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BRENDAN MCDOWELL’S INFLUENCERS

Date: September 4, 2025 -

GOLDHAWK WAS not too surprised that Brendan McDowell’s remarkably profitable BPerfect Cosmetics operation did not respond to communications from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). The company has form in this field. Last month the ASA issued rulings against two influencers – Julia Haynes and Sarah O’Connor – who promoted the BPerfect brand without making it… Read more »

MEDIA SETS HEATHER BLAZING

Date: August 21, 2025 -

THE PUNISHMENT meted out to presidential candidates and the relentless pursuit of any of their flaws and misdemeanours has become a media trope, but it hardly applies to the lyrical media coverage of the born-again Mother Teresa of Irish politics, Heather Humphreys. The Irish Times… Read more »

PROFILE: JOHN LAHART

Date: August 21, 2025 -

HARDLY THE most publicly contentious or outspoken of backbench TDs, Fianna Fáil’s John Lahart was chosen to chair the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs, which involved him overseeing its recently published report on the Occupied Territories Bill (OTB). He must have been highly thought of by party leader Micheál Martin, who has been seen by… Read more »

VOL 43 NO 17

Date: August 21, 2025 -

YOUNG BLOOD: GARRON NOONE

Date: August 21, 2025 -

Musician, comedian and social media content creator Garron Noone caused a stir recently when he announced his decision to cancel his nationwide tour and several dates in the US, following a few challenging months. Scrapping the tour is likely to disappoint followers of Noone, who… Read more »

MARY LOU POISED TO RUN FOR PARK

Date: August 21, 2025 -

A STRONG indication of the decision that the Sinn Féin leadership will likely take in the presidential election came with the circulation of a strong editorial in Belfast Media, the umbrella group composed of Andersonstown News and its equivalents in north and south Belfast. This was headlined: “WE SAY: Mary Lou should throw her hat… Read more »

SALLY ROONEY’S IRISH TARGET

Date: August 21, 2025 -

WHILE ARTISTS here and elsewhere have sensed the changing temperature around the Gaza genocide and started to speak up – even Bono and Bob Geldof felt it was okay to jump on the bandwagon – it will not surprise many that it is Sally Rooney… Read more »

MICHAEL D’S ALBUMS

Date: August 21, 2025 -

WHILE PRESIDENT Michael D Higgins may be annoyed at the Irish Times for its hit job last month – when the paper highlighted the degree to which the number of engagements had decreased over his second term – he does have an unmissable outing lined up for next month, where he will also be hoping… Read more »

BANISHING BANVILLE

Date: August 21, 2025 -

POOR OLD Jawn Banville must be wondering what he did wrong when he found himself out in the cold earlier this month after the Sunday Times chose its “pick of the top British and Irish fiction of the past 25 years”. Banville has, of course, been one of the truly dominant Irish novelists of recent… Read more »

DERMOT DESMOND’S INTERVENTIONS

Date: August 21, 2025 -

NOT SURPRISINGLY, billionaire Swiss tax resident Dermot Desmond got plenty of blowback for his recent AI-based intervention in the MetroLink debate. There was rather less coverage of his new role relating to the 2031 Ryder Cup, where DD has joined up with his fellow billionaire old pal and Malta tax resident Denis O’Brien. Coincidentally, the… Read more »

TERRY PRONE’S ‘MASS GRAVE’

Date: August 21, 2025 -

THE IRISH edition of the Sunday Times recently focused on the discovery in the past few years of another “mass grave”, which is adjacent to the site where nearly 800 infants were buried in a septic tank at the former Bons Secours mother and baby home in Tuam. The grave – containing 48 circa bodies,… Read more »

JOHN BYRNE’S HOTEL GUESTS

Date: August 21, 2025 -

THE LATEST list of food hygiene infringers produced by the Irish Food Safety Authority (IFSA) got a fair degree of attention last week due to the naming of one of Lidl’s Dublin stores (Sallynoggin) as a business where rodent droppings had been found “in multiple areas”. Of more interest to Goldhawk was the cockroach problem… Read more »

DUALTA MOORE’S LESSON

Date: August 21, 2025 -

WHILE Dualta Moore’s exciting online learning platform, GoConqr, looked set to become a superstar business, judging by the hype surrounding its launch a decade ago, things haven’t quite worked out that way. Back in 2015, a Business Post article on Moore’s cloud-based educational platform was headlined “E-learning platform plans to Conqr the US”. Moore was… Read more »

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S REBELS

Date: August 21, 2025 -

DISCONTENT IN Fianna Fáil’s parliamentary party about Micheál Martin’s failure to put forward a presidential candidate has seen an alarmingly high majority of TDs, senators and MEPs – including junior minister Niamh Smyth – polling in favour of running a candidate. This was impudent enough in a party that has until recently been unable to… Read more »

PETER MANDELSON’S GOLDEN TOUCH

Date: August 21, 2025 -

CANADIAN company Dalradian, which is behind a proposed gold mine near Omagh, Co Tyrone, has upped the ante on its planning application that was delayed by an abortive “public local inquiry” organised by the north’s Planning Appeals Commission. The inquiry, merely a routine consultation procedure for all planning proposals of “regional significance”, collapsed ignominiously on… Read more »

MAKING LAOIS GREAT AGAIN

Date: August 21, 2025 -

ENORMOUS HYPE surrounded the recent Make Europe Great Again (Mega) conference in Warsaw. It was claimed that attendees came from over 40 countries and three continents, while reports in conservative media asserted that the Mega gathering demonstrated the strength and cohesion of populist right-wing politics in central and eastern Europe. The fact that Irishwoman Elaine… Read more »

MI5’S STELLA RIMINGTON

Date: August 21, 2025 -

MI5 director-general (1992-96) Dame Stella Rimington, who passed away this month, worked in all three branches of MI5 – counter-espionage, counter-subversion and counter-terrorism – and possessed an intimate knowledge of its most ghastly secrets. As an intelligence collator in 1969, she was one of the first within MI5 to address the turmoil in the north…. Read more »

GENERAL CLANCY’S NEAR ABROAD

Date: August 21, 2025 -

WHILE Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin sat down in Alaska and during subsequent meetings and calls with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European and Nato leaders, the war ground on in Ukraine. There was to be no ceasefire. In the weeks prior to the peace negotiations, EU Military Committee (EUMC) chair (and former Irish Defence Forces chief… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: August 21, 2025 -

Imagine that. 6% of all our electricity from the sun! And we are only at the beginning of this solar revolution. It is mind-blowing really, if we are honest. RTÉ’s environment correspondent George Lee has his mind blown, rte.ie And I pray for the day when I can bring my wife back into our home;… Read more »

GAS AND MIRRORS

Date: August 21, 2025 -

A whopping 40% of global warming to date is due to methane emissions. This gas is extremely potent, with a warming impact per molecule 84 times greater than carbon dioxide One of the largest sources of methane is ruminants such as cattle and sheep and Ireland’s hugely oversized livestock herd is a major source of… Read more »

MANDY JOHNSTON’S JIBES

Date: August 21, 2025 -

The Business Post had a front-page hatchet job by former government press secretary and oil exploration industry lobbyist Mandy Johnston on the ‘sandal-clad’ Greens. Hardly a cliché gets left behind, from the “Land Rover-driving green vote” to green bins and snails. Johnston omitted to mention her own angle as an industry lobbyist, in a piece… Read more »

MINORITY RULES OK!

Date: August 21, 2025 -

Like many aspects of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), policing hasn’t worked out as intended. Admittedly, policing wasn’t part of the GFA text because it would have been a deal breaker so it was left to a Policing Commission chaired by former Conservative politician Chris Patten. Unionists owned the RUC. It was their police force… Read more »

FIRST, SECOND AND THIRD ITEM 

Date: August 21, 2025 -

THE GRAND old gentleman of the Irish left, the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI), has undergone much in its 100-plus years of existence, with attacks from within and without, and in recent years it has been eclipsed by republicans and Trotskyist groups. Recently, internal wranglings have involved splits over the national question and ultra-leftist revisions… Read more »

OFF THE BUSES

Date: August 21, 2025 -

UNIONS SIPTU and the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU) have for several years now exhorted successive transport ministers to create a dedicated transport police to halt the rising tide of assaults on their members. NBRU assistant general secretary Tom O’Connor stated recently that no less than five ministers – Leo Varadkar, Paschal Donohoe, Shane… Read more »

IS FF LEADERSHIP BACKING JACK CHAMBERS?

Date: August 21, 2025 -

IS MICHEÁL MARTIN really intent on retiring as Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader in September and then going for the presidency? That’s the forecast of Irish Mail on Sunday political editor John Lee, whose paper seems to have also decided who is going to replace him as leader of the country and the party. And… Read more »

IRISH MEDIA AND GAZA

Date: August 21, 2025 -

A MOST civilised discourse may have been anticipated by Sindo readers recently who looked at the headline “Letter from Jerusalem” over an article written by Tsela Rubel, described by the newspaper as “a historian”. An Israeli liberal, Rubel explained that “Israeli reaction to the international response ranges from frustration to anger and bafflement” and concluded… Read more »

DAN COLLEY’S GRANT

Date: August 21, 2025 -

THE EDINBURGH Fringe is over for this year and a notable result was Dan Colley’s Lost Lear picking up one of the Scotsman Fringe First awards. The show (a “remix” of Shakespeare’s play) debuted in Ireland in 2022 when it was produced by the Riverbank Arts Centre and the Mermaid Arts Centre, before popping up… Read more »

TALLY HO TO YORK

Date: August 21, 2025 -

THE OWNERS of Lady Iman – the Tally Ho branch of the O’Callaghan family – have overruled trainer Ger Lyons by supplementing their speedy filly for York’s Coolmore Wootton Bassett Nunthorpe Stakes on Friday. Roger O’Callaghan – who part-owns the home-bred filly with his mother Anne, father Tony and brother Henry – clearly has huge… Read more »

LADY KAI’S COLLAPSE

Date: August 21, 2025 -

THE IRISH leg of the Fegentri World Championship for amateur riders was run at Leopardstown earlier this month but the race lost much of its appeal for punters when the Ross O’Sullivan-trained favourite, Lady Kai, genuflected leaving the stalls and unseated rider Josh Williamson. Lady Kai, a Sea The Stars filly, is owned by Catherine… Read more »

DAWN RUN RETURN

Date: August 21, 2025 -

THE FAMOUS red and black silks of Dawn Run returned to the winners’ enclosure on August 6 when they were donned by Gabriella Hill aboard the Henry de Bromhead-trained Trubshaw, who made all the running to land Sligo’s Guinness Handicap. Trubshaw is part-owned by the father of the winning rider – Benjamin Hill, son of… Read more »

SHEIKH FAHAD’S FINANCES

Date: August 21, 2025 -

THE SPORT of kings is a rich man’s game, where even the high-profile runners and riders need to dig deep to keep the show on the road. One name familiar to Irish punters and trainers who has found how heavy the going can get is Qatar’s Sheik Fahad bin Abdulla Al Thani, whose Newmarket-based Qatar… Read more »

CIARA DONLON’S THIRD TIME LUCKY?

Date: August 21, 2025 -

HAVING HAD a couple of pops at establishing an environmentally friendly underwear business called Theya, Dalkey-based Ciara Donlon is now entering the nappy market and will be hoping there is rather less brown stuff hitting the fan this time around. Theya Lingerie Ltd (TLL), which produced post-surgery underwear from bamboo no less, was forced into… Read more »

GOOD RIDDANCE TO RITA-ROSE GAGNÉ

Date: August 21, 2025 -

IT WAS only 10 weeks ago that Rita-Rose Gagné, CEO of giant retail property play Hammerson (owner of Dundrum Town Centre), announced her intention to stand down by next summer in order to give Bob Noel’s board time to find a replacement. The timing looks odd as, within two months of the announcement, Hammerson pulled… Read more »

PTSB SHARES FLYING DANGEROUSLY HIGH

Date: August 21, 2025 -

ALTHOUGH FORMER CEO Jeremy Masding spent a decade trying to turn PTSB into a viable bank, it was still in a dreadful state when he handed the keys to his deputy, Eamonn Crowley, in June 2020. The latter caught an early break courtesy of NatWest but failed to maximise the potential advantages on offer to… Read more »

JACK CANTILLON’S HEAVY GOING

Date: August 21, 2025 -

LAWYER-TURNED-bloodstock entrepreneur Jack Cantillon of Syndicates.Racing has had an eventful few weeks, with bad news for both the syndicate business – courtesy of the dreaded taxman – and his London-headquartered sports prediction app, which has just heard the full-time whistle. Syndicates Racing Ltd (SRL), based at the Smurfit family’s Forenaghts Stud in Kildare, is 100%-owned… Read more »

PAUL DOOLEY’S CLOSING TIME

Date: August 21, 2025 -

IT’S A case of last orders at the Urban 8 restaurant/bar in Kilmainham, D8, operated by well-known hospitality entrepreneur Paul Dooley, who had originally helped to found the business back in 2015, along with backing from well-known pub investors Frank Byrne and James and Edward Dunne of the Brú Hospitality group. This month too, some… Read more »