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LANDMARK’S LOLLY

Date: April 17, 2025 -

WHILE ARTS and culture minister Patrick O’Donovan has been playing Scrooge with the TV producers over the streaming levy, he has also been chucking the green stuff around at Culture Ireland (CI), the department’s vehicle for promoting Irish arts abroad. This is one of the ways the minister has to get credit for funding arts… Read more »

O’DONOVAN’S ORDERS

Date: April 17, 2025 -

THE LEGACY of the RTÉ Tubs scandal is now clearer, with arts and media minister Patrick O’Donovan introducing some policy swerves that will rankle in Montrose. Rather than adding to the pot of money available to RTÉ and assorted film and TV players, O’Donovan nixing of the proposed content levy on Netflix et al has… Read more »

COOLMORE SHUFFLE

Date: April 17, 2025 -

THE SQUIRE of Coolmore, John Magnier, and his team recently undertook a little international jockey juggling, with Ryan Moore jetting Down Under to ride in the valuable Star Championships at Royal Randwick, while Coolmore’s usual Australia rider, James McDonald, flew north to the Dubai World Cup meeting. While it was understandable that McDonald was keen… Read more »

PATRICK MULLINS’S MOUNTS

Date: April 17, 2025 -

AMATEUR RIDER Patrick Mullins left his dismal Cheltenham form behind when winning on three of his five mounts at the Aintree festival, all of which were trained by his father, Willie, most notably Stewart Andrew’s Grand National winner, Nick Rockett. Given that David and Emmet Mullins (Patrick’s cousins) have also won the famous race, Patrick… Read more »

TWOMEY’S CHALLENGE

Date: April 17, 2025 -

IT WILL be recalled (see The Phoenix 12/7/24) that handler Paddy Twomey found himself on the end of some surprising criticism last season from former-trainer-turned-pundit Sarah Lynam, who suggested that he had been having “a bit of a disappointing time of it lately”. But Twomey went about dispelling such notions recently and is also now… Read more »

WHAT IS KENMARE RESOURCES WORTH?

Date: April 17, 2025 -

THE REACTION of Kenmare Resources CEO Tom Hickey to Mick Carvill’s €565m takeover bid for the company last month is reminiscent of Tony Smurfit’s dismissal of Mark Sutton’s €9bn approach for Smurfit Kappa by International Paper in 2018. The truth is that the generous offer is just what the doctor ordered as far as the hapless… Read more »

CORRE ENERGY’S CASH PROBLEM

Date: April 17, 2025 -

CORRE ENERGY investors have been on the proverbial rollercoaster ride, from the company’s September 2021 float at €1 a share to its delisting from the Euronext Dublin stock exchange after a “strategic review”. Today the shares are almost worthless and the question is why did the company float in the first place. The Corre Energy… Read more »

BUTLERS CHOCOLATES PR TREAT

Date: April 17, 2025 -

CONGRATULATIONS TO Butlers Chocolates, which got a valuable plug in the Indo last week in the run-up to Easter. Goldhawk is happy to fill in a couple of the more interesting details that were missing from the article. The Indo puff-piece – headlined “Inside the Butlers factory: the making of an Easter egg and how… Read more »

CHARITY’S €1M BLIND SPOT

Date: April 17, 2025 -

ELSEWHERE IN this issue (see p5), Goldhawk looks at the decision of the Charities Regulator to send inspectors into two charities operating in the visually impaired area. One of these is Fighting Blindness (FB), where the most recently filed accounts reveal a near €1m cost incurred by the charity in relation to its own private… Read more »

GOOD ‘ADVISE’

Date: April 17, 2025 -

THE FOUNDERS of high-tech analytics company Advise, Kevin McCarthy and John Phelan, had plenty to celebrate just before last Christmas when they attracted an impressive €1.66m in investment from assorted backers and their smiling faces have been popping up in various media outlets this month as the PR machine kicked into gear. Clearly the two… Read more »

CHRISTOPER MOOREHOUSE’S €2M TAX BILL

Date: April 17, 2025 -

THE DREADED Revenue have just registered a judgment for a whopping €2m against one Christopher Moorehouse with an address in Salville Road, Drumgoold, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford. This turns out to relate to a case taken by CAB a year-and-a-half ago where the High Court heard that Moorehouse owed unpaid taxes covering an 11-year period from… Read more »

NOT SO SUPERMARKET

Date: April 17, 2025 -

SOME ACTIVITY was spotted at Escadia Ltd and Belraine Ltd – the companies associated with a large SuperValu supermarket in Ardee, Co Louth – controlled by Margaret Lanney and her son, David, and which faced a High Court petition from the owners of SuperValu a couple of years back (see The Phoenix 16/12/22). That petition… Read more »

TOO MANY TDs FOR MARTIN’S LIKING

Date: April 3, 2025 -

THERE IS a particular irony in the resentment felt by many Fianna Fáil backbench TDs at the new Dáil speaking-time arithmetic, which has resulted in Michael Lowry’s backbenchers getting a great deal more speaking time than them and Fine Gael backbenchers. But the incongruity here is not simply down to the preferential share out of… Read more »

PROFILE: CONOR MCGREGOR

Date: April 3, 2025 -

THE GENERAL, European and local elections in 2024 show that the audience for McGregor’s brand of right-wing populism is limited. And even within this emerging, but still small, right-wing milieu, he does not enjoy unanimous support. McGregor will not secure a nomination for the presidency but will the endorsement of US President Donald Trump and his… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: JACK KEATING

Date: April 3, 2025 -

NEOPHYTE RADIO presenter and social media influencer Jack Keating wanted to do a communications course after leaving school but sadly didn’t get the points. Happily, the 25-year-old recently managed to bag himself a Saturday afternoon radio show on yoof station Spin 1038. Entry criteria for plum jobs is possibly different when you’re a so-called ‘nepo… Read more »

BOD’S BASELAYERS

Date: April 3, 2025 -

THERE WERE plenty of column inches devoted to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CPPC) pinging Irish international rugby legend Brian O’Driscoll last month for straying offside with his online marketing posts. It turns out BOD actually owns a stake in the clothing company that he was found to have been promoting outside the rules…. Read more »

JOHN MAGNIER’S NEXT RACE?

Date: April 3, 2025 -

STRANGE BEHAVIOUR at last week’s annual general meeting of the beleaguered Irish Racehorse Trainers Association (IRTA), where there were more questions than answers. The shadow of John Magnier also loomed large. The IRTA has encountered some very heavy going in recent times, most notably that devastating Court of Appeal setback in a defamation case taken… Read more »

CAROLINE O’MAHONY’S MOOLAH

Date: April 3, 2025 -

ALTHOUGH FAB fitness influencer Caroline O’Mahony was no doubt unhappy at being outed by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) for failing to clearly identify which of her videos and posts had been paid for, it is likely that the publicity will further boost her already impressive numbers – online and in the bank…. Read more »

AMBASSADOR ROBBIE HENSHAW

Date: April 3, 2025 -

RUGBY INTERNATIONAL Robbie Henshaw, who had a relatively underwhelming outing during the Six Nations, was in top form last month when it came to promoting the Uniphar-owned Aya wellness and vitamin brand for which he earns a few bob as a so-called brand ambassador. He has featured heavily in the run-up to this weekend’s European… Read more »

TOM LYONS’S SUBPOENA

Date: April 3, 2025 -

WITH THE Web Summit run in the Four Goldmines coming to an early end, there was no need for Tom Lyons, chief executive of The Currency business media website to give evidence. After his co-founder and the website’s former editor, Ian Kehoe, had found himself dragged centre stage during the RTÉ Oireachtas committee grillings, it… Read more »

MICRO-MANAGING JAMES BROWNE

Date: April 3, 2025 -

HOUSING MINISTER James Browne provided Sinn Féin’s housing know-all, Eoin Ó Broin, with enough ammo to shoot him down no less than five times in the last week of March. Severe restrictions to schemes for tenants in situ; cuts to social and affordable housing; a rise in homeless figures; record house price inflation; and a… Read more »

VOL 43 NO 07

Date: April 3, 2025 -

PÁLÁS PLOT TWIST

Date: April 3, 2025 -

WHILE IT appeared that a final ‘cut’ had been called on Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe’s bijou Pálás cinema in Galway, the desire for a surprise ending remains, even if many believe this screenplay should never have got a green light. The latest unexpected script development is that a group has formed to resuscitate the… Read more »

AZURE’S AMAZONIAN BOSS

Date: April 3, 2025 -

A RECENT Irish Times lecture about the shamefully inadequate state of Ireland’s security strategy referred to the “independent security think tank”, the Azure Forum. Independent of whom? A list of Azure’s activities, personnel and MO indicates a company very much linked to the western defence industry and also to the new Irish establishment’s demand for… Read more »

TACKLING NEIL FRANCIS

Date: April 3, 2025 -

A RECEIVER has just been installed by one of the creditors of a company called KC Property Developments Ltd (KCP), where a 50% shareholder turns out to be rugby-player-turned-journalist-turned-businessman Neil Francis. The company has, however, now applied for an examiner to be appointed instead. Franno’s partner in KCP is Co Kildare engineer Chris Wholey, who… Read more »

ANNE-MARIE O’BRIEN’S FORM

Date: April 3, 2025 -

ELSEWHERE IN this issue (see p5) Goldhawk examines the runners and riders in the recent annual general meeting of the Irish Racehorse Trainers Association. While not a lot ended up being achieved at the meeting, one Anne-Marie O’Brien had already been nominated as the association’s nominee on the board of the state funding agency, Horse… Read more »

MURDERED HACK WAS DOUBLE AGENT

Date: April 3, 2025 -

GOLDHAWK HAS for long been aware that the Sunday Times has excellent sources within British intelligence but never suspected that MI6’s top asset at the paper in the 1970s was in fact an MI5/KGB double agent. That is the conclusion of two ST writers, who have just published Murder in Cairo about the assassination of… Read more »

BANG FOR OUR BUCKS

Date: April 3, 2025 -

Tánaiste Simon Harris recently speculated that Ireland’s military spending needed to expand rapidly and could soon reach €3bn annually. So it is worth looking at how much bang the Department of Defence (DoD) plans to get from our bucks. It is also worth considering whether this level of expenditure is likely to put a strain… Read more »

JERUSALEM FAR-RIGHT FURORE

Date: April 3, 2025 -

ISRAELI PRESIDENT Isaac Herzog often refers to his Irish connections but, since the start of the war on Gaza, he has been quite vocal in criticising Irish policies and attitudes in relation to the conflict. Herzog, however, has become embroiled in a rather embarrassing fiasco due to the attendance of a large number of far-right… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: April 3, 2025 -

Penta Group is at the forefront of using research and analytics to make a real impact, and I look forward to contributing to its innovative approach in helping global organisations navigate complexity with confidence. Leo Varadkar on his new employer, Penta’s website For almost two years it was also the Ground Zero for fear, the… Read more »

‘LIVING IN THE REAL WORLD’

Date: April 3, 2025 -

“A victory for common sense over ideological dogma,” was Fianna Fáil MEP Billy Kelleher’s response to An Bord Pleanála’s recent decision to grant permission to Shannon LNG to build a 600MW gas-burning power station in north Kerry. Kelleher’s comment was a victory for easy soundbite over reality. Opposition to new gas infrastructure is firmly rooted… Read more »

NATURE RESERVED

Date: April 3, 2025 -

Coillte, the state forestry agency, has long been under fire for its dire environmental record and its focus on industrial conifer plantations that are biodiversity deserts. However, one part of the organisation that was doing some good work was Coillte Nature, set up in 2019 for nature restoration projects. But last week we learned that… Read more »

NÍ GHÉILLFEAR!

Date: April 3, 2025 -

NEW GRAND CENTRAL station in Belfast, which opened last year, is the biggest transport hub on the island and cost a staggering £340m. To the great annoyance of Irish-language activists, the signage is in English only. The Sinn Féin minister at the Department for Infrastructure, John O’Dowd, said it “will be fixed”. But it had… Read more »

LEFT UNITY ÁRAS CANDIDATE

Date: April 3, 2025 -

THE BIG question for Mary Lou McDonald and the Sinn Féin leadership in their tight, internal debate about who to run in the presidential election in November is just what outstanding-personality candidates does the party have – outside of strong front-bench TDs that are required to mount another bid for government. Alternatively, there are few… Read more »

TWO FINGERS AGAIN FROM GOVERNMENT

Date: April 3, 2025 -

SINN FÉIN’S Gaeltacht and arts spokesperson, Aengus Ó Snodaigh, has discovered that the Government’s innovative approach to political democracy has spread beyond the Pale to the Gaeltacht. The Government and Gaeltacht minister Patrick O’Donovan are proposing that the re-introduction (after 15 years) of limited democracy to Údarás na Gaeltachta boards will see six out of… Read more »

OPPOSITION SPLIT ON SPEAKING RIGHTS

Date: April 3, 2025 -

UNITY IN the opposition ranks may still be intact on the issue of speaking rights for the schizophrenic group of TDs led by Michael ‘Fingers’ Lowry – modern Parnellites of inestimable parliamentary calibre – but an issue of priority in the speaking rights of Labour and the Social Democrats is bubbling away while the main… Read more »