Search the Archives

FILM REVIEW: AN CAILÍN CIÚIN

Date: May 20, 2022 - Affairs

ALL OVER this country, in housing estates and country lanes, there are houses that are unkempt and seem—by comparison with their neighbours—anachronistic. The paintwork is peeling, the hedges ‘leggy’ and sprawling, their gardens littered with broken things. Colm Bairéad’s An Cailín Ciúin – an adaptation of Claire Keegan’s internationally critically acclaimed novella Foster – begins… Read more »

GOVERNMENT’S TEST RESULTS

Date: May 19, 2022 - Affairs

WHAT WILL it take for the Government to face up to its responsibilities on medical laboratory testing? Following unparalleled scrutiny of the state’s lab capacity on foot of a cancer screening scandal and a global pandemic, this week sees frontline workers striking over pay parity and what the Medical Laboratory Scientists Association (MLSA) say is… Read more »

NO ROOM AT THE INN

Date: May 19, 2022 - Affairs

WITH SUMMER upon us, the hospitality sector is facing pressures old and new. Though never short of complaints to fill media space, it seems that not all challenges emanate from outside the tourism business. The Restaurants Association and Vintners Federation are the latest to hit out at Airbnb, claiming that the dearth of accommodation is… Read more »

HOT AIR

Date: May 19, 2022 - Blog Cuttings

Quite clear that my account is under surveillance and control by Twitter Algo. Not isolated. Prevalent. So obvious zero increase in followers 2022 and friends report not receiving a tweet for months. Pure 1984 style censorship, just so you’ll know this place is rigged Eddie… Read more »

MYSTERY FIANNA FÁIL ROBOTS

Date: May 19, 2022 - Affairs

PITY TO see a cloud left hanging over Fianna Fáil’s efforts to win the information war after Stephen Donnelly’s social media was turbo charged by robots. The minister, his party and the Department of Health have asked Twitter to investigate after a video from Donnelly’s account was shared hundreds of times in a matter of… Read more »

VARADKAR FACES PARTY CRISIS

Date: May 19, 2022 -

THE ROW over the maternity hospital has many fathers and chief among the suspects is a certain panic in the ranks of Fine Gael, especially in leader Leo Varadkar’s office. Whereas frantic manoeuvreing among aspirant ministers anticipating the December reshuffle (when Vlad becomes taoiseach) was already under way (see The Phoenix, 22/4/22), the make-up of… Read more »

PROFILE: SEÁN CLANCY

Date: May 19, 2022 -

THE NEW chief of staff of the Defence Forces, Seán Clancy, has had an exciting introduction to public life. First, he was castigated by his political master, defence and foreign affairs minister Simon Coveney for being too familiar in public with Russian ambassador Yuriy Filatov. Second, he has become head of the armed forces just as… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: ERIN MCGREEHAN

Date: May 19, 2022 -

WHILE FIANNA Fáil’s poll ratings are not as rosy as many media have reported, its levels of support among young people – and young women in particular – are even lower and remain disastrously low.That’s why the party is placing so much hope and expectation in candidates like 39-year-old Erin McGreehan in Co Louth. McGreehan… Read more »

IN THEIR ELEMENT

Date: May 19, 2022 -

THEY SAY timing is everything in showbusiness. News of Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe’s sale of a majority stake in their Element Pictures operation to UK giant Fremantle Media was announced just ahead of decidedly mixed reviews of their much anticipated Sally Rooney adaptation, Conversations With Friends. It is, however, unclear what role the offshore… Read more »

WHITHER STEPHEN DONNELLY?

Date: May 19, 2022 -

HEALTH MINISTER Stephen Donnelly has become a convenient target again in health controversies, this time at the national maternity hospital. The minister now has about two years left to rescue an undistinguished ministerial career before he flees politics for the rewarding haven of management consultancy from whence he came. This time, of course, he will… Read more »

ROAR – CECELIA AHERN

Date: May 19, 2022 -

THROUGHOUT HER career as a middling-to-awful fiction writer, Cecelia Ahern has generally given a wide berth to socio-political issues. But having noted the prevailing cultural winds, she has clearly looked at feminist-tinged storytelling and decided there’s gold in them hills. If it might seem an unlikely direction for a writer hitherto more associated with frothy… Read more »

ALLPRO’S WAR DIVIDEND

Date: May 19, 2022 -

RODERIC O’GORMAN’S Department of Integration has been dishing out contracts to companies for the provision of services relating to the housing of Ukrainian refugees. One of the lucky recipients is Galway headquartered Allpro Services, owned equally by Alan Connolly and Conor Nolan, whose latest gig is managing the Scouting Ireland hostels that have been provided… Read more »

TED WALSH’S RTÉ RIDE

Date: May 19, 2022 -

PUNTERS WILL be interested to see if Ted Walsh’s latest blunder on RTÉ’s racing coverage of Punchestown has any repercussions for his long-held punditry position. Despite issuing a public apology after coming under fire for highly critical and, er, blunt comments about a hapless nag running at Punchestown, Walsh’s longevity on the screen will surely… Read more »

MYERSCOUGH’S WORK-OUT

Date: May 19, 2022 -

DOCUMENTS JUST filed in the Companies Office records a different ownership structure in Jamie Myerscough’s Vitruvian Fitness operation than had been registered. Previously, it had been mistakenly recorded that as of September last year Jamie held all the shares in the firm, where his wife, Jennifer Kelly, is the other listed director. Meanwhile, he has… Read more »

RAYMOND STANLEY’S SPREAD

Date: May 19, 2022 -

AN IMPRESSIVE Victorian pile in Cabinteely in south Co Dublin has come on the market with a price tag of €2.75m. Although owned by Raymond and Lynda Stanley, a glowing write-up about the property in the Indo managed to overlook them, focusing instead on one-time owner Seamus McGrath, scion of Joe ‘Sweepstake’ McGrath. Seamus was a… Read more »

KEVIN DOYLE’S PUNT

Date: May 19, 2022 -

FORMER IRISH international footballer Kevin Doyle caused something of a stir two-and-a-half years ago, when he paid €155,000 for a colt foal at Tattersalls Ireland. His hefty purchase related to a half-brother to the then Nicky Henderson-trained superstar steeplechaser Altior, and the one-time Premiership striker revealed at the time that he had bought the horse… Read more »

VOL 40 NO 10

Date: May 19, 2022 -

JP MCMANUS’S MIX-UP

Date: May 19, 2022 -

GENEVA-BASED zillionaire JP McManus is no ordinary racehorse owner. He has long been lashing out bucketloads of moolah to buy top-pedigree steeplechasers and currently would appear to have somewhere north of 500 animals, spread among a variety of trainers. Given the vast scale of the operation, things can go wrong, embarrassingly so. One of the… Read more »

NOEL SMYTH’S DOGFIGHT

Date: May 19, 2022 -

A MEETING takes place this week to decide whether solicitor turned property developer Noel Smyth can buy the National Show Centre near Dublin airport, owned by the Irish Kennel Club (IKC). It looks like he believes the deal is in the bag. Later this month, fans of canines will be heading to the Festival of… Read more »

RTÉ DRAMA AWARD

Date: May 19, 2022 -

RTÉ’S FRAN McNULTY must have felt he was McNulty, front man in an episode of The Wire, rather than McNulty of Prime Time given the raft of rumours swirling around Montrose and the print media in the past few weeks. One thing is clear and that is that a row between McNulty and the managing… Read more »

HIGGINS, DR CAHILL AND THE NYC FRACAS

Date: May 19, 2022 -

THE DOCTOR at the centre of a controversial plan to sell off the most prestigious Irish-American building in the US has been ordered by a New York judge to attempt settlement of a case in which he is accused of sexually assaulting a patient after years of being ‘infatuated’ with her. Dr Kevin Cahill, 85,… Read more »

JOE MCHUGH’S EXIT

Date: May 19, 2022 -

THE RETIREMENT of former education minister, Donegal based Joe McHugh, is described as a blow to Fine Gael as the party, it is said, simply doesn’t have a candidate of McHugh’s calibre to retain its seat there. Cue rumours of various celeb candidates like mega-star footballer Michael Murphy, the county’s greatest ever player. However, the… Read more »

UNREST IN MICHAEL COLLINS COUNTY

Date: May 19, 2022 -

IN THIS the centenary of Michael Collins death in the Civil War, Cork Fine Gael members are not exactly brimming with pride or optimism about the future. Munster is the bedrock of FG, and Cork in particular is Blueshirt country. However, it managed to win just eight seats in the 11 Munster constituencies in the… Read more »

NO SET-TO IN WATERFORD

Date: May 19, 2022 -

TWO ACADEMICS have just made unexpected scholarly Odysseys from the country’s oldest university to the youngest. The first surprise was when former Trinity provost Paddy Prendergast re-emerged into a very different academic limelight as chair of the governing body of the South East Technological University (SETU). He certainly wanted something major to get his teeth… Read more »

McCOY’S FLEETING CLIMATE EPIPHANY

Date: May 19, 2022 -

IT IS widely assumed that within this government, only the Greens have any real interest in the climate crisis. However, there is growing evidence that taoiseach Micheál Martin now also knows exactly how bad the situation really is. Speaking at the recent ‘Dublin Climate Summit’ in UCD, hosted by business lobby group Ibec, Martin pulled… Read more »

GENTLE EU POLICING

Date: May 19, 2022 -

WITH THE housing crisis; the logistics of helping Ukrainian refugees; and the furore over the National Maternity Hospital, a lot of the business of Leinster House may not be getting the usual scrutiny from political parties or the national media. Dáil Éireann recently backed the Prüm II proposal governing automated exchange of data between police… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: May 19, 2022 -

I think I was manifesting before I even realised what I was doing. Pippa O’Connor, VIP Magazine, submitted by reader Surprisingly for a couple noted for head-turning good looks, Paul, in white Adidas trainers and Phoebe, in clumpy black boots, sported unflattering black socks. Padraic Flanagan assesses Paul Mescal and Phoebe Bridgers, Irish Mail on… Read more »

ALLIANCE SURGE

Date: May 19, 2022 -

“SO YOU see now this growing middle ground of people who don’t want to be defined by religion or by ethnic or national identity and to me that is really encouraging and really presents an opportunity for a new Northern Ireland into the future.” This was part of Leo Varadkar’s lengthy response to Mary Lou… Read more »

FF-FG COALITION STRAINS

Date: May 19, 2022 -

THE OUTRAGED accusations from Fianna Fáil TDs and ministers against alleged dirty tricks by their Fine Gael counterparts over the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) and health minister Stephen Donnelly, have little to do with ‘clinically appropriate’ decisions. Nor is it a sign of paranoia on the part of FF TDs, although the latter have certainly… Read more »

BLUESHIRT KULAKS REGROUP

Date: May 19, 2022 -

NOT SINCE Stalin massacred the Kulaks in the USSR did farmers receive such treatment as that meted out to the 11-year-old Fine Gael Agriculture Affairs Group (FGAAG) by the ruthless Bolsheviks at Mount Street HQ. The latter simply abolished the FGAAG, claiming that it was because the group had not held an AGM in 11… Read more »

‘IRISH TIMES’ HAS BAD ELECTION

Date: May 19, 2022 -

THE LATHER of excitement about the northern assembly elections whipped up by the Irish Times – stimulated by its craving for the hallowed middle ground or ‘Others’, to replace republicans and unionists – melted quickly in face of the results. But the champions of centrism in Tara Street certainly did their best to promote moderation… Read more »

FT’S UNITED IRELAND LECTURE

Date: May 19, 2022 -

WHAT AN interesting comment Financial Times contributing editor Philip Stephens made in his column last weekend about preparations (or not) for a united Ireland. Days before the northern assembly elections taoiseach, Micheál Martin put clear blue water between Sinn Féin’s demand that we prepare for a border poll and his own shared island agenda. He… Read more »

OLD LADY OF TARA STREET’S TRUSTEES

Date: May 19, 2022 -

WHAT A perfect business pedigree newly appointed governor of the Irish Times Trust, Maeve Carton, possesses and how well she will fit in with the recently developed corporate and right-wing ethos of the newspaper. Carton is certainly a heavy hitter and was for years a director at CRH. She also chaired the National Treasury Management… Read more »

EAMON RYAN AND BIG TECH’S FREE PASS

Date: May 19, 2022 -

THERE WAS a distinctly Churchillian, spirit-of-the-Blitz feel to the unveiling by environment minister Eamon Ryan last month of the Energy Security Emergency Group (ESEG), a committee to oversee Ireland’s response to the energy impact of the war in Ukraine. Rationing of fuel and electricity is among the war-time measures being considered, and a press release… Read more »

DELOITTE’S COAL CLIENT

Date: May 19, 2022 -

DELOITTE IRELAND CEO Harry Goddard shared some profound words of wisdom on the subject of corporate climate leadership at the launch of DCU’s Centre for Climate and Society, of which Deloitte is a founding partner. “Bold and effective leadership is crucial,” he declared, adding that the climate crisis called for a “period of self-reflection on… Read more »

THE ASHMANS’ BOTTOM DRAWER

Date: May 19, 2022 -

IAN AND VICKY Ashman, a couple of loaded English corporate solicitors who swapped legal briefs for the skimpy ones when they set up a lingerie firm here, have put their Killiney mansion on the market looking for no less than €12m and dissolved their Irish company. The former senior partners in international law firm Walkers… Read more »