called it “bizarre”. Other politicians… Read more »

MARTIN WRONG ON ISRAELI WAR BONDS

Date: June 12, 2025 -

HEATED POLITICAL polemic on the Occupied Territories Bill (OTB) a fortnight ago saw the Government contradicted on the legal front, at home and abroad, over its excuse to delay the OTB, which relied, erroneously, on EU trade law. But when finance minister Paschal Donohoe said his hands were tied when it was demanded that he… Read more »

COUNTER-COLONIAL CATHAL CROWE

Date: June 12, 2025 -

FIANNA FÁIL TD Cathal Crowe has been making strident statements about the global issues of the day but all politics is local. Last February, on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Crowe spoke fervently about the hurt still felt in Ireland at the very existence of the northern state in a Dáil speech… Read more »

THE FIRST ITEM

Date: June 12, 2025 -

RED NETWORK, a far-left group claiming around 40 members, announced this week that it had voted “unanimously” to leave Richard Boyd Barrett’s People Before Profit and “set up a non-dogmatic revolutionary socialist party”. The break-away group took one of PBP’s 12 councillors, south Dublin county councillor Madeleine Johansson, who was co-opted in 2016 and elected… Read more »

CONFLICTS AT DE PAPER(S)

Date: June 12, 2025 -

CORK’S ATTACHMENT to ‘de paper’ may soon be realised literally as one of de two newspapers, the Irish Examiner and the Echo, could be facing extinction. That’s what some analysts believe is the agenda behind moves by the Irish Times’s owner to combine the news desks at both papers. This comes just a few months… Read more »

‘IRISH TIMES’ CRIES HALT IN GAZA

Date: June 12, 2025 -

AMONG THOSE scrambling to get onside with the increasing revulsion at the slaughter in Gaza is the Irish Times, which recently editorialised against Israel’s now openly genocidal attacks on Palestinians. Perhaps anxious to disassociate the newspaper from the slander that Irish people and Palestinian supporters are antisemitic, the leader writer graciously allowed that not “all… Read more »

IMMA’S HALF DOZEN

Date: June 12, 2025 -

ARTS MINISTER Patrick O’Donovan is seeking applications from worthies looking to fill no less than six upcoming vacancies on the Ali Curran-chaired board of Imma. At the end of last year two vacancies were filled, with UCC architectural design academic John McLaughlin and consumer affairs expert Rhoda Lane-O’Kelly appointed for five-year stints. The latter is… Read more »

BEN BARNES’ BROADSIDE

Date: June 12, 2025 -

WHILE THE Arts Council has been getting both barrels recently for rather obvious reasons (clue: €7m IT debacle), it is rarely criticised by its clients for equally obvious reasons. Certainly, the smart move is to only question the modus operandi on Merrion Square after you have been cut loose. Last week, one-time Abbey Theatre artistic… Read more »

CURRAGH’S HEAVY GOING

Date: June 12, 2025 -

CURRAGH RACECOURSE head honcho Brian Kavanagh struggled to find some good going wherever he could among the attendance figures after the recent underwhelming Tattersalls Guineas Weekend Festival. Overall numbers for the three-day event were down again but poor weather got the bulk of the blame. Anthony Kaminskas of AK Bets, however, was once again critical… Read more »

HYLAND’S GRAVE CONCERN

Date: June 12, 2025 -

THE ASSOCIATION of Irish Racehorse Owners (AIRO) held its recent AGM in the near empty Irish Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association headquarters in Kill, Co Kildare, where chairman David Hyland warned about the number of owners leaving the sport of kings, a trend he is “gravely concerned about”. Hyland claimed the exodus was down to poor levels… Read more »

ROMAN STERN’S EXPENSIVE ADVENTURE

Date: June 12, 2025 -

GOLDHAWK NOTES that number-cruncher Roy Scannell of Moore Ireland has just been installed as liquidator of a company called SWR Properties Ltd. This was once the entity behind the sprawling Liss Ard estate outside Skibbereen, Co Cork, which was acquired by the wealthy Roman Stern at the start of the century before being offloaded four… Read more »

OVOCA BIO TRANSFORMATION WILL BOOST MARKET ACTIVITY

Date: June 12, 2025 -

IN WHAT is still called Ovoca Bio, CEO (for the second time) Tim McCutcheon – who is also the largest shareholder with 22% – has shifted the focus of the failed biopharma business into, unsurprisingly, the mineral exploration business. What is clear is that this development will stimulate a jump in the market’s level of… Read more »

SMOOTH SAILING FOR ICG BOSS EAMONN ROTHWELL

Date: June 12, 2025 -

PROBABLY THE most noteworthy aspect of the accounts for Irish Ferries owner Irish Continental Group (ICG) in recent times has been CEO Eamonn Rothwell’s very generous remuneration package in the face of underwhelming performance. Based on the latest figures for the first four months of this year, ICG is on course to improve on 2024… Read more »

WOLFPACK STUBBED OUT

Date: June 12, 2025 -

WITH VAPING very much on the rise here and around the world, Goldhawk was interested to see that a company called Wolfpack Wholesale Group Ltd (WWG) had come a cropper with the taxman. Established by a couple of former gamblers, it looks like this bet on vaping was made a little too early. WWG is… Read more »

TV PRODUCERS’ UNSCRIPTED CREDIT

Date: June 12, 2025 -

LAST WEEK the EU’s competition directorate approved the plan announced in Budget 2025 by then finance minister Jack Chambers to introduce a new tax break for “unscripted” TV productions. In case you’re wondering where your money is going, this includes reality TV shows and light-entertainment programming, and even covers formats such as chat shows and… Read more »

BRANIGAN’S UNCOMFORTABLE SEATS

Date: June 12, 2025 -

WITH THE deadline of June 16 for phase-one submissions to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, high-flying radio boss Kevin Branigan will be keeping his fingers crossed that there are no last-minute hiccups in relation to the bid by his Bay Broadcasting Ltd (BBL) operation to buy Galway Bay FM from the Connacht Tribune. The… Read more »

PASCHAL DONOHOE’S JOB SEARCH

Date: June 12, 2025 -

IS FINANCE MINISTER Paschal Donohoe becoming the Yosser Hughes of the European plutocracy? ‘Gizza job’ appears to be his mantra as he mingles with finance technocrats in the Eurogroup of finance ministers that he heads or is he plea being made on Paschal’s behalf by his fans in the Irish media. In late 2023 a… Read more »