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BRITISH SPECIAL FORCES IN GAZA?

Date: April 18, 2024 -

THAT BRITISH Tory politicians should call for a halt to British arms supplies to Israel is most unusual, coming as it does from those who normally support Israel regardless of whatever military atrocities they commit. Britain’s support for Israel depends on it abiding by international… Read more »

PROFILE: JOHN MORAN

Date: April 18, 2024 -

THE BRIGHTEST as well as the most self-confident Limerick luminary since Richard Harris has to be the former secretary general of the Department of Finance, John Moran – a close friend and colleague of the finance minister at the time, Michael Noonan. Following his spell at the minister’s side, Moran went on to supplement a… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: CATHERINE ARNOLD

Date: April 18, 2024 -

Amidst rising political tensions within Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU), Catherine ‘Cat’ Arnold, the (former) education officer, has announced their shock resignation. A union member for almost their entire college life, Arnold’s decision to quit with immediate effect was due to issues with a toxic workplace environment and alleged bullying. Why did Arnold feel… Read more »

IAN O’DOHERTY’S BAD YEAR

Date: April 18, 2024 -

LAST DECEMBER the Independent’s lovable columnist, Ian O’Doherty, wrote about what he described as “maybe the worst year of my life” but it doesn’t appear that things are getting much better, with the dreaded taxman registering a judgment against the media company co-owned by O’Doherty… Read more »

CATHERINE MARTIN’S €7M HEADACHE

Date: April 18, 2024 -

ARTS AND culture minister Catherine Martin came in for (yet more) criticism this week as a result of her ongoing failure to appoint a chair to the Arts Council, which has a budget this year of no less than €134m. Fans of Goldhawk will be… Read more »

LYRA V BEYONCÉ

Date: April 18, 2024 -

IT HAS been hard to avoid Irish singer Laura McNamara (aka Lyra) in recent weeks as the hype machine cranks up around her eponymous debut album. Given that she is a protegé of Caroline Downey’s, the media profile she has attained, despite her limited chart success, should not come as a surprise. Certainly, the campaign… Read more »

OLIVER TATTAN’S NEW VENTURE

Date: April 18, 2024 -

THE multi-hatted Oliver Tattan is getting back into the health insurance game, in tandem with Aviva, although the name of the new venture remains under wraps. Enniskerry-based moneybags Ollie has been around the block as far as health insurance is concerned, stretching back to his stint as chief executive of VHI, before he jumped ship… Read more »

JOYLESS JUNIOR JENN

Date: April 18, 2024 -

IT’S A long way down from pre-breakfast delusions of becoming taoiseach to not even making it into Cabinet but that has been the career curve travelled by Jennifer Carroll MacNeill recently. Jennifer, however, must have known when she made the first of several early morning phone calls soliciting leadership support within hours of Leo Varadkar… Read more »

FAR RIGHT SPOILING FOR A FIGHT

Date: April 18, 2024 -

DESPITE THE attention the far right in Ireland has received in recent years, it has had little or no success in elections. However, far-right politicians believe fervently that, in the upcoming local and European elections, their fortunes are about to change. The problem from their perspective is that there are several political parties vying for… Read more »

VOL 42 NO 08

Date: April 18, 2024 -

BEN GILROY’S PORTUGUESE POSTCODE

Date: April 18, 2024 -

SURPRISING TO see that, according to filings in the Companies Office for Morrigan Private Settlement Trust Operations (MPST), the colourful Ben Gilroy has changed address from dreary Navan to sunny Albufeira in Portugal, as has fellow director Charlie McGuinness, previously of Tully in Monaghan, albeit to a different address on the Algarve. Many moons ago… Read more »

GLENCREE’S NEW FACES

Date: April 18, 2024 -

THREE MONTHS on from the appointment by the Department of Foreign Affairs of consultants to carry out a review of corporate governance at The Glencree Centre for Reconciliation, a final report is awaited. What has arrived is a new-look board, as a result of assorted exits and entrances. It will be recalled (see The Phoenix… Read more »

JOHN FITZGERALD’S DISMAL FORECAST

Date: April 18, 2024 -

DESPITE ITS headline-grabbing effect, the report by John FitzGerald and Edgar Morgenroth, entitled Northern Ireland Subvention – Possible Unification Effects and predicting that a united Ireland would cost southern taxpayers tens of billions, got a cool response from some of the more discerning critics in this field. This would not be the first time that… Read more »

ROBERT NAIRAC RE-VISITED

Date: April 18, 2024 -

Robin ‘The Jackal’ Jackson, of the Portadown UVF, was the most notorious assassin of the Troubles. Virtually all commentators on those turbulent times believe he was a British agent, run by the RUC special branch. He was a key member of the so-called Glenanne gang…. Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: April 18, 2024 -

Join the Harris juggernaut. Enda Kenny speech at Fine Gael’s ard fheis I’d read a lot about the ancient Celtic warriors going into battle. There were always rituals beforehand. I remember getting ready for the opening night of Lord of the Dance. I started putting on my face paint. Then a guy showed up with… Read more »

FARMERS’ PR CAMPAIGN

Date: April 18, 2024 -

For decades scientists have warned of the extreme vulnerability of global food production systems to disruption as climate change accelerates. This is now coming to pass in real time, with farmers across Ireland and Europe feeling the brunt of ever more extreme weather. Last year, torrential rainfall hampered cereal crop production from France to Poland,… Read more »

DUP ELECTION NIGHTMARE

Date: April 18, 2024 -

It’s changed times in the north. There’s a reversal of the natural order of politics. Turmoil and confusion in unionism threatens the stability of the Stormont institutions, while Sinn Féin works to steady the ship. With Dáil elections looming, it is in SF’s interest to maintain a working assembly and executive to show the party… Read more »

WHITHER KATE O’CONNELL?

Date: April 18, 2024 -

THE RE-ENTRY of Kate O’Connell to national politics via a place on Fine Gael’s general election ticket in Dublin Bay South (DBS) is not a given, despite new Taoiseach Simon Harris’s effusive welcome home for the former TD. The storyline surrounding the period in which La Kate was consigned to a political nunnery since she… Read more »

HELEN OF NAVAN SURVIVES

Date: April 18, 2024 -

MUCH MYSTERY and knowing punditry surrounded the survival of Helen McEntee as justice minister given all the indications that persuaded most people to believe she was a goner. However, it was not so much the political permutations, geography, gender, ideology and so on that proved… Read more »

MAL O’HARA’S SEANAD SEAT

Date: April 18, 2024 -

THE COALITION parties have continued the sharing (among themselves) policy of divvying up Seanad seats if and when they become available – a policy that also includes telling northern unionists to feck off. When senators Michael D’Arcy (Fine Gael) and Elisha McCallion (Sinn Féin) resigned in 2020, the two by-elections in 2021 saw FG and… Read more »

WILL SINN FÉIN BOUNCE BACK?

Date: April 18, 2024 -

GLEEFUL NOISES from Government parties and media critics at Sinn Féin’s poll slide as well as its political confusion indicate a new confidence among coalition Government members that they can see off the party at the local, EU and, most crucially, general election in the coming months. How does Mary Lou McDonald and the SF… Read more »

IRISH PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

Date: April 18, 2024 -

THE IRISH edition of the Sunday Times appears to have corrected its revisionist line on British foreign policy and has been brought to heel by the chaps in the London office, whose tutors in MI5 and Whitehall were aghast at the deviant editorial penned in the new year’s Aawrish edition. Then, a stern editorial castigated… Read more »

CROSS (VERY CROSS) BORDER VIEWS

Date: April 18, 2024 -

IRISH TIMES northern editor Freya McClements wrote extensively and flatteringly about the longest-serving newspaper editor in these islands, Noel Doran, who is retiring after 25 years as editor of the Irish News (IN), the constitutional nationalist paper in the north. But Doran may not have been altogether flattered by the complimentary tone of McClements’s article…. Read more »

MARK GALLAGHER’S €10M MANSION

Date: April 18, 2024 -

THE ADVERTISING by Sherry FitzGerald of a redbrick pile on leafy Ailesbury Road, with a cool €10m price tag, not surprisingly marks the property as one of the most expensive to hit the market in recent years. Given that the near 6,000 sq ft house is the Dublin abode of banker Mark Gallagher, who is… Read more »

AINTREE ANTICS

Date: April 18, 2024 -

WHILE ZILLIONAIRE Geneva tax resident JP McManus won his third Aintree Grand National last Saturday, with the Willie Mullins-trained I am Maximus, it was two former McManus jockeys – now turned pundits – Tony McCoy (sorry Sir Anthony Peter McCoy OBE) and Barry Geraghty who… Read more »

SUSAN O’REILLY’S ‘APPARITION’

Date: April 18, 2024 -

A “STUNNING beachfront house hovering over the water in Howth” has attracted a lot of attention over the last week. The unusual structure was the subject of a protracted planning process, which ended up proving more expensive than expected by its owner. The Lake House is the property of retired HSE heavy-hitter Dr Susan O’Reilly,… Read more »

LARA HICKEY’S CLOSE-UP

Date: April 18, 2024 -

THE FILM and TV business has long been one where ‘who you know’ features high on the lists of credits, even more so since the coinage of the ‘nepo baby’ phrase that gained traction online and has been chucked around with abandon. A recent name firmly establishing a second-generational presence in the film and TV… Read more »

TONY’S FAILED APPEAL

Date: April 18, 2024 -

THE RECENT overturning by the IHRB appeals panel of the referral committee’s findings on trainer Tony Martin is not the first significant setback for the trainer. It will be recalled (see The Phoenix 5/4/24) that, following an appeal by the IHRB on the grounds of “undue leniency”, the panel chaired by retired judge Peter Kelly… Read more »

O’BRIEN’S OBSTACLES

Date: April 18, 2024 -

While trainer Aidan O’Brien supplied three of the five runners in Leopardstown’s Group 3 PW McGrath Ballysax Stakes, it was Adrian Murray who provided the shock 50/1 winner, Dallas Star. It presumably proved very satisfying for newly freelance rider Seamie Heffernan to deliver on Amo Racing’s charge, in what is customary seen as a Derby… Read more »

PHILIPS DELIVERING BLAND TASTE AT GREENCORE

Date: April 18, 2024 -

NO DOUBT there were high hopes in Greencore that the new CEO, Dalton Philips, would be able to revolutionise the company. It certainly hasn’t worked out that way and the latest figures are far from reassuring. Moreover, it is hard to see where Philips even… Read more »

I-RES RESULTS WOULD HAVE SWUNG OUTCOME

Date: April 18, 2024 -

JUST WHEN the Vision Capital Corp (VCC) boss Jeffrey Olin was on the verge of pulling off a coup at the EGM for I-Res Reit in February (see The Phoenix 9/2/24) and would presumably have won out at the upcoming AGM on May 2, he surprisingly got cold feet. Instead of putting up his five… Read more »

DENIS O’BRIEN’S ‘LOVE ISLAND’ PRESENTER

Date: April 18, 2024 -

IN GLASGOW last week, Capital Scotland radio listeners had their first taste of a brand new breakfast show presenter after the station was forced into a change a little quicker than anticipated. For owner Denis O’Brien, the Scottish station represents a high-profile effort to grow his share of the UK radio market, which he entered… Read more »

GRÁ FOR GRÁ AR AN TRÁ

Date: April 18, 2024 -

AT A time when RTÉ is facing severe budgetary constraints, it is interesting that the latest round of programme funding from the media commission contains only a single project for its main channels among the dozen biggest winners. Virgin Media TV (VMTV) has four shows, including the top three by value, while TG4 also has… Read more »

SUZANNE GILHOOLY’S JEWELS

Date: April 18, 2024 -

GOLDHAWK NOTES that the taxman has registered a judgment for a less than blingy €2,400 against a company called C&S Jewellery Ltd, where the principals are husband and wife team Charlie Cullen and Suzanne Gilhooly. While the amount is almost insignificant, this judgment follows a larger €30,000 hit last summer on another entity, the Swiss… Read more »

PURCELL CONSTRUCTION’S €150,000 OFFER

Date: April 18, 2024 -

ALMOST THREE years on from the liquidation of Megard Ltd, the company involved in the construction of the Hyde Square apartment block in Dublin 8, the residents are still engaged in legal negotiations over compensation. An offer has been put on the table by a subcontractor but it is well short of the potential final… Read more »

GOING NUCLEAR IN IRISH SEA

Date: April 18, 2024 -

In recent years much has been made by various academics, media and politicians about Ireland’s dependence on the Royal Air Force (RAF) for air defence. Independent TD and former Army Ranger Wing member, Cathal ‘Gung Ho’ Berry even went as far as describing the situation as a “national humiliation and embarrassment”. Strange then that the… Read more »