Search the Archives

NEW LOOK AT I-RES REIT, SAME OLD PROBLEMS

Date: December 12, 2024 -

HAVING SURVIVED the attempted ousting of the board by Jeff Olin’s Vision Capital Corp (VCC) early this year, I-Res Reit nevertheless has a rather different look today. But for shareholders, new CEO Eddie Byrne has yet to deliver any improvement to the bottom line. Quite the reverse in fact. With the situation looking gloomy ahead… Read more »

AUBREY’S ELECTION CAMPAIGN

Date: December 12, 2024 -

WITH NOMINATIONS closed for the upcoming university Seanad elections, the battle for the three seats in Trinity College will be more interesting than usual, given the absence from the ballot of long-term shoe-in David Norris, who retired last year. One player eyeing up one of the three seats on offer is millionaire, philanthropist, “visionary leader”… Read more »

DAVID ROCK’S HEALTH EMERGENCY

Date: December 12, 2024 -

TWO OF David ‘RocDoc’ Rock’s companies are to be wound up next week on foot of liabilities built up. This follows last year’s liquidation of RocDoc Health Check Ltd (RHC), which turns out to have owed unsecured creditors just on €1m. Ashbourne-based GP David Rock became something of a pandemic poster boy courtesy of his… Read more »

NOEL FRISBY’S FEISTY FOES

Date: December 12, 2024 -

WATERFORD DEVELOPER Noel Frisby’s plans to build a three-block development of around 79 apartments at a site on the ring road around Waterford city has hit a bit of a snag, with an appeal lobbed in to An Bord Pleanála by some grumpy local residents. Frisby is one of Waterford’s most prolific developers, having set… Read more »

LORETTA DIGNAM’S MENOPAUSE MONEY

Date: December 12, 2024 -

LORETTA DIGNAM will have plenty to celebrate this Christmas, having just secured €¼m in funding for her Menopause Hub operation. There are some interesting names among the backers. The menopause business is an increasingly hot one these days and corporate sponsors have been queuing up to display their credentials, with various parties now vying for… Read more »

MARIAN KEYES’S AMERICAN DREAM

Date: December 12, 2024 -

THE MYRIAD of fans of scribbler Marian Keyes had a collective meltdown online last week when RTÉ announced The Walsh Sisters, a six-part drama based on her series of novels about “a chaotic, dysfunctional but deeply lovable family of five sisters, a devout mother and a bemused father”. Although the author is Irish, the director… Read more »

FINE GAEL: WHAT NEXT?

Date: November 28, 2024 -

THE TRENDS are impossible to dismiss – Fianna Fáil is in the ascendant over Fine Gael and even a battered Sinn Féin looks to have had a better general election campaign than Fine Gael. But while An Taoiseach and party leader Simon Harris is, naturally, shipping most of the blame from party members for the… Read more »

PROFILE: MICHEÁL MARTIN

Date: November 28, 2024 -

YOU HAVE to hand it to Micheál Martin – or to chance – he has presided over the continued, resilient existence of Fianna Fáil and even its place in government since it was nearly wiped out in 2011. This is despite the hollowing out of the party’s long-time political character and membership as well as… Read more »

YOUNG BLOODS: BARRY HENEGHAN

Date: November 28, 2024 -

WITH OPINION polls showing that 20% of voters will back Independent candidates, keen observers are asking whether the new boy on the block, councillor Barry Heneghan, can also break the mould and take a seat in the five-seat Dublin Bay North (DBN) constituency. A protégé of former Independent TD and super junior minister Finian McGrath,… Read more »

HUTCH TO TAKE OUT STEENSON?

Date: November 28, 2024 -

THE SPECTRE of master criminal Hutch or right-wing, anti-immigrant councillor Malachy Steenson – or both – entering Leinster House after the general election has unnerved many in and outside the Dublin Central constituency. It has even excited those self-styled ‘adults in the room’ in the media and establishment parties, who were quietly anticipating with relish… Read more »

CONOR MCGREGOR’S NEW-RIGHT SUPPORT

Date: November 28, 2024 -

Over the last year much was made of Conor McGregor’s posts on X about his plan to run for the presidency. With Elon Musk backing him online, it was no surprise to see many who should have known better expressing support for the Dublin MMA fighter’s political ambitions. But given the recent civil court guilty… Read more »

HARRIS, KANTURK AND RTÉ STORY

Date: November 28, 2024 -

SIMON HARRIS is correct to say that contact was made with RTÉ following the Kanturk incident but it is not true that this was done merely to offer RTÉ a statement on the matter, which is an “appropriate and normal thing to do during an… Read more »

BONO’S EXTENSION

Date: November 28, 2024 -

A NEW planning application has just been greenlighted by Kildare County Council to ensure that the whiskey distillery planned by Bono and Paddy McKillen Sr on an old mill site a couple of kilometres from Monasterevin will be completed within the rules. Last year, the boys chucked in an additional €5.5m to facilitate the development…. Read more »

CILLIAN MURPHY’S MOOLAH

Date: November 28, 2024 -

SUPERSTAR Cillian Murphy continues to take on new roles and his latest is as the saviour of the Phoenix cinema in Dingle, which has been closed since 2021. The actor has set up a company called Dingle Phoenix Projects Ltd, where he is joined as a director and equal shareholder by his wife, artist Yvonne… Read more »

TARGETING JOHN MAGNIER

Date: November 28, 2024 -

GOLDHAWK WONDERS if John Magnier spat out his tea when perusing the Indo earlier this week. The Squire of Coolmore might have wondered just who Micheál Martin was referring to in the paper’s farming supplement story headlined, “Tánaiste pledges Budget action against ultra-wealthy land buyers”. Having recently been on the end of a kicking from… Read more »

EDITING SALLY HAYDEN

Date: November 28, 2024 -

HIGHLY REGARDED journalist Sally Hayden was notably underwhelmed by the hapless editing process in the Irish Times, where many of her impressive news stories, concerning events in the Middle East in particular, appear. Hayden has made quite a name for herself in recent years and her book, My Fourth Time, We Drowned – which focuses… Read more »

BALMORAL SHAREHOLDERS SUFFER AS EXECS RAKE IT IN

Date: November 28, 2024 -

THE PRIMARY fiduciary duty of directors is to serve the interests of all the company’s shareholders. In the case of Balmoral International Land Holdings (BILH), it is difficult to see how this is being implemented. For the hapless small shareholders, the actions of the board that have just played out represent a second whipping in… Read more »

EDITING MOLI

Date: November 28, 2024 -

NINE MONTHS after it emerged that the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) on St Stephen’s Green was in financial disarray, the required cuts have been implemented. It turns out that the operation was haemorrhaging money at a remarkable rate. It will be recalled (see The Phoenix 22/2/24) that MoLI is a “partnership” between UCD and… Read more »

VOL 42 NO 23

Date: November 28, 2024 -

CHUPI SWEETMAN’S BOUNCE

Date: November 28, 2024 -

GOLDHAWK was surprised to see that media-friendly jeweller Chupi Sweetman has been having a tough time, with the spoilsports in the dreary Irish Times taking the shine off her recent move to a “flagship” store in Dublin’s Powerscourt Townhouse Centre. Happily, all seems well now, despite the gallons of red ink on her books, and… Read more »

BERTIE’S LUCKY BREAK

Date: November 28, 2024 -

ONE WOULD expect Bertie Ahern to be pleased at the rosy prospects for Fianna Fáil as the general election reaches a climax, but there is a story behind the story of Bertie’s delight at this turn of events. FF leader Micheál Martin had set his sights on either winning another term as taoiseach or running… Read more »

MEP MULLOOLY’S MOOING

Date: November 28, 2024 -

WHILE GOVERNMENT politicians and many others may regard as “sinister” Sinn Féin’s intention to order a “peer review” of RTÉ’s international coverage, support for the move came from the other end of the political spectrum in the form of Independent Ireland (II) MEP Ciaran Mullooly. The former RTÉ hack said he wanted not just a… Read more »

KEITH WALSH’S MONOPOLY

Date: November 28, 2024 -

IT IS interesting to see that one-time RTÉ star Keith Walsh is one half of Moth News, a brand new video and social media platform that aims to give the Irish people the real story. It has already landed itself on the end of High Court defamation proceedings from US investor Jeffrey Leo but clearly… Read more »

SEAN O’KEEFFE’S BOOKEND

Date: November 28, 2024 -

THE LIMITED company that registered the business name for Sean O’Keeffe’s controversial Liberties Press publishing house is to be wound up next week. In the past, this company was behind books published by the likes of Michael D Higgins and Eamon Gilmore. O’Keeffe would be familiar to fans of Goldhawk as a result of the… Read more »

DUB-MON BOMBS: STRANGE DELAYS

Date: November 28, 2024 -

There are three ongoing enquiries into the 1974 Dublin-Monaghan (D-M) massacre. First, there’s an allegedly ‘open’ Garda investigation, which began in 1974 but never made a single arrest. Second is Operation Denton, led by Sir Iain Livingstone, and third is Operation Newham, an inquiry by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (PONI). Operations Denton and… Read more »

BLOOD AND HONOUR

Date: November 28, 2024 -

With the National Party (NP) running nine candidates in the general election, most party activists have been busy campaigning in constituencies across Ireland. However, prominent NP member Keith Woods (pseudonym of Roscommon native Keith O’Brien) has not featured in the many pictures of NP activists electioneering, some in forced, relatively moderate tones. Instead he spent… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: November 28, 2024 -

The floating voter is a fascinating human being, not least because they never sink. You can hit them with corruption, scandal, inflation, housing, and health crises and they keep floating, buoyed up by a marvellously, indeed, possibly unique Irish combination of hope and cynicism. Terry Prone, Irish Examiner A year on, I know I took… Read more »

HOW PARTIES RATE ON CLIMATE

Date: November 28, 2024 -

It’s a political truism that the electorate is far more concerned about the end of the month than the end of the world, and so it has proved yet again in Election 2024. Despite relentless climate-fuelled weather disasters around the world – deadly heatwaves, record-smashing flooding events and brutal droughts – climate change barely registered… Read more »

MIDDLE GROUND VANISHES AGAIN

Date: November 28, 2024 -

The standard response from Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil leaders when asked about the prospects of reunification or preparing for a border poll is to say they’re “focussed” (politicians’ latest ‘in’ word) on making the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) work. Last Sunday Simon Harris told Sky’s Trevor Phillips it was “entirely possible”… Read more »

NEW GOVERNMENT TO MOVE SHARP RIGHT?

Date: November 28, 2024 -

AFTER THE votes are counted this weekend, the action will move to government formation and there is a real possibility that a much spikier third force than the Green Party is about to form a coalition government with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Despite a persistent campaign by Government parties and media to encourage a… Read more »

KATE O’CONNELL’S SOLO RUN

Date: November 28, 2024 -

THE POLAR opposite of the Dublin Central constituency – Gerry Hutch, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, new-right councillor Malachy Steenson etc – is surely balmy Dublin Bay South (DBS) – blue-blood legal eagle, Fine Gael’s James Geoghegan; Fianna Fáil leadership challenger Jim O’Callaghan; and Lazarus Labour leader Ivana Bacik. But even DBS has its… Read more »

RED FLAGS FOR FF

Date: November 28, 2024 -

THE RISE of Fianna Fáil in the polls would seem to be inexorable and FF leader Micheál Martin and party activists are convinced they will be clearly ahead of Fine Gael in the tally of TDs this weekend. The final arithmetic will determine whether the gap will be enough for Martin to deny Simon Harris… Read more »

CANTERBURY TALES

Date: November 28, 2024 -

THE IRISH TIMES published a perfunctory article on the recent resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. This followed a report blaming the archbishop for failing to ensure a proper investigation into decades-old allegations against a man described in the report as arguably the church’s most prolific child abuser. Despite this cursory report, the… Read more »

IN PRAISE OF JEREMY CLARKSON

Date: November 28, 2024 -

IS THERE a common thread between reactionary bumpkin Jeremy Clarkson’s campaign against inheritance tax and that of Alan Shatter’s general election campaign based on the same issue? Other than the topic, probably not as Shatter is unlikely to be elected while Clarkson could probably pick whatever constituency in the English shires he wanted and take… Read more »

TROUBLE AT T’MILL

Date: November 28, 2024 -

EVER SINCE The Irish Times Ltd managing director Deirdre Veldon wandered through the newsroom of the galley slaves who toil in the company’s titles, the Irish Examiner and Echo, recently for a little chat (like an innocent Blueshirt wandering through a shop in Kanturk), there’s been tensions at the factory. And things are getting worse… Read more »

JOHN MAGNIER’S AWARDS BASH

Date: November 28, 2024 -

RACECOURSE COMMENTATOR Richard Pugh filled the role of MC at this month’s annual back-slapping awards ceremony for the Association of Irish Racehorse Owners (AIRO), which was held once again at John Magnier’s swanky Cashel Palace Hotel. The shindig returned to the €450-a-night Tipperary venue, despite members complaining about the chunky €54,000 from the association’s coffers… Read more »