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IN DEFENCE OF PADDY COSGRAVE

Date: May 18, 2023 -

IT WAS hardly surprising to see the ‘nwl’ Twitter account wading into the controversy over Paddy Cosgrave’s €1m in funding for The Ditch website, courtesy of a broadside against Fianna Fáil senator Malcolm Byrne, who had just lodged a complaint with the regulator. The anonymous Twitter account has long been parroting what both The Ditch… Read more »

PROFILE: ANNE HARRIS

Date: May 18, 2023 -

THE IRISH TIMES prides itself as leading debate on the big issues of the day and down the years has acted as the vanguard – for good or bad – on social issues, the peace process, EU matters, neutrality and so on. One of the most divisive such issue was, of course, the peace process,… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: ANGELA SCANLON

Date: May 18, 2023 -

IT MAY once have sacked her from a high-profile gig but RTÉ has certainly shown faith in the gobby Angela Scanlon by giving her Saturday night chat show a third run. This faith may have been misplaced as, when Ask Me Anything debuted on April 15, it had an average audience of 250,000 viewers. By… Read more »

CONTENDERS CIRCLE VARADKAR

Date: May 18, 2023 -

THE FEAR of an unseemly power struggle being displayed in public is one reason for the paralysis in Fine Gael over increasingly poor poll figures since Leo Varadkar reassumed leadership of the nation last December. Another is that the reaction of coalition partner Fianna Fáil to any such change is unknown or, even worse, that… Read more »

WATT’S PUBLIC SPENDING CONTROLS

Date: May 18, 2023 -

While many politicians and commentators have been falling over themselves to characterise health department secretary general Robert Watt as “dismissive”, “cocky”, “combative” or  “arrogant”, civil service insiders have been perusing copies of the public spending code. This internal document sets out the protocols and procedures at the different thresholds that all ‘accounting officers’ – ie secretaries general,… Read more »

FAKE TAN AT NEWSTALK

Date: May 18, 2023 -

MUCH HAS been written about the Irish Times’s chatbot debacle and there are plenty of red faces on Tara Street this week. It turns out, however, that the IT is far from the only news organisation that got carried away. The Newstalk Breakfast team of Ciara Kelly and Shane Coleman was quick to jump on… Read more »

RITA CROSBIE’S BATTLES

Date: May 18, 2023 -

GOOD NEWS for Rita Crosbie (Harry’s missus), with Dublin City Council having given the thumbs up for two retail kiosks on Grand Canal Square, despite significant local opposition from the likes of the Marker Hotel and the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre. The planning hurdle that was overcome was only the latest step in a process… Read more »

PADDY KEHOE’S ROUGH RIDE

Date: May 18, 2023 -

HORSERACING PUNTERS have been enjoying the incendiary online spat between one Paddy Kehoe, the owner of racehorse Princess Zoe, and her former trainer, Tony Mullins (brother of superstar Willie). Kehoe’s name may ring a bell with readers with long memories given his central role in a high-profile lottery coup three decades ago. Despite a long… Read more »

ÁINE MORIARTY’S ACADEMY REBOOT

Date: May 18, 2023 -

THE IRISH Film and Television Academy (Ifta) production directed by Áine Moriarty was back from the Zoom wilderness for an in-person event this month, hosted by Deirdre O’Kane, to mark the 20th anniversary of the annual bash. What people who were awarded Iftas in the years before 2003 make of this dateline is unclear, although… Read more »

CREATIVE DIFFERENCES

Date: May 18, 2023 -

GOLDHAWK WAS struck by the rather glossy-looking Beginnings, a book commissioned by the Art Council to mark 40 years of artists’ organisation Aosdána, where the current membership of the toscaireacht (the management committee) includes the likes of poet Theo Dorgan, painter Eamon Colman and composer Gráinne Mulvey. Beginnings is not a cheap production, with the… Read more »

CORKERY LEADS DATALEX INTO TURBULENCE

Date: May 18, 2023 -

THIS IS not the first time that the accounts for airline software outfit Datalex have left Moneybags scratching his head. This time, the outturn is so bad that it borders on the inexplicable. Meanwhile, the company’s largest passenger, 40% shareholder Dermot Desmond, has started to really turn the screws and a possible plan by CEO… Read more »

CLEAN SWEEP – RTÉ ONE

Date: May 18, 2023 -

HAVING ENJOYED an unusual level of critical and audience appreciation for gangster series Kin, RTÉ is back on familiar territory with Clean Sweep. The plodding ‘thriller’ stars Peaky Blinders’ Charlene McKenna as housewife Shelly Mohan, whose past life as a killer is in danger of being uncovered by her Galway garda detective husband Jason (Barry… Read more »

VOL 41 NO 10

Date: May 18, 2023 -

LIGHT TOUCH GARDA RESPONSE

Date: May 18, 2023 -

THE POLICY of light-touch policing that gardaí have used to deal with far-right protests and provocations in recent months was again evident last week. This is despite statements from Messrs Simon Harris and Drew Harris, justice minister and Garda commissioner respectively, who claim that the force has adequate resources to deal with those right-wing extremists… Read more »

FR MCMANUS’S PRESS RELEASE

Date: May 18, 2023 -

The Belfast Telegraph has excommunicated the Irish National Caucus (INC). Fr Sean McManus, founder of the INC – which lobbies the US Congress in Washington and which was responsible for creating the MacBride Principles — set out to perform a public service by circulating a press release last week to various newspapers around the globe…. Read more »

WILL THE NATO CAMPAIGN WORK?

Date: May 18, 2023 -

IF THE Born-Again-Redmondites (BARs) in Government fail to deliver Irish neutrality up to the dogs of war in Nato and Brussels, it will not be the fault of a willing media that has never asked serious questions about Government foreign and security policy. But the rush to arms in recent weeks, as the Consultative Forum… Read more »

MI6 SEEN BUT NOT HURD

Date: May 18, 2023 -

Sir Simon McDonald, the former boss of the British Foreign Office, has just released his memoirs, Leadership: Lessons from a Life in Diplomacy. Unfortunately, he has landed himself in hot water because he did not first submit it to Whitehall’s censors. UK readers may now advert their eyes: in the volume, McDonald exposes Tom Hurd… Read more »

GOOD ENERGY NEWS?

Date: May 18, 2023 -

It’s almost 20 years since Ireland’s first offshore windfarm came into operation. By today’s standards, the 2004 Arklow Bank windpark is a tiddler, generating just 25MW of electricity, but then it was among the world’s biggest. It was supposed to be part of a much larger array; in 2002, Airtricity had secured an offshore lease… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: May 18, 2023 -

If a good newspaper is a nation talking to itself, the Opinion section is where much of that talking happens. Irish Times editor Ruadhán Mac Cormaic in his apology about the AI article controversy Leo likes media outings. When I served in his government, we sometimes shared ‘good-news’ gigs, road openings and sporting highlights. Afterwards… Read more »

FRONTEX TOOLS UP FOR ACTION

Date: May 18, 2023 -

Recently the 2023 budget of Frontex, the European border and coast guard agency, was released and lay bare the hundreds of millions of euros to be spent not only on border surveillance but also to fund contracts for deportation flights this year. Ireland’s involvement with Frontex has been deepening so, while our financial contribution is… Read more »

STORMONT TO RETURN?

Date: May 18, 2023 -

VOTERS IN the north elect 462 councillors to 11 councils this week. There are 807 hopefuls, the vast majority from the main orange and green parties. Independents don’t do well in the north, which accounts for the small number of candidates to choose from. Councils’ powers are very limited: emptying the bins, burying the dead,… Read more »

LEO SWINGING TO THE LEFT?

Date: May 18, 2023 -

Fine Gael’s staunch defence of the publicly owned Irish rail system against the EU’s Railway Directive continues to raise eyebrows in many quarters. For a party ideologically dedicated to market competition and the invisible hand of the market, the Government’s decision to continually derogate the demand to privatise public rail transport might be mystifying. The… Read more »

SINN FÉIN ‘UNITY’ IN CORK EAST

Date: May 18, 2023 -

THE CORK EAST constituency was the scene of one of the triggers that provoked a rash of stories about ‘bullying’ by sensitive Sinn Féin members who found themselves competing with the new, career-minded culture in the party. A casualty of this process was ex-SF councillor Melissa O’Brien, who was accused of being beastly to sitting… Read more »

DEFENDER OF THE FAITH

Date: May 18, 2023 -

THERE WAS much joyous comment in the media – Irish as well as British – at the “inclusive” character of the coronation of King Charles III. This was reflected by the extraordinarily generous and ecumenical gesture by the royal family to allow Sikhs, Buddhists and Jews to participate in the ceremony. Sunday Independent columnist and… Read more »

LUCINDA’S MESSAGE TO MELONI

Date: May 18, 2023 -

DOES A recent Business Post column by Lucinda Creighton on Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni indicate that EU conservatives are ready to accept the rehabilitation of the far right? Lucinda wrote how the election successes of Meloni and her Brothers of Italy (FDL) party was initially “met with consternation in the press”. Such media reaction… Read more »

PALE, MALE AND ‘IT’

Date: May 18, 2023 -

It took Irish Times editor Ruadhán Mac Cormaic some 48 hours to explain who, what, where and how the newspaper’s website ran an absurd opinion piece last week, but in his lengthy, hand-wringing non-apology to readers he left out the ‘why’. The piece, ostensibly by a blue-haired Ecuadorean called Adriana Acosta-Cortez, argued that the use… Read more »

ENVIRONMENTAL ‘EXPERTS’

Date: May 18, 2023 -

Once the favourite punch-bag of environmentalists, the semi-state Bord na Móna (BnaM)has morphed from the bog-destroying climate villain to the squeaky new corporation that is, in its own words, working with nature. BnaM now defines its mission as providing sustainable energy from renewable sources, rehabilitating the peatlands it has destroyed, delivering waste and resource recovery… Read more »

MILK BILL

Date: May 18, 2023 -

The free-spending National Dairy Council (NDC) – a private, farmer-owned marketing company – has not been seeing eye to eye with the Revenue Commissioners of late. According to its 2021 annual report, the NDC has a “VAT recoverable balance” of over €1.5m and a related “contingent liability” of nearly €680,000. These hefty amounts relate to… Read more »

YVONNE DEENEY’S DES RES

Date: May 18, 2023 -

IT WAS reported by the Sunday Times earlier this month that Natalia Sutherland – daughter of former Goldman Sachs chairman Peter ‘Suds’ Sutherland – and her hubby, finance suit Paul McEnroe, recently acquired a fabulous mansion in Dartry, D6. This turns out to be the striking Hatherton, located on one acre of “pristine gardens” opposite… Read more »

SHARON KEEGAN’S FANS

Date: May 18, 2023 -

THERE WAS yet more valuable publicity for Sharon Keegan of the Peachylean athleisure brand last weekend, with the Business Post reporting that she is planning to expand across the Atlantic. Although Keegan has announced this same strategy before, Business Post sponsors Enterprise Ireland (EI) were surely most happy with the latest puff piece Keegan will… Read more »

MERCURY RISING

Date: May 18, 2023 -

THE PROPERTY section of the Irish Times carried a suitably bloated article last week puffing up the proposed sale of an impressive Victorian pile on Silchester Road in Glenageary. At the bottom of the same page, there appeared a small news article headlined: “Price of Foxrock mansion plunges by 47% as buyers refuse to bite”…. Read more »

BLACKMORE’S TACTICS

Date: May 18, 2023 -

STAR JOCKEY Rachael Blackmore is clearly the leading lady of Irish racing but she fluffed her lines at Kilbeggan last week. Blackmore was riding the Louise Lyons-trained Lady Rita in a three-mile hurdle and, to many observers as well as racecourse commentator James Griffin, she appeared to misjudge the distance when making what turned out… Read more »

EDDIE AHERN’S COMEBACK

Date: May 18, 2023 -

EDDIE AHERN, the champion apprentice jockey in Ireland in 1997, who has been banned from riding for the last 10 years, is set to re-apply for his jockey’s licence. Tipperary-born Ahern received his lengthy ban from the British Horseracing Authority back in 2013, when he was found guilty of conspiring to commit a corrupt and… Read more »

UNDER STARTER’S ORDERS

Date: May 18, 2023 -

BEING A national hunt race starter can be an unenviable position, given that trying to get upwards of 25 adrenaline-fuelled horses and jockeys to line up in a calm and fair manner is far from an easy task. Starters do, however, have significant powers to report jockeys who disobey their instructions, often leading to riders… Read more »

JESSICA HANDICAPS THE HANDICAPPERS

Date: May 18, 2023 -

IT WAS the handicappers rather than the starters who featured at an appeal hearing last week chaired by barrister Ian Whelan, which resulted in a win for trainer Jessica Harrington. The JP O’Flaherty-owned Striking recorded a comfortable victory in a relatively low-grade handicap at Gowran Park last month, which was good news for the trainer…. Read more »

FAREWELL

Date: May 18, 2023 -

SO, FAREWELL then The Drama Academy Development Company (DADC) in Trinity College. While a separate company, which is behind the high-profile Lir drama academy, is still very much treading the boards, DADC is being wound up in what is a tidying up exercise. The prime mover behind the establishment of Lir was, of course, moneybags… Read more »