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VOL 43 NO 12

Date: June 12, 2025 -

SUSAN FITZPATRICK’S TURBULENCE

Date: June 12, 2025 -

THE LIQUIDATION of a raft of firms next week turns out to be linked to one Ivor Fitzpatrick, the high-flying legal eagle, businessman and good pal of Charlie Haughey’s, who died last year. The Squire of Castle Howard had fingers in many pies and was reported to have been worth around €100m when he died… Read more »

DPP MAN VERSUS TAOISEACH AND HACK

Date: June 12, 2025 -

IAN BAILEY would not have expected to play a posthumous role in last year’s general election but Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s public endorsement of a book claiming that Bailey should have been charged with Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s murder has provoked legal action by DPP official Robert Sheehan. He has sought a date from Dún Laoghaire… Read more »

NAEEM MANIAR’S MANY HATS

Date: June 12, 2025 -

LIAM CUNNINGHAM was in the headlines this week for his spat with Conor McGregor after the latter mocked the actor’s role in supporting the Gaza aid boat’s attempt to breach the 18-year-old blockade. Cunningham has also been a regular critic of the government, particularly over current attempts to dump the triple-lock system, while another target… Read more »

LIFTING THE LID ON MOUNTBATTEN

Date: June 12, 2025 -

Richard Kerr and Stephen Waring, two former residents of Kincora Boys’ Home, were trafficked by Kincora warden Joseph Mains to members of a paedophile network in the 1970s. The ring included Lord Mountbatten. Kerr is now taking a case against the UK state, which is progressing through the north’s legal system at a snail’s pace…. Read more »

CYBER INSECURITY

Date: June 12, 2025 -

IRELAND WAS one of 41 countries participating in last month’s Locked Shields 2025 in Tallinn, Estonia. The rationale given for Irish involvement in this “live-fire cyber defence exercise”, co-ordinated by the Nato Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE), was to ensure collective security and the protection of critical national infrastructure. How reassuring. Shortly after… Read more »

PATRIOT GAMES IN DONEGAL

Date: June 12, 2025 -

Donegal man Niall McConnell has been central to anti-immigration protests in Monaghan and Donegal over the last two months. His links to loyalists and British fascists may help explain why much of his online content in relation to these protests targets Sinn Féin. A sheep farmer from Castlefin, Donegal, McConnell has been active on Ireland’s… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: June 12, 2025 -

“Money doesn’t mean much to me. It’s just to keep the score, that’s all.” Asked if he was a billionaire and not a millionaire, Magnier said: “I hope so.” John Magnier giving evidence in the High Court, Sunday Independent The racehorse breeder said he had people to advise him. Asked if he was resident in… Read more »

GOVERNMENT DATA BULLIES

Date: June 12, 2025 -

In a chilling public display of loyalty to our Big Tech overlords, Fianna Fáil heavyweights have been putting the boot into a senior civil servant who dared to question the divine right of data centres to monopolise Ireland’s precious resources and scarce infrastructure. Oonagh Buckley, secretary general at the Department of Environment, Climate and Energy,… Read more »

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S ROADWORKS

Date: June 12, 2025 -

“Roads are also important for environment, this doesn’t get said often enough.” That was Micheál Martin’s hot take in Galway last week as he pledged support for the city’s planned ring road. He said the health and environmental benefits of new roads are often overlooked. Indeed. In 2023 the High Court quashed the road proposal… Read more »

NOD IS AS GOOD AS A WINK

Date: June 12, 2025 -

Last month Winston ‘Winkie’ Irvine, the top UVF boss in Belfast’s Shankill district, was jailed for 30 months, half on licence. That sentence, for possession of a haul of guns and ammunition in his car boot, sparked outrage across the political divide in the north. Former UUP leader Doug Beattie called it “bizarre”. Other politicians… Read more »

MARTIN WRONG ON ISRAELI WAR BONDS

Date: June 12, 2025 -

HEATED POLITICAL polemic on the Occupied Territories Bill (OTB) a fortnight ago saw the Government contradicted on the legal front, at home and abroad, over its excuse to delay the OTB, which relied, erroneously, on EU trade law. But when finance minister Paschal Donohoe said his hands were tied when it was demanded that he… Read more »

COUNTER-COLONIAL CATHAL CROWE

Date: June 12, 2025 -

FIANNA FÁIL TD Cathal Crowe has been making strident statements about the global issues of the day but all politics is local. Last February, on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Crowe spoke fervently about the hurt still felt in Ireland at the very existence of the northern state in a Dáil speech… Read more »

THE FIRST ITEM

Date: June 12, 2025 -

RED NETWORK, a far-left group claiming around 40 members, announced this week that it had voted “unanimously” to leave Richard Boyd Barrett’s People Before Profit and “set up a non-dogmatic revolutionary socialist party”. The break-away group took one of PBP’s 12 councillors, south Dublin county councillor Madeleine Johansson, who was co-opted in 2016 and elected… Read more »

CONFLICTS AT DE PAPER(S)

Date: June 12, 2025 -

CORK’S ATTACHMENT to ‘de paper’ may soon be realised literally as one of de two newspapers, the Irish Examiner and the Echo, could be facing extinction. That’s what some analysts believe is the agenda behind moves by the Irish Times’s owner to combine the news desks at both papers. This comes just a few months… Read more »

‘IRISH TIMES’ CRIES HALT IN GAZA

Date: June 12, 2025 -

AMONG THOSE scrambling to get onside with the increasing revulsion at the slaughter in Gaza is the Irish Times, which recently editorialised against Israel’s now openly genocidal attacks on Palestinians. Perhaps anxious to disassociate the newspaper from the slander that Irish people and Palestinian supporters are antisemitic, the leader writer graciously allowed that not “all… Read more »

IMMA’S HALF DOZEN

Date: June 12, 2025 -

ARTS MINISTER Patrick O’Donovan is seeking applications from worthies looking to fill no less than six upcoming vacancies on the Ali Curran-chaired board of Imma. At the end of last year two vacancies were filled, with UCC architectural design academic John McLaughlin and consumer affairs expert Rhoda Lane-O’Kelly appointed for five-year stints. The latter is… Read more »

BEN BARNES’ BROADSIDE

Date: June 12, 2025 -

WHILE THE Arts Council has been getting both barrels recently for rather obvious reasons (clue: €7m IT debacle), it is rarely criticised by its clients for equally obvious reasons. Certainly, the smart move is to only question the modus operandi on Merrion Square after you have been cut loose. Last week, one-time Abbey Theatre artistic… Read more »

CURRAGH’S HEAVY GOING

Date: June 12, 2025 -

CURRAGH RACECOURSE head honcho Brian Kavanagh struggled to find some good going wherever he could among the attendance figures after the recent underwhelming Tattersalls Guineas Weekend Festival. Overall numbers for the three-day event were down again but poor weather got the bulk of the blame. Anthony Kaminskas of AK Bets, however, was once again critical… Read more »

HYLAND’S GRAVE CONCERN

Date: June 12, 2025 -

THE ASSOCIATION of Irish Racehorse Owners (AIRO) held its recent AGM in the near empty Irish Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association headquarters in Kill, Co Kildare, where chairman David Hyland warned about the number of owners leaving the sport of kings, a trend he is “gravely concerned about”. Hyland claimed the exodus was down to poor levels… Read more »

ROMAN STERN’S EXPENSIVE ADVENTURE

Date: June 12, 2025 -

GOLDHAWK NOTES that number-cruncher Roy Scannell of Moore Ireland has just been installed as liquidator of a company called SWR Properties Ltd. This was once the entity behind the sprawling Liss Ard estate outside Skibbereen, Co Cork, which was acquired by the wealthy Roman Stern at the start of the century before being offloaded four… Read more »

OVOCA BIO TRANSFORMATION WILL BOOST MARKET ACTIVITY

Date: June 12, 2025 -

IN WHAT is still called Ovoca Bio, CEO (for the second time) Tim McCutcheon – who is also the largest shareholder with 22% – has shifted the focus of the failed biopharma business into, unsurprisingly, the mineral exploration business. What is clear is that this development will stimulate a jump in the market’s level of… Read more »

SMOOTH SAILING FOR ICG BOSS EAMONN ROTHWELL

Date: June 12, 2025 -

PROBABLY THE most noteworthy aspect of the accounts for Irish Ferries owner Irish Continental Group (ICG) in recent times has been CEO Eamonn Rothwell’s very generous remuneration package in the face of underwhelming performance. Based on the latest figures for the first four months of this year, ICG is on course to improve on 2024… Read more »

WOLFPACK STUBBED OUT

Date: June 12, 2025 -

WITH VAPING very much on the rise here and around the world, Goldhawk was interested to see that a company called Wolfpack Wholesale Group Ltd (WWG) had come a cropper with the taxman. Established by a couple of former gamblers, it looks like this bet on vaping was made a little too early. WWG is… Read more »

TV PRODUCERS’ UNSCRIPTED CREDIT

Date: June 12, 2025 -

LAST WEEK the EU’s competition directorate approved the plan announced in Budget 2025 by then finance minister Jack Chambers to introduce a new tax break for “unscripted” TV productions. In case you’re wondering where your money is going, this includes reality TV shows and light-entertainment programming, and even covers formats such as chat shows and… Read more »

BRANIGAN’S UNCOMFORTABLE SEATS

Date: June 12, 2025 -

WITH THE deadline of June 16 for phase-one submissions to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, high-flying radio boss Kevin Branigan will be keeping his fingers crossed that there are no last-minute hiccups in relation to the bid by his Bay Broadcasting Ltd (BBL) operation to buy Galway Bay FM from the Connacht Tribune. The… Read more »

PASCHAL DONOHOE’S JOB SEARCH

Date: June 12, 2025 -

IS FINANCE MINISTER Paschal Donohoe becoming the Yosser Hughes of the European plutocracy? ‘Gizza job’ appears to be his mantra as he mingles with finance technocrats in the Eurogroup of finance ministers that he heads or is he plea being made on Paschal’s behalf by his fans in the Irish media. In late 2023 a… Read more »

FFG AND ISRAELI ARMS

Date: May 29, 2025 -

THE OUTRAGE of Tánaiste and Fine Gael leader Simon Harris as well as the loud shrieks from the party’s MEPs at the slaughter inflicted by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) on Palestinian civilians and children in Gaza were most welcome. They were also out of sync with the political positions the party’s MEPs had been… Read more »

PROFILE: IVANA BACIK

Date: May 29, 2025 -

THREE YEARS ago, Ivana Bacik became the sixth leader of the Labour Party in 20 years and last November its members hoped that its electoral seat gains – from six TDs to 11 – meant that the party had turned a corner following its disastrous… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: EOGHAN GILROY

Date: May 29, 2025 -

EOGHAN GILROY has managed to climb the ladder of student politics almost to the very top and shows no sign of slowing down (even over a year after graduation). The Union of Students in Ireland’s (USI) newly elected vice-president for academic affairs has somehow managed to side-step both collegiate and national controversies but how has… Read more »

COUNCIL ARCHIVED

Date: May 29, 2025 -

GOLDHAWK NOTED Orlaith McBride popping up in the media last week on foot of the Government’s plan for the 1926 census, the first of the Irish Free State, to be published online at an overall cost of €5m. While the National Archives of Ireland (NAI), where McBride is director, will obviously be centrally involved, there… Read more »

JACK V JIM: SLOW MOTION CONTEST

Date: May 29, 2025 -

AN INTERESTING observation by Irish Times political editor Pat Leahy recently was to the effect that Jim O’Callaghan’s busy, public prominence is due to two reasons: the first is simply that Taoiseach Micheál Martin organised O’Callaghan’s elevation to the justice department (a logical step given… Read more »

PADDY POWER’S TARGET

Date: May 29, 2025 -

NEW YORK-listed Flutter Entertainment plc – owners of gambling giant Paddy Power – has launched High Court proceedings in Dublin against an Irish property company called Waymill Ltd. The name of the principal here should ring a few bells, given that he found himself in the middle of the high-profile ‘Lying Eyes’ murder plot a… Read more »

A LOAD OF POLLOCKS

Date: May 29, 2025 -

THE IMPRESSIVE early 18th-century Mountainstown House on 121 acres outside Navan, Co Meath, will be auctioned on June 12, having been in the ownership of the Pollock family for well over 200 years. Previous attempts to sell fell flat but the auction is expected to throw up a buyer. Mountainstown is described as being “in… Read more »

GARY MULLAN’S BAD VIBE

Date: May 29, 2025 -

GOLDHAWK SPIES that the company behind the lauded Prosperity recruitment firm is being liquidated this week. The good news is that it looks like the multi-talented founder of the firm – actor-turned-executive-turned-DJ Gary Mullan – has landed on his (dancing) feet. This week a creditors’ meeting is to be held in D2, at which number-cruncher… Read more »

DANIEL O’DONNELL’S DUCATS

Date: May 29, 2025 -

AS THE fans of Donegal crooner Daniel O’Donnell come to terms with the fact that he is to take an extended break from touring, the good news for the man himself is that there is plenty of moolah in the coffers to tide him over for quite some time. A month after Wee Daniel took… Read more »