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KEEPING IT ZIPPED AT ‘VIP’

Date: May 30, 2024 -

THE USUAL suspects (sorry, “the country’s best dressed fashionistas”) were out in force at the Irish InterContinental Hotel in D4 last month for the VIP Style Awards, with the judges giving the thumbs-up to Katja Mia, Bonnie Ryan, Doireann Garrihy and Lisa Jordan. The latter’s Best Dressed on the Night win featured a slightly awkward… Read more »

ARTS COUNCIL ARRIVALS

Date: May 30, 2024 -

AT LONG last, the membership of the Arts Council, which has a budget this year of €134m, is back to its full complement for the first time in over a year. The new chairwoman is HR consultant (and, until recently, chair of the National Concert Hall) Maura McGrath. She is joined by NCAD emeritus professor… Read more »

ELAINE GERAGHTY’S CONCERNS

Date: May 30, 2024 -

GOLDHAWK WAS not surprised to see the latest lobbying campaign kicking off for Irish movie and TV producers. Hardly had the ink dried on the EU Commission’s thumbs-up for Michael McGrath’s generous package for offshore productions – one that increases the tax break cap per film or TV series to €125m – than assorted movers… Read more »

KIA’S CHANGING ROSTER

Date: May 30, 2024 -

OWNED IN partnership by Amo Racing and Giselle De Aguiar, Bucanero Fuerto galloped to success in the Naas Group 3 Goffs Lacken Stakes for dairy farmer and part-time trainer Adrian Murray and his more than capable assistant, Robson Aguiar. Remarkably, it was the Wootton Bassett colt’s third group race success in less than 10 months… Read more »

MICHAEL H BURKE’S BLOODSTOCK

Date: May 30, 2024 -

MICHAEL JAMES Burke, son of Chanelle Pharma founder Michael Hilary Burke and brother-in-law of Tony (Sir Anthony) McCoy, has been accused, in an English court case, of involvement in an international money-laundering scam, a claim that he strenuously denies. His Dubai-based real estate and travel concierge business has been implicated in the Southwark Crown Court… Read more »

TIME FOR KEN MURPHY TO TAKE TESCO OUT OF EASTERN EUROPE

Date: May 30, 2024 -

DUBLIN-BASED Cork native Ken Murphy has one of the biggest retailing jobs in Britain, heading up the £62bn Tesco behemoth. Founded by Jack Cohen over 100 years ago in 1919, the business now dominates the British grocery market. While the UK and Ireland markets have been delivering the goods, an exit from eastern Europe should… Read more »

CATHAL FRIEL’S EGT LOOKS TASTY FOR RISK TAKERS

Date: May 30, 2024 -

AT A time when there are fewer and fewer flotations on this side of the Atlantic, Cathal Friel, the CEO and founder of small Dublin finance house Raglan Capital, stands out as one of the few active participants in the market. He is certainly proactive – as well as Raglan Capital facilitating IPOs, Friel is… Read more »

ANDY NOONAN’S BARBECUE

Date: May 30, 2024 -

Big Grill food festival, run by barbecue boy Andy Noonan, kicks off in August in Herbert Park, Ballsbridge, with tickets costing €30 a head (or €65 if you want to access the, er, exclusive covered area with “posh toilets”). This is the 10th year of the beano and Noonan has recently expanded into east London,… Read more »

THE GREENWOODS’ FAILED RECIPE

Date: May 30, 2024 -

THE LIQUIDATOR of Cooks Academy Ltd (CAL) has just filed his penultimate report into the winding up of the eponymous cookery school established by Vanessa and Tim Greenwood. It is clear that there are no left overs for the unsecured creditors here. CAL was established at the height of the boom in 2006 when there… Read more »

GO HARVEY, GO!

Date: May 30, 2024 -

THERE MUST have been high fives in the commercial department at Mediahuis last week when free-spending Harvey Norman managed to take a lofty second place out of the 150 companies deemed by the Sindo to have made it on to its list of ‘Ireland’s Best Employers 2024’. The Aussie furniture, electrical and computer retailer has… Read more »

ANTON SAVAGE’S CLIENTS

Date: May 30, 2024 -

NEWSTALK WEEKEND presenter Anton Savage pitched into the 2FM crisis of its departing stars – Jennifer Zamparelli, Doireann Garrihy and the 2 Johnnies – with enthusiasm, and then some, last Saturday and Sunday. So voluble did Anton become he felt it necessary to tell listeners that they would be wrong to think that Newstalk and… Read more »

STARMER AND SUE GRAY’S ENEMIES

Date: May 16, 2024 -

THE LIKELY advent of Labour leader Keir Starmer and his chief of staff, Sue Gray, at the helm of the British government is already causing ripples in Whitehall and Northern Ireland Office (NIO) circles, both of which have experience of Gray’s modus operandi as a watchdog for the permanent government and the deep state in… Read more »

PROFILE: ALAN MOLONEY

Date: May 16, 2024 -

BACK IN 2016, film and TV producer Alan Moloney of Parallel Films; James Morris, founder of Windmill Lane and former Screen Ireland chairman; and US producer Gary Levinsohn of Saving Private Ryan fame put together a proposal for a huge film and TV studio complex on a 20-acre site on the Poolbeg peninsula in Dublin…. Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: JOHN MCGAHON

Date: May 16, 2024 -

WITH A third of Fine Gael TDs announcing that they will not be seeking a return to the Dáil at the next general election, including Louth’s Fergus O’Dowd, there is a search for a candidate who can take his seat and Dundalk-based senator John McGahon thinks he’s the man for the job. John is the… Read more »

RWANDA WARNING IGNORED

Date: May 16, 2024 -

THE DRAMATIC and forceful actions being taken by the current Government to address the refugee crisis, however unsympathetic they are to refugees, indicate a serious issue being tackled by a serious Government. As it happens, in Belfast’s High Court this week Mr Justice Humphreys made a ruling that may or may not have eased the… Read more »

BANK OF IRELAND’S ‘EXCEPTION’

Date: May 16, 2024 -

LATER THIS month, Judge Nuala Jackson will deliver a ruling in the High Court on a matter than could have significant implications for Bank of Ireland (BoI). At issue is whether a cache of documents that the bank is claiming are covered by legal privilege can be released on the grounds that the privilege has… Read more »

CARELESS TCD

Date: May 16, 2024 -

FOR THE embattled dons of Trinity College Dublin (TCD), one PR disaster – being forced by its students to divest from Israeli companies on a UN investment blacklist – was unfortunate. Two, and it’s beginning to look like carelessness. First, TCD climbed down after sustained student protests – and loss of income at its lucrative… Read more »

JAMES KELLY’S CRYPTO CHALLENGE

Date: May 16, 2024 -

THE FIRST report from the liquidator of James Kelly’s collapsed crypto-trading operation, Gigabyte Investment Ltd (GIL), reveals that there is plenty of investigating to be done before this winding up is completed. GIL was founded three years ago by then 21-year-old Kelly (grandson of developer Paddy Kelly) and his UCD pal, Sam Molloy, while foreign… Read more »

O’DEA’S MEDIA MESSAGE TO MARTIN

Date: May 16, 2024 -

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S media maestro, Paul Clarkson, and Martin’s political brain, Deirdre Gillane, will have been very interested in the take of former minister, Willie O’Dea, on the upcoming local and EU elections in the Sunday Independent, which contain a cryptic message – threat even – about possible adverse results for Fianna Fáil early next month…. Read more »

PAUL HOURICAN’S SURPRISE

Date: May 16, 2024 -

AN ENGLISH firm, Igniyte Ltd, has just registered a judgment for a paltry €15,000 against a company owned by Goldhawk’s favourite landlord, Paul Hourican. It appears to have something to do with the management of his business’s reputation. Fans of The Phoenix will be familiar with Hourican’s rental adventures thanks to the high-profile collapse of… Read more »

VOL 42 NO 10

Date: May 16, 2024 -

ENDA O’COINEEN’S STRATEGY

Date: May 16, 2024 -

EARLIER THIS MONTH, the Business Post published a cry to arms under a headline that warned: “The Irish media sector won’t hold out against social media”. The piece was written on foot of Mediahuis’s proposed purchase of The Journal, which is where the Biz Post also happened to be sniffing around. The Business Post Group… Read more »

NATO: WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Date: May 16, 2024 -

THE AVALANCHE of articles in mainstream media demanding that Ireland abandons neutrality has been accompanied by the Defence Forces becoming closer to both Nato and the EU’s burgeoning military forces. Every now and then reference is made in leaks from the Defence Forces about a new subgroup or project under the umbrella of Nato’s Partnership… Read more »

PADDY MERRIGAN’S WILD RIDE

Date: May 16, 2024 -

FORMER JOCKEY Paddy Merrigan – who once claimed to have blown a million quid on drink, drugs and women – delivered an extended live monologue about Irish racing through his Mad Merrigan Coldbeer Sports online video on May 2. Its contents should, perhaps, have carried a health warning and the rant didn’t stay up for… Read more »

‘NEITHER FANCIFUL NOR ABSURD’

Date: May 16, 2024 -

FIFTY YEARS ago this month, four UVF car bombs blew apart 34 people in Dublin and Monaghan. The late Henry Barron, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, investigated the atrocities for the Irish government. He concluded that suspicion of British intelligence involvement was “neither fanciful nor absurd”. He reached that conclusion before the emergence… Read more »

BRITS ON STICKY WICKET

Date: May 16, 2024 -

BRITAIN’S UNILATERAL decision to stifle victims’ ability to seek truth and justice via its Legacy Act has been condemned not only by the Irish Government but also by the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, the UN’s commissioner for human rights and all political… Read more »

BRITISH ARMS FOR A UNITED IRELAND!

Date: May 16, 2024 -

WHEN EUROPEAN Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, recently introduced the first ever European Defence Industrial Strategy (EDIS), they were doing so after a comprehensive process with key stakeholders. These included member states, the defence industry, the financial sector, think tanks, academics and… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: May 16, 2024 -

I know there’s a lot of celebrity people that sign their names to certain whiskeys. This is absolutely not the case with what we’re doing. Michael Flatley on the launch of Flatley Whiskey, Business Post I remember the beautiful plainness of the event, the quiet dignity and respect displayed by working people – a butcher… Read more »

TOM LYONS’S AIRPORT ANXIETY

Date: May 16, 2024 -

Won’t anyone think of Dublin Airport? Journalist and The Currency CEO Tom Lyons this week bemoaned the “myopic unwillingness” of our lily-livered politicians to make the “brave but necessary call” and expand Dublin Airport. Yes, Lyons acknowledged, we need to develop greener ways of flying but clearly this is a mere trifle compared with the… Read more »

NO PHONE UNTAPPED

Date: May 16, 2024 -

Investigative journalist Barry McCaffrey and journalist film maker Trevor Birney got more than they bargained for when their case against the PSNI’s unlawful snooping on them finally came before Britain’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) a fortnight ago in London. The IPT is a superior court with a judge presiding. It considers complaints about covert action… Read more »

MICHAEL McDOWELL LURKS STILL

Date: May 16, 2024 -

THERE HAS been relative silence from Michael McDowell and his right-wing fellow travellers since he led the alarmingly successful revolt against the liberal establishment and Government’s referendums on ‘family’ and ‘care’ last March. But such restrained behaviour should not be misinterpreted as a retreat from the fray – Field Marshall McDowell and his officers are… Read more »

BERTIE AHERN TRIES TO SAVE FF

Date: May 16, 2024 -

FIANNA FÁIL leader Micheál Martin may not appreciate it but one feels sure that his predecessor as leader, Bertie Ahern, had the best interests of the party in mind, and indeed the current leader, with his recent remarks about a united Ireland. One is equally sure that former taoiseach Bertie’s decision to speak at a… Read more »

SENATOR MURPHY V JUDGE SIMONS

Date: May 16, 2024 -

AN INTERESTING spat between Fianna Fáil senator Eugene Murphy and Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) has arisen following remarks by Murphy in the Seanad recently concerning Judge Garrett Simons. The senator said that the judge had adjudicated in a case involving FIE but that he had also acted previously as a legal advisor to… Read more »

DUBLIN EU NEW RIGHT COMPETITORS

Date: May 16, 2024 -

THE RASH of candidates on the new right in the Dublin EU constituency – seven candidates come under this category – constitutes a surplus that is likely to damage all of them, with radio shock-jock Niall Boylan of Independent Ireland (II) perhaps emerging out of the less than magnificent seven to present a credible vote… Read more »

RTÉ’S PLOT TWIST

Date: May 16, 2024 -

THE 162-page RTÉ report from the “expert advisory committee” on contractor fees, human resources etc is most interesting, not for its focus on Montrose’s current woes but for its potential to push other players in the TV and movie sector in a direction they have long sought to avoid. A significant factor when it comes… Read more »

‘INDEPENDENT’ MEDIA FUNDING

Date: May 16, 2024 -

FOREIGN MINISTER and Tanáiste Micheál Martin continues to publicly and loudly mount a heroic defence against media minister Catherine Martin’s proposals for the state to fund RTÉ. The Tanáiste has described the media minister’s proposal as something that could lead to “unhealthy consequences” for democracy. But there is something of a contradiction between this virtuous… Read more »