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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 »

HELEN McENTEE’S FUTURE

Date: April 4, 2024 -

JUSTICE MINISTER (as we speak) Helen McEntee has been pleading via the media and in person with her former rival and now leader, Simon Harris, not to sack her from justice. But while Simon may wish to come across as a magnanimous victor and retain… Read more »

PROFILE: SIMON HARRIS

Date: April 4, 2024 -

HOW DID 37-year-old Simon Harris beat off heavyweight contenders Paschal Donohoe and Simon Coveney, as well as Helen McEntee and other ambitious souls, to take the Fine Gael leadership and the job of Taoiseach within 24 hours or so? Harris not only blew away these… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: MARK MEHIGAN

Date: April 4, 2024 -

WHILE HE remains unknown to a large swathe of the country, the multi-talented Mark Mehigan has his fingers in all sorts of pies. He’s an ‘agony uncle’ on Image.ie, where his biography describes a “comedian and podcaster, author, Instagram matchmaker, aspiring Cilla Black, dating series host and dating columnist”. Recently, however, he has been attracting attention… Read more »

DON’T MESS WITH BIG PHIL

Date: April 4, 2024 -

SIMON COVENEY’S flight from Cabinet – before he could be pushed – had as much to do with former EU commissioner Phil Hogan as incoming Taoiseach Simon Harris. Not that Harris needed much persuasion by his unofficial advisor because while Harris was the only Cabinet member to back Coveney against Leo Varadkar in the 2017… Read more »

DONALDSON UNDONE

Date: April 4, 2024 -

When the news broke at 1.00 pm on Good Friday that DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson had been charged with historical sex offences including rape, there had already been a fair amount of crisis management at play behind the scenes. Charges had been preferred on… Read more »

DEREK RICHARDSON’S SCRUM

Date: April 4, 2024 -

THE FORMER owner of bust English rugby union club Wasps – Derek Richardson – is keeping his lawyers busy. As has been reported, he is suing his legal advisers, Kennedys Law, over the demise of his Wasps club in 2022 with debts of £95m. Another front in his legal campaign features Mark Robertson and the… Read more »

RONAN COLLINS’S RUSSIAN CONNECTIONS

Date: April 4, 2024 -

LAST MONTH a US-backed nursing home operator, which surfaced in 2016 with big plans to take a chunk of the market here, was placed in examinership, having previously emerged from another rescue package. The Irish director and investor (10%) in Passage Healthcare International (Ireland) Ltd (PHII) is the busy Blackrock Co Dublin-based finance expert and… Read more »

EN POINTE!

Date: April 4, 2024 -

THE DECISION by Anne Maher’s Ballet Ireland (BI) to withdraw a piece choreographed by Israeli Ohad Naharin from its Bold Moves programme raised eyebrows, given the predominantly conservative character of artistic companies dependent on the state for funding. The move was a provocative one from BI, which is chaired by the former MD of Irish… Read more »

CATCHING UP WITH JOHNNIE COOKE

Date: April 4, 2024 -

ELSEWHERE IN this issue (see p19), Goldhawk takes a look at an operation called Green Bird, which was established by one Killian Bewley Poynton to provide concierge services to super wealthy clients who don’t have time to organise things themselves. It also turns out he had a loose connection to troubled celebrity restaurateur and caterer,… Read more »

VOL 42 NO 07

Date: April 4, 2024 -

JUDGING LUKE COMER JNR

Date: April 4, 2024 -

THE MINTED Comer family, who made hundreds of millions of euro from the building sector, has had its fair share of stumbles in the racing world, most notably the suspension of tax exile Luke Comer’s training licence for three years by the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB). Last month, it was Luke Comer Jnr who… Read more »

LEDDIN V O’DONOVAN

Date: April 4, 2024 -

THE ANTICIPATION that Limerick’s first directly elected mayoral contest would be a bottomless borefest may turn out to be quite mistaken and Goldhawk will be keeping a watchful eye for some interesting debates between two of the candidates in particular. Social Democrats councillor Elisa O’Donovan swore in 2021 that she would make it her business… Read more »

VIRGIN’S ‘VANISHING TRIANGLE’

Date: April 4, 2024 -

THE OMENS weren’t good when The Vanishing Triangle, backed with moolah from the taxpayer, failed to appear in the autumn schedule for Virgin Media Television (VMTV) last year without explanation. Now that the production from Annemarie Naughton and Ivan Kavanagh (along with assorted other producers) has belatedly appeared on Irish screens, the critics have, predictably… Read more »

BRITISH AGENTS AND DUBLIN BOMBS

Date: April 4, 2024 -

May 17 next will mark the 50th anniversary of the Dublin and Monaghan bomb massacres. One of the key figures in the Dublin leg of that operation was Robin ‘The Jackal’ Jackson of the UVF. He collected three devices from James Mitchell’s farm at Glenanne,… Read more »

INTERNMENT WITH TRIAL

Date: April 4, 2024 -

The wall of silence by southern media on the recent acquittal of dissident republicans Colin Duffy and Harry Fitzsimons is in marked contrast to the sensational headlines that many carried at the start of this case back in December 2013. Following a gun attack on a convoy of PSNI Land Rovers Duffy, Fitzsimons and Alex… Read more »

MONEY TO BURN

Date: April 4, 2024 -

With European and local elections fast approaching, many candidates to the right of Fine Gael are declaring their intention to stand with the Irish Freedom Party (IFP), Ireland First (IF), Independent Ireland, the National Party (NP), Irish People Party and a variety of right-wing independents. And there is no shortage of money swirling about in… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: April 4, 2024 -

We firmly believe in the unifying power of music, enabling people to transcend differences and foster meaningful conversations. We feel it is our duty to create and uphold this space, with a strong hope that it will inspire greater compassion. Statement from nine Eurovision contestants, including Bambie Thug, explaining their reason for not boycotting the… Read more »

COLOMBIA 3 MINING PROFITEERS

Date: April 4, 2024 -

“ACTIVIST LUKE Holland has authored this report for Prime Time…” This was the rather odd introduction, read by Sarah McInerney, to an excellent and harrowing report last week from the notorious Cerrejón mine in Colombia. Describing Holland as an activist was apparently RTÉ’s way of distancing itself from this damning exposé of its fellow semi-state,… Read more »

UNCLE COLM’S CONCERNS

Date: April 4, 2024 -

There’ve been some high-profile interventions in the long-running battle to prevent Canadian firm Dalradian digging up the Sperrin Mountains in Tyrone to mine billions worth of gold. Last year campaigners were outraged to discover, via a freedom of information request, that King Charles’s representative in the county, Robert Scott – aka Lord Lieutenant of Tyrone… Read more »

IVANA BACIK’S NEW GENERATION

Date: April 4, 2024 -

LABOUR LEADER Ivana Bacik recently deployed her considerable legal and verbal skills to exonerate the party’s local election Ringsend candidate, Carol Reynolds, who had said that Ireland had “too many immigrants” who regarded Ireland as “Treasure Island”. Reynolds had been interviewed for a video by far-right, anti-immigrant campaigner Gavin Pepper, in which they both discussed… Read more »

KATE O’CONNELL THE DISRUPTER

Date: April 4, 2024 -

THE CLEAR desire of Simon Harris to add Kate O’Connell as a ‘partner’ to councillor James Geoghegan on the Dublin Bay South (DBS) general election ticket is going to upset a number of Fine Gael members and their political calculations. The primary person to be… Read more »

MARTIN TO PROVOKE MORE REFERENDUMS?

Date: April 4, 2024 -

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S move to legislate for the abolition of the triple lock could run into political, constitutional and even EU legislative trouble, judging by statements uttered by Martin himself and intergovernmental declarations made to facilitate a ‘yes’ vote in two EU referendums. The Dáil heard… Read more »

HUGH O’CONNELL’S LONG GOODBYE

Date: April 4, 2024 -

HUGH O’CONNELL’S exit from Mediahuis, where he was deputy group political editor working for the Sindo and Indo, came at a good time for the Aawrish edition of the Sunday Times, which has poached him (five years after Mediahuis poached him from the then Sunday Business Post). However, relying on the strict terms of his… Read more »

TARGETING MARTIN MCGUINNESS

Date: April 4, 2024 -

RECENT SUGGESTIONS from the Sunday Independent and interpretations by others that the BBC Two’s programme, The Secret Army, shows Martin McGuinness was an informer have their origins in the late Sean O’Callaghan’s book, The Informer. There, MI5 informer O’Callaghan, or his handlers, put such words about McGuinness in the mouth of fabled IRA commander Brian… Read more »

LIBERAL MEDIA DEBATES FAR RIGHT

Date: April 4, 2024 -

APPEASEMENT IS a notion that some media columnists are using and debating right now in the face of a right-wing backlash against so-called ‘woke’ politics and legislation to criminalise hate behaviour. Two pundits that appear to have taken a different stance on how to confront this rush-to-the-right are Irish Times columnist Justine McCarthy and her… Read more »

SMOCK ALLEY’S BAD REVIEW

Date: April 4, 2024 -

WITH DUBLIN City Council (DCC) preparing to take over Smock Alley Theatre (SAT) in Temple Bar, the board of the linked Gaiety School of Acting next door will be hoping that the planned changes don’t impact on their coffers. Fans of Goldhawk will not be… Read more »

APPEALING BEHAVIOUR

Date: April 4, 2024 -

THE REVELATION last month that the IHRB had been described by consultants in 2021 as “not fit for purpose” was dismissed by the agency on the grounds that the new chief executive, Darragh O’Loughlin, has strengthened governance. Now O’Loughlin is preparing to fill the brand-new role of head of racing regulation and integrity. Topping the… Read more »

SEAMIE HEFFERNAN DISMOUNTS

Date: April 4, 2024 -

MEYDAN RACECOURSE Dubai was the location on Saturday afternoon where the spotlight really shone on Rebels Romance. Ballydoyle’s champion, Auguste Rodin, who had been so impressive at Dundalk under regular work rider Rachel Richardson, could only look on as Charlie Appleby’s charge showed them all the way home in the Longines Dubai Sheema Classic. Visibly… Read more »

CORRECTING CHRISTINE DAVIES

Date: April 4, 2024 -

THERE WAS some bad news for the glamorous Christine Jane Davies, owner of the sprawling Ballybla House and estate outside Ashford in Co Wicklow and sister of loaded Irish Georgian Society president David Davies. A recent planning decision means Christine will have to find another way to generate “additional sources of income”. La Davies applied… Read more »

JOHN MAGNIER’S CEREMONY

Date: April 4, 2024 -

THE ASSOCIATION of Irish Racehorse Owners (AIRO) has just published its annual report for 2023, showing income of €270,000, the majority of which (€169,000) was made up of members’ subscriptions. Nevertheless, the company, which boasts one employee (Regina Byrne) managed to post a loss of €15,000. One of the interesting aspects of AIRO’s spending is… Read more »

KILLIAN POYNTON’S HIGH NET WORTH CLIENTS

Date: April 4, 2024 -

GREEN BIRD Ltd, a company catering to the needs of so-called “high net worth individuals”, has found itself on the end of a judgment from the dreaded Revenue. Established by Killian Poynton – who hails from the Bewley family – and his Russian wife, it looks like the pandemic scuppered the couple’s big plans, although… Read more »

MYLES O’GRADY PUTS LID ON BOI SHARE PRICE

Date: April 4, 2024 -

IT WAS pretty eyebrow-raising that when Bank of Ireland (BoI) released its full-year results for 2023, showing pre-provisional and pre-exceptional profits that had almost doubled to €2.4bn, the share price actually fell. This seems ridiculous given that, at the current share price of just on €9.50, the bank is capitalised at only €9.9bn. On top… Read more »

ARYZTA’S RECOVERY NOW BAKED INTO SHARE PRICE

Date: April 4, 2024 -

A COMPANY that has effectively disappeared off the radar here is Aryzta, which is not surprising given its Swiss quote, but there remains significant Irish interest. Although the group ended up a “shambles”, according to executive chairman Urs Jordi, the good news is that the ship has been steadied and is steaming in the right… Read more »

NOEL MORAN’S CAR TROUBLE

Date: April 4, 2024 -

THERE WAS a potentially expensive setback in the High Court last month for Noel Moran of Noel Moran Recovery, when his damages claim against a company called Blackstar Management, concerning the towing and storage of vehicles on behalf of An Garda Síochána, was booted down to the Circuit Court. This was on the grounds that… Read more »