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MARTIN’S POLITICAL CELIBACY

Date: July 25, 2024 -

WHAT A waspish reaction Tánaiste and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin gave to the report from the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement last week. The all-party committee (including ‘The Republican Party’, the one that Martin leads) recommended that work to prepare for a referendum on a United Ireland begin immediately…. Read more »

PROFILE: NEIL JORDAN

Date: July 25, 2024 -

The presented persona of Neil Jordan seems rather at odds with how his frequent collaborator and sometime on-screen alter ego, Stephen Rea, characterised him in 1995: “He likes to see himself as an innocent lost in a hard world … but he’s about as innocent as Henry Kissinger. I’ve seen these dreamy and romantic poets… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: NIKKI BRADLEY

Date: July 25, 2024 -

Nikki Bradley, a 38-year-old senator and disability campaigner, is a canny choice for the general election by Fine Gael leader Simon Harris. She has a national profile and has insisted she will broaden her political menu to include the defective blocks scandal currently roiling the political landscape in Donegal. Can Nikki Bradley save Fine Gael’s… Read more »

TIGER WOODS AND JP

Date: July 25, 2024 -

WITH ANTICIPATION already building in Limerick ahead of the 2027 Ryder Cup, set to take place at Adare Manor, one Tiger Woods managed to raise a few eyebrows last week. Predictably, no expense has been spared by Adare Manor owner JP McManus in his efforts to get his 842-acre resort just right for the Ryder… Read more »

TURBULENCE TO CONTINUE FOR DATALEX SHAREHOLDERS

Date: July 25, 2024 -

IN SOME rather honest observations, the recently arrived CEO at Datalex, Jonathan Rockett, confirmed in his first annual report review that the agreement signed last year with LATAM Airlines “will not proceed”; that “Scandinavian Airlines cancelled their contract with Datalex”; and that “Datalex’s programme with Virgin Australia was ended”. Most unusually, he confirmed, “These contracts… Read more »

ARCHBISHOP FARRELL FOR THE HIGH COURT

Date: July 25, 2024 -

IT IS heartening to know that the Irish Catholic Church’s approach to misbehaviour among its ranks has changed from the time when protecting the institution of the church – at any cost — was paramount and the late Archbishop Desmond Connell’s concept of “mental reservation” was used to mask the truth. Nowadays, when allegations of… Read more »

THE ABBEY’S DARK TIMES

Date: July 25, 2024 -

WITH HAPLESS chairwoman Frances Ruane stepping down from her starring role at the Abbey Theatre this weekend after seven years, the focus now turns to her successor. The position may once have been much sought after but the new cast member will be coming in on the back of some very poor reviews. Indeed, the… Read more »

SECURITY CONCERNS

Date: July 25, 2024 -

FOLLOWING THE move by the dreaded taxman to wind up GZ Professional Security Ltd (GZPS), Aiden Murphy of Crowe is now in situ as liquidator. Surprisingly, controversial company founder Gezim Idrizi – formerly one of Conor McGregor’s top security guards – was last week reappointed as a director of the company, 10 days after the… Read more »

IT’S NOT CRICKET

Date: July 25, 2024 -

ONE OF the most enduring lines peddled by post peace process British securocrats, and enthusiastically relayed by the UK and Dublin media’s security ‘experts’, is that British intelligence forced the IRA to negotiate in the early 1990s because they had infiltrated the paramilitary group at every level. Now Sam McBride, perhaps the most respected and… Read more »

VOL 42 NO 15

Date: July 25, 2024 -

ROBERT QUIRKE’S BATTLES

Date: July 25, 2024 -

ENSCONCED AS he is these days in sunny Malta, Westmeath businessman Robert Quirke continues to make waves back home. A judgement has just been registered against one of his companies, while a defamation battle with Paddy Cosgrave continues to rack up the legal bills. Quirke owns a number of firms, the most interesting of which… Read more »

DUBAI’S LEGAL STANDARDS REVISITED

Date: July 25, 2024 -

OUTRAGED HOWLS at the medieval treatment of Boyle woman Tori Towey in Dubai did not encompass any indignant statements from judicial quarters. This is a little disappointing given the atrocious legal standards at play, which were the direct cause of Towey’s nightmare in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) It is not as if the most… Read more »

ROBBO’S STARRING ROLE

Date: July 25, 2024 -

LAST WEEK’S Galway Film Fleadh featured the international premiere of Mrs Robinson, Aoife Kelleher’s Screen Ireland-backed story of the one and only Mary Robinson, who is now 80. Not surprisingly, one of the most interesting chapters in Robbo’s story concerns that ill-fated 2018 trip to Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum’s Dubai, when she was photographed (for… Read more »

BARKING AT HEATHER HUMPHREYS

Date: July 25, 2024 -

IT WAS inevitable that when Heather Humphreys moved to introduce a ban on American Bully dogs, there would be a reaction from the dog charities, rescue bodies and other animal advocates, with articles in the media and petitions being organised online. There is plenty of life in the old dog protest yet. Among the high… Read more »

FRED HOLROYD’S ORWELLIAN TRAUMA

Date: July 25, 2024 -

OPERATION DENTON has recently interviewed Fred Holroyd as part of its investigation into the 1974 Dublin-Monaghan (D-M) bombings, perpetrated by the notorious Glenanne gang. Holroyd served as a Military Intelligence Officer in the Special Military Intelligence Unit, NI, 1973-75. He was attached to the 3 Brigade area where members of the Glenanne gang operated. Holroyd… Read more »

MERCIFUL TORY MERCER

Date: July 25, 2024 -

KEIR STARMER’S pledge to repeal the controversial Legacy Act, opposed by all political parties in the north, must come as a blow to former Tory Minister of State for Veterans’ Affairs Johnny Mercer. The act set out to provide indemnity and immunity from prosecution for some perpetrators of crimes during the Troubles. In introducing the… Read more »

CIARAN MULLOOLY’S ‘INDEPENDENCE’

Date: July 25, 2024 -

THE ANNOUNCEMENT by the European Democratic Party (EDP) that it had received and accepted an application for membership from newly elected Irish MEP Ciaran Mullooly — elected as a member of Independent Ireland (II) — came as a shock to many on the Irish right. The EDP is one of the parties associated with the… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: July 25, 2024 -

Walking around New York city, listening to the audiobook of Hannah Arendt’s The Origins Of Totalitarianism (fail to prepare, prepare to fail), I’m sometimes interrupted by messages from friends asking “what’s it like over there?” As an outsider dropping in, what it’s like is living in the pages of a history book, if that history… Read more »

MARTIN: SUCK IT UP

Date: July 25, 2024 -

AI is coming for us and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. That was the message delivered by Micheál Martin in Ennis this month as he talked tough about the need for more data centres and the proposed Ennis Data Centre. In a warm-up of sorts for the All-Ireland hurling final, the Corkman… Read more »

ON YER BIKE!

Date: July 25, 2024 -

In the recent European election campaign, Fine Gael’s Regina Doherty was ridiculed over her Trumpian claim that the Green Party had turned Dublin “into a spaghetti junction of cycle lanes that have divided the city like East and West Berlin”. Doherty is prone to shooting her mouth off, so when she returned to the issue… Read more »

UNION’S LOST LEADER

Date: July 25, 2024 -

Who is the leader of Unionism? Up until Good Friday when he was arrested and charged with historical sex offences the answer was Jeffrey Donaldson. Donaldson, unquestionably the dominant figure in Unionism, had led the DUP in year-long negotiations with the British government to try to nullify the Windsor Framework, which streamlines the operation of… Read more »

CARROLL MACNEILL SOUNDS OFF

Date: July 25, 2024 -

AN INTERESTING double act was that recently performed by the new junior minister for EU affairs and defence, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, and Sunday Independent editor Alan English. Minister ‘Thatcher’ MacNeill demanded that the government double the current goal of a €1.5bn defence budget to a €3bn annual defence spend (nearly treble the annual spend for… Read more »

JIM O’CALLAGHAN’S NEXT GIG

Date: July 25, 2024 -

WHAT SOOTHING words emanated from Micheál Martin’s managers to media pol corrs about the party leader’s motivation in making TD Jim O’Callaghan chair of the Oireachtas justice committee — something that has yet to transpire. According to these helpful handlers Martin’s choice of O’Callaghan for this post is a deliberate attempt by the forgiving, statesmanlike… Read more »

RIGHT ON!

Date: July 25, 2024 -

THAT MOST reasonable figurehead in the new right, Hermann Kelly, leader of the Irish Freedom Party (IFP), made a most mature, statesmanlike appeal for unity following the fractured electoral performance of the disparate right wing groups in the local and EU elections. Presenting as the essence of moderation Hermann Kelly spoke via video to right… Read more »

RYAN’S POLITICAL DAUGHTERS

Date: July 25, 2024 -

GREEN ACTIVISTS could tell there was a crisis in leadership circles when outgoing leader, Eamon Ryan declared that he was openly backing his parliamentary assistant, Cllr Claire Byrne, against councillors Hazel Chu and Carolyn Moore in the contest for the party’s general election candidacy in Dublin Bay South (DBS). This admirable ‘transparency’ did at least… Read more »

‘MY CHURCH, RIGHT OR WRONG’

Date: July 25, 2024 -

Last December, The Irish Times published a statement from the Church of Ireland in a report by Arthur Beesley saying that it “neither owned nor operated” mother and baby institutions. Griffith College media academic Niall Meehan responded in a letter, based on research on behalf of survivors, that CoI clergy oversaw the Bethany Home and the aptly named… Read more »

INO’S HIGH NOTES

Date: July 25, 2024 -

OPERA FANS are excited by the news that Irish National Opera (INO), which is chaired by former top legal eagle Jennifer Caldwell, is to stage its first ever Wagner work, The Flying Dutchman, next year. It looks like the company is aiming big for the show, as it has launched a fundraising programme targetting well-heeled… Read more »

RALPHIE RETURNS

Date: July 25, 2024 -

GOLDHAWK WASN’T too surprised to see his favourite film producer, Ralph Christians, turn up in the trade press ahead of Miriam Allen’s Galway Film Fleadh. Despite his Magma operation having gone down in flames – owing €5m to creditors on top of €3m in non-recourse loans from Screen Ireland – Ralphie has remained a hardy… Read more »

DANNY’S POOR FORM

Date: July 25, 2024 -

BOLSHY DANNY Dunne made another journey to the offices of the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) in relation to his latest bout of bad behaviour. It looks like he may have got off pretty lightly this time, given his poor form to date. On July 9 the Robert Dore-chaired referrals committee found that under Rule… Read more »

TONY MARTIN’S CELEBRATIONS

Date: July 25, 2024 -

AS A result of his OTT celebrations following the win for Alphonse Le Grande at Newcastle last month, the nag’s suspended trainer Tony Martin also made a familiar trip to the IHRB offices to appear before the referrals committee, chaired by judge Siobhan Keegan. The Bowler Hats said Martin’s behaviour demonstrated a “flagrant disregard” for… Read more »

DENISE PHILLIPS’ CROWN PRINCE

Date: July 25, 2024 -

CONGRATULATIONS TO “award-winning hair professional” and social media fan Denise Phillips (aka Denise McLean), who has been named as a finalist in the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Ireland awards in the ‘Emerging’ category. Goldhawk was surprised to see no mention in the coverage of her business partner and co-founder of the Voduz hair care… Read more »

BILL DURKAN’S GUINEAS

Date: July 25, 2024 -

THERE WAS a lot of moolah being splashed about earlier this month in Newmarket and centre stage was moneybags Bill Durkan of Durkan New Homes, who admitted he had to “push the boat out a little” to purchase Star Runner at the July sale. The nag was knocked down to Bill’s assistant, Gary Bannon, for… Read more »

ROBBIE DOLAN’S EXTRAVAGANT VILLA

Date: July 25, 2024 -

A FEW weeks after first going on the market with a hefty €4.5m price tag, the opulent 8,500 sq ft Villa Barton in the K Club complex, Co Kildare, got another media outing in the Daily Mail earlier this month, as the sellers await a well-heeled golf fanatic to step up with the spondoolicks. It… Read more »

WHAT NEXT FOR OVOCA BIO INVESTORS?

Date: July 25, 2024 -

IN A surprise move after the failure of the clinical trials for Ovoca Bio’s Orenetide drug, the CEO, Kirill Golovanov, resigned last week. More surprising, perhaps. was the decision of American non-executive director Tim McCutcheon (previously a CEO of the company in its Ovoca Gold iteration) to step in as Golovanov’s replacement and also to… Read more »

SHARON BYRNE’S BIG BET

Date: July 25, 2024 -

THE LATEST accounts for the Irish Bookmakers’ Association (IBA) – the gambling lobby entity chaired by Sharon Byrne – provide an update on the heavy going associated with the running of the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission Stakes. The IBA has found itself caught up in the midst of a major investigation by the CCPC,… Read more »

AKO AMIRI’S HAIR CUT

Date: July 25, 2024 -

A LITTLE over a year on from the collapse of the Just For Men Ltd (JFM) barbers and male grooming chain in Cork, the liquidator has submitted his report, which suggests that there is plenty still to untangle here. The main player here is director and shareholder Ako Amiri, while the other listed director is… Read more »