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BRENDAN O’CONNOR’S FAVOURITE GUESTS

Date: May 7, 2026 -

GOLDHAWK HAS highlighted the unusually blatant bias in media coverage of the Government’s abandonment of neutrality and Ireland’s traditional foreign policy. A feature of this partiality is the relentless platforming of a tiny clique of foreign affairs pundits – mainly academics – who support this trend and the parallel boycott of the hundreds of academics… Read more »

PROFILE: MARTIN HEYDON

Date: May 7, 2026 -

FOR ALL the vast quantity of ink spilt analysing the revolt of Ireland’s kulaks over the cost of fuel, the quiet man at the centre of it has said very little. Martin Heydon may have learned from having stoked a brouhaha with the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) earlier this year over Larry Murrin’s leadership of… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: SEÁN DE BÚRCA

Date: May 7, 2026 -

THE UNIVERSITY of Galway Students’ Union (UGSU) has a new president, 23-year-old Loughrea native Seán de Búrca. He must contend with growing frustration over the university’s ties to Israel and the ongoing housing crisis acutely affecting students – the same issues that his predecessor and… Read more »

IS SF’S MARY LOU IN TROUBLE?

Date: May 7, 2026 -

IS SINN FÉIN president Mary Lou McDonald in trouble and is she about to lose her leadership? The avalanche of articles predicting political doom for the party and the early unseating of McDonald has looked much like the usual media pile-on that SF endures sporadically, usually just before an election. There are problems all right… Read more »

KATIE TAYLOR’S FIZZ

Date: May 7, 2026 -

BOXING LEGEND Katie Taylor showed impressive timing last month when she announced that she wants her final bout to take place in Dublin this year (“It’s Croke Park or nowhere”) and that negotiations were “going very well”. This kicked off a predictable media feeding frenzy that spread well beyond the back pages, which was good… Read more »

PEARSON’S CRITIC

Date: May 7, 2026 -

GOLDHAWK SPOTTED Tommy Tiernan interviewing one of the best things to have come out of north London, Kathy Burke, on his eponymous show last month. Not surprisingly she plugged her recently published memoir but, alas, didn’t have time to outline her colourful take on Noel ‘Blinkie’ Pearson, the one-time Irish theatre impresario, director of the… Read more »

KIELTY TRADUCED BY ‘TELEGRAPH’

Date: May 7, 2026 -

THE IRISH media ignored the edgy part of the interview that Late, Late Show host Patrick Kielty conducted with Boy George last weekend, preferring to focus on the pop star’s taste in millinery and how he once dressed up as a nun. Little wonder given the pile-on against Kielty from pro-Israeli organisations after he responded… Read more »

JACQUELINE HALL’S MANY HATS

Date: May 7, 2026 -

LAST MONTH culture minister Patrick O’Donovan finally got around to filling the long-standing vacancies on the board of the Chester Beatty Library (CBL). One new arrival turns out to be a familiar face. O’Donovan is responsible for appointing three of the 12 trustees of the much-loved CBL – where the board includes one Dermot Desmond,… Read more »

NEIL SANDS’S PR PROBLEM

Date: May 7, 2026 -

The PUBLIC Relations Institute of Ireland (PRII) hosts its national conference next week and among the speakers is Goldhawk’s old friend, Neil Sands. According to his bio posted on the PRII conference website, Sands is a technology entrepreneur and AI strategist who recently founded Halo (July 2025), where he is “leading the development of Unmask,… Read more »

KEITH WOODS’S SUPER RACE

Date: May 7, 2026 -

LAST MONTH Keith Woods (pseudonym of Roscommon native Keith O’Brien), Ireland’s best-known far-right activist internationally, was in Rome to network with prominent American white nationalists and Italian fascists. As Ireland’s new right continue to scrabble about in a desperate search for a strategy that could be successful electorally, Woods doesn’t seem to care that his… Read more »

VOL 44 NO 09

Date: May 7, 2026 -

JOHN CUNNINGHAM’S BAM GIG

Date: May 7, 2026 -

THERE HAS been a tsunami of negative media coverage of National Children’s Hospital building contractor BAM Ireland, on foot of the latest failed deadline for the opening. Presumably, John Cunningham is among those putting in extra shifts to help stem this tide. Ranelagh-based art collector Cunningham is familiar to Goldhawk fans thanks to his long… Read more »

‘NEUTRAL’ THINK TANK’S AGENDA

Date: May 7, 2026 -

THE IRISH edition of the Sunday Times was pleased recently to credit the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) with exposing a cunning plot by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to “piggy back on Kneecap to sow Irish disunity”. This apparently was done by AI manipulation to impersonate Irish people, with the devious Iranians using… Read more »

DECLAN GANLEY’S EXEC EXIT

Date: May 7, 2026 -

FOLLOWERS OF Declan Ganley will be aware of recent reports that his Rivada operation lost the licence for “Liechtenstein’s Ka-band spectrum, a prized low Earth orbit frequency used for high-speed consumer internet services and military intelligence”. The revocation was made on foot of the Liechtenstein regulator expressing “serious concerns about the financing of the satellite… Read more »

GERMANY AND PSNI TARGET PA PROTESTS

Date: May 7, 2026 -

In the last week of April, just as the trial of Dublin man Daniel Tatlow-Devally opened in Germany for allegedly participating in a Palestine Action (PA) protest, a freedom of information request revealed the scale of the clamp down on the group in the north. The arms industries in both Britain and Germany have cashed… Read more »

McENTEE’S NATO STRATEGY

Date: May 7, 2026 -

Defence Minister Helen McEntee highlighted the growing threat to Ireland’s maritime infrastructure at the Valentia Island Subsea Cable Security and Resilience Symposium on April 23. McEntee is building up the navy so that it will soon be shipshape and ready to participate in Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) activities. The JEF, founded a decade ago, is… Read more »

TRUMP’S GREEN REVOLUTION

Date: May 7, 2026 -

Ireland’s long-overdue renewable energy revolution is now in full swing, with sales of electric vehicles more than doubling last month compared to April 2025. Sales of diesel-engined cars have fallen off a cliff, dropping by one third in just a year. Incredibly, only 13% of new car sales in Ireland are now diesel, compared to… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: May 7, 2026 -

We’re a customer experience speedboat in a sea of container ships. Aidan O’Shea, CEO of Otonomee, Sunday Times Horology shares a fundamental obsession with architecture: resolving form and function into something that endures. Sometimes even a single watch carries the full weight of a building. Thor Savboe, Irish Tatler Pinterest’s trend report has predicted a… Read more »

SDLP’S OWN GOAL

Date: May 7, 2026 -

The SDLP in Belfast shot itself in the foot last month. The wound may turn out to be terminal for the party in west Belfast. SDLP councillors abstained on a DUP motion to have the council reconsider its decision that it was “not expedient” to require planning permission for a Bobby Sands statue in Twinbrook…. Read more »

SCHOOL LESSON

Date: May 7, 2026 -

Goldhawk is mystified at just how little Irish media coverage a new study on global meat and dairy industry sustainability pledges received, with narry a mention in even the normally effusive farm press. The research examined over 1,200 industry claims and found that 98% of them could be classified as ‘greenwash’. It was, therefore, all… Read more »

HEALY-RAE DYNASTY SPLIT IS PERMANENT

Date: May 7, 2026 -

THE DRAMATIC walk-out from Government of minister Michael Healy-Rae and his brother, backbench TD Danny, in the face of last month’s national fuel protests was explained in some detail by Kerry’s Eye chief reporter Aidan O’Connor. It was followed up in less detail by some of the national media but did not go further than… Read more »

MEDIA MAESTRO MINISTER O’DONOVAN

Date: May 7, 2026 -

COMMUNICATIONS MINISTER Patrick O’Donovan became aware, belatedly, that demanding a Coimisiún na Meán review of RTÉ’s coverage of the recent protests was a political blunder. But did it not dawn on him that excusing this as a slip of the tongue or making a “hames” of what he meant created an even worse look for… Read more »

SIPTU LEADS FIGHT AGAINST RTÉ MOVES

Date: May 7, 2026 -

A SERIES of militant initiatives to defend RTÉ’s public service broadcasting remit – by Siptu, not Montrose management – has been held since the new year. However, whatever Larkinite traditions still permeate the One Big Union, RTÉ’s National Union of Journalists (NUJ) does not seem to have the same appetite for a campaign to defend… Read more »

RE-RATING JIM O’CALLAGHAN

Date: May 7, 2026 -

JIM O’CALLAGHAN’S gaffe in threatening to call in the army during the recent upheavals drew universal media agreement that he had damaged himself, not critically but definitely in his first error of judgement in his careful, long march to power. One surprising exception came from Mail on Sunday political editor John Lee. Last July Lee… Read more »

O’DONOVAN’S MUSEUM PIECES

Date: May 7, 2026 -

AS THE culture department continues to “liaise closely” with the National Museum of Ireland (NMI) on the thorny subject of a proposed new women’s museum in Limerick, there is no sign of minister Patrick O’Donovan filling any of the empty seats on the board of the institution. The NMI board should have 16 members, including… Read more »

PETER KEATLEY’S TAX TROUBLE

Date: May 7, 2026 -

READERS MAY recall the high-profile 2023 ‘Eviction Stakes’ featuring the ousting from his Fenway House property in Co Kildare of trainer Brendan Duke (see The Phoenix 24/8/23). On the winning horse was one Peter Keatley, who had purchased the Curragh property from the receiver in April that year along with his partner, Teresa Kearney. Now… Read more »

PAUL BYRNE’S PALE BLUE

Date: May 7, 2026 -

LAST MONTH, in a Racing Post interview conducted by David Jennings, it was pointed out by Emmet Mullins: “We both get a good laugh out of everyone thinking we’re smart.” Meanwhile, Paul Byrne added: “I think the reputation we have is probably a lot better than what actually goes on behind the scenes.” Byrne’s pale… Read more »

FOWLER’S NAIL-BITER

Date: May 7, 2026 -

COSMETIC MEDICINE may be the growth area of today’s beauty business but boring old make-up still shifts product in vast quantities. Last weekend saw Suzanne Fowler, founder of 14-Day Mani – “one of the first at-home gel manicure kits to go on the market in Europe and the US” – pop up in the Business… Read more »

BRENDAN MOLLOY’S BEAUTIFUL PROBLEM

Date: May 7, 2026 -

THE DREADED taxman has gone and spoiled the celebrations for beauty clinic entrepreneur Brendan Molloy, just days after he launched his latest venture. Brendan has been bouncing around for the last few weeks as he prepared to announce the arrival of Embellics AI, where he is described as chairman of the supervisory board. (This entity… Read more »

BLACK TIE BLATHER

Date: May 7, 2026 -

WITH THE 50th anniversary black tie bash for the Image Business Woman of the Year Awards set to take place in the RDS next weekend, presumably the myriad of nominees are giddy with excitement. Also getting excited is media ‘partner’ The Currency, with the two boys, Ian Kehoe and Tom Lyons, announcing: “This is not… Read more »

THE PTSB DEAL IS ACTUALLY A GOOD ONE

Date: May 7, 2026 -

IT IS hard to justify much of the near hysterical commentary on the terms for the proposed sale of PTSB to Austrian bank Bawag, ranging from media outrage to a relatively mild assessment of undervaluation by Goodbody and on to the more pointed comment from the small Dublin Carraighill research outfit, which called the €1.62bn… Read more »

BEATING BARRY CONNELL

Date: May 7, 2026 -

AS IS often the case ahead of big race meets, the name of fund manager-turned-trainer Barry Connell featured widely in the media in the run-up to the Punchestown racing festival, where his prize hurdler, Marine Nationale, was contesting the €265,000 William Hills Champion Chase. He has never been shy to express his opinions and, as… Read more »

KINGSPAN’S PROBLEMS NOT INSULATED BY ACQUISITIONS

Date: May 7, 2026 -

AFTER ABORTING a strange attempt to float off Kingspan’s so-called Advnsys business, CEO Gene Murtagh has delivered what looks like a hugely underwhelming performance for the whole group. The pattern is becoming obvious, with growth now based significantly on acquisitions and capacity expansion. It is hard to see the company returning to its glory days any… Read more »

JAY BRADLEY’S BOOZE

Date: May 7, 2026 -

JAY BRADLEY, who once cribbed that he had “more haters than anyone else in Irish whiskey”, might be unenthusiastic about the amount of newsprint he has been generating lately. The Indo and the Business Post have both covered the adventures of his venture, Whiskey and Wealth Club (WWC), during its difficulties with the Inland Revenue,… Read more »

THIRD TIME UNLUCKY FOR JENNI TIMONY

Date: May 7, 2026 -

FANS OF Goldhawk may not be shocked to hear that multi-talented Sligo entrepreneur Jenni Timony is winding up her FitPink athleisure brand, where the performance fell well short of fulfilling the big promises she made when raising funds. Happily, the resilient Jenni is already in situ is a new gig. Timony previously managed to get… Read more »

GENE MURTAGH’S NEW CRITIC

Date: May 7, 2026 -

IRELAND’S MOST famous Tesla driver, Kingspan boss Gene Murtagh, will be wondering how much longer he is going to have to face enemy fire over those embarrassing revelations about the company that surfaced during the Grenfell Tower tragedy inquiry. While Kingspan’s insulation was not found to have contributed to the deadly fire, the firm was described… Read more »