Search the Archives

MARTIN LIVING IN INTERESTING TIMES 

Date: August 8, 2024 -

THE RECENT public unveiling of the prototype for a new armoured combat vehicle by the Taiwanese Army might prove embarrassing for the Irish Government. The 8×8 armoured vehicle is designed for Taiwan by Timoney Technology Ltd from Navan at a time when Ireland is deepening its economic ties with China. Given that there are also… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: August 8, 2024 -

Beyond the velvet rope at the world’s greatest nightclub. Barry Egan chats to Robbie Fox about the long-gone Pink Elephant, Sunday Independent Opening a new book by poet Paul Muldoon is like breaking through the floor of an unopened catacomb. Nothing can prepare you for the panoply of riches, the mummified pets, the indecipherable runes… Read more »

RTÉ’S CLIMATE ‘STRATEGY’

Date: August 8, 2024 -

FOR YEARS RTÉ’s coverage of the climate emergency has vacillated between lukewarm and non-existent. It reached such a low point that in July 2021 its then managing director of news, Jon Williams, was forced to admit how dire its performance had been. Jon Williams promised the immediate establishment of a team “working across RTÉ News… Read more »

MCCONALOGUE’S MANURE

Date: August 8, 2024 -

Slight reductions in emissions from agriculture in 2023 have been attributed to cuts in the use of chemical nitrogen and was celebrated by farm advisory agency Teagasc as proving the sector was on the right track at last. What then to make of agriculture minister Charlie McConalogue recently urging farmers to use more nitrogen? “My… Read more »

PSNI SNOOPS

Date: August 8, 2024 -

The plot thickens in the ongoing saga of the PSNI snooping on journalists and lawyers. Investigative journalist Barry McCaffrey and film maker Trevor Birney finally dragged the PSNI, as Birney said, “kicking and screaming” before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) in London in April for unlawfully trying to find the journalists’ sources for their film,… Read more »

BUTTIMER V MULLINS AND COVENEY

Date: August 8, 2024 -

RUCTIONS AT Fine Gael’s Cork South-Central general election convention have only increased since the meeting a fortnight ago, which saw members react angrily at a head office ‘diktat’ telling them to vote for two candidates, including one that had to be from Carrigaline. This meant that the only Carrigaline candidate, councillor Úna McCarthy, was duly… Read more »

IVEAGH HOUSE OLD-BOY DIPLOMACY

Date: August 8, 2024 -

GOOD TO see the Irish Times maintain the high diplomatic style for which the paper of record is famous, with former Irish ambassador to Britain Bobby McDonagh recently giving a critical analysis of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who also happens to be the current EU Council president. With masterful tact, the man described as… Read more »

FF/FG CIVIL WAR IN KERRY

Date: August 8, 2024 -

THE DELIGHT of handlers in Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil at the transfer pattern in the local elections has led to mutual and optimistic assumptions about a repeat at the general election and the return of the two Civil War parties to government with a small requirement of either Green or Independent TDs. There is… Read more »

THE ‘CURRENCY’ AND ‘WEIRD’ INM REPORT

Date: August 8, 2024 -

THE ENORMOUSLY expensive (€5.67m) and lengthy (six years) High Court inspectors’ report into various goings-on at Independent News & Media (INM) has laboured to produce not even a mouse. But while the Corporate Enforcement Authority (CEA) thanked the two inspectors for their work – commissioned at the instigation of the CEA’s parent body in 2018… Read more »

FIONNUALA ON EDNA O’BRIEN

Date: August 8, 2024 -

IRISH TIMES columnist Finn (Fionnuala) McRedmond wisely decided to choose the New Statesman rather than her weekly Irish platform for a treatise on Edna O’Brien that contained the usual Punch cartoon images to describe Ireland in the 1960s as “a country fully captured by the papacy”. One Nation Tory Fionnuala reminded British liberals of the… Read more »

AFTER SUSAN BERGIN

Date: August 8, 2024 -

TEN WEEKS after Screen Ireland (SI) chairwoman Susan Bergin resigned three years into her four-year term “due to other commitments”, there has been no sign of arts minister Catherine Martin moving to replace her. It is unclear if the role will be advertised but a selection from one of the remaining board members seems more… Read more »

WELD’S GRIM GALWAY

Date: August 8, 2024 -

SURELY THE biggest surprise in Galway last week was that Dermot Weld failed to have a single winner, despite having been the champion trainer there on many occasions. It is not as if the seasoned handler arrived with a lightweight squad and among the flops were two well-fancied favourites from Eva Maria Bucher-Haefner’s Moyglare Stud… Read more »

DAVID DUNSDON DELIVERS

Date: August 8, 2024 -

PROPERTY MONEYBAGS David Dunsdon dusted off his riding boots to make a winning return to race riding when landing Galway’s €110,000 Connacht Hotel (QR) Handicap on his own mare, Sirius. Purchased on his behalf by Harold Kirk at Arquana in 2022, the Willie Mullins-trained winner had suffered a setback when being trained for last year’s… Read more »

BAILING OUT RUSSBOROUGH HOUSE

Date: August 8, 2024 -

AS THE annual Heritage Week at Russborough House in Blessington kicks off this weekend, visitors will encounter new pathways created courtesy of a €200,000 grant from Wicklow County Council. Meanwhile, the trustees of the Alfred Beit Foundation (ABF) face a seriously difficult path to get this operation back on track. The chief executive of the… Read more »

LE BROCQUY’S COTTAGES

Date: August 8, 2024 -

INTERESTING TO see a property on Eglinton Road in Donnybrook, D4, going on the market with a €2.75m price tag. It is owned by one Julie Le Brocquy, niece of painter Louis, who was rather better known in the arts world. But Julie has been no slouch when it comes to producing her own art…. Read more »

JESSICA HARRINGTON’S ‘LIGHT BITES’

Date: August 8, 2024 -

GOLDHAWK WAS interested to see that some of the high-flying players in the sport of kings have developed yet another source of income, courtesy of reserved tours of their training and breeding establishments. Some offer better odds than others. Among the tours is the 30-minute Fethard Horse Country Experience which, unsurprisingly, focuses on John Magnier’s… Read more »

HOSTELWORLD SET TO BOOK BIG PROFITS AS COSTS TUMBLE

Date: August 8, 2024 -

THERE ARE not too many sectors globally where an Irish company is the dominant player. This is the case for Hostelworld, which is admittedly operating in a niche market, courtesy of its booking engine for hostels around the world. There has been major progress in this company and its cost base is set to plummet over… Read more »

MARKET FINALLY CATCHES UP WITH MALIN’S VALUE

Date: August 8, 2024 -

MALIN CORPORATION has been on quite the journey in recent years but it looks like the market has finally woken up to the real asset value inside the company. When Moneybags examined the books at the end of last year (see The Phoenix 1/12/23), the shares were trading at a “seriously undervalued” €4.40. Since then,… Read more »

DAVID KENNEDY’S SURPRISE MOVE

Date: August 8, 2024 -

A COMPANY that was behind an established massage clinic operating out of a premises in D2 is set to be wound up on foot of a High Court ruling, a full two years after S&S Bodywise Ltd was voluntarily wound up by its two directors. The Bodywise Clinic offers assorted massages (Indian head, cupping, holistic,… Read more »

BRIAN DURKAN’S INTEREST CHARGES

Date: August 8, 2024 -

A COMPANY called Cedarvale Commercial Ltd has been wound up boasting some pretty hefty losses, with most of the red ink down to interest charges that have built up since the crash. It turns out to be one of the companies in the group established many moons ago by Brian Durkan of Brian M Durkan… Read more »

DAN FLINTER’S STALLION PROBLEM

Date: August 8, 2024 -

IN HIS first review as chairman of the Irish National Stud (INS), former Irish Times chairman Dan Flinter tried his best to put a gloss on the figures but the going was pretty heavy. Having taken over in the saddle from Matt Dempsey, Dan Flinter was eager to minimise the impact of the ongoing decline… Read more »

BEIT FOUNDATION’S LEGAL BILLS

Date: August 8, 2024 -

ELSEWHERE IN this issue (see p18) Goldhawk looks at the increasingly fraught financial picture at the Alfred Beit Foundation (ABF), which oversees the historic Russborough House in Blessington, Co Wicklow, donated to the state by Sir Alfred and Clementine Beit. An added negative factor is a High Court action that has been ongoing for over… Read more »

JOHN SWAN’S FRUIT AND VEG ORDER

Date: August 8, 2024 -

FANS OF Goldhawk will be familiar (see The Phoenix 22/2/19) with the gruelling liquidation of Carlow-based Swan Fruit Ltd (SFL), where the principal, John Swan , has just come a cropper courtesy of liquidator PJ Lynch, who was installed back in 2014. A full decade and a lengthy investigation later, it was reported last week… Read more »

MARTIN’S POLITICAL CELIBACY

Date: July 25, 2024 -

WHAT A waspish reaction Tánaiste and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin gave to the report from the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement last week. The all-party committee (including ‘The Republican Party’, the one that Martin leads) recommended that work to prepare for a referendum on a United Ireland begin immediately…. Read more »

PROFILE: NEIL JORDAN

Date: July 25, 2024 -

The presented persona of Neil Jordan seems rather at odds with how his frequent collaborator and sometime on-screen alter ego, Stephen Rea, characterised him in 1995: “He likes to see himself as an innocent lost in a hard world … but he’s about as innocent as Henry Kissinger. I’ve seen these dreamy and romantic poets… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: NIKKI BRADLEY

Date: July 25, 2024 -

Nikki Bradley, a 38-year-old senator and disability campaigner, is a canny choice for the general election by Fine Gael leader Simon Harris. She has a national profile and has insisted she will broaden her political menu to include the defective blocks scandal currently roiling the political landscape in Donegal. Can Nikki Bradley save Fine Gael’s… Read more »

TIGER WOODS AND JP

Date: July 25, 2024 -

WITH ANTICIPATION already building in Limerick ahead of the 2027 Ryder Cup, set to take place at Adare Manor, one Tiger Woods managed to raise a few eyebrows last week. Predictably, no expense has been spared by Adare Manor owner JP McManus in his efforts to get his 842-acre resort just right for the Ryder… Read more »

TURBULENCE TO CONTINUE FOR DATALEX SHAREHOLDERS

Date: July 25, 2024 -

IN SOME rather honest observations, the recently arrived CEO at Datalex, Jonathan Rockett, confirmed in his first annual report review that the agreement signed last year with LATAM Airlines “will not proceed”; that “Scandinavian Airlines cancelled their contract with Datalex”; and that “Datalex’s programme with Virgin Australia was ended”. Most unusually, he confirmed, “These contracts… Read more »

ARCHBISHOP FARRELL FOR THE HIGH COURT

Date: July 25, 2024 -

IT IS heartening to know that the Irish Catholic Church’s approach to misbehaviour among its ranks has changed from the time when protecting the institution of the church – at any cost — was paramount and the late Archbishop Desmond Connell’s concept of “mental reservation” was used to mask the truth. Nowadays, when allegations of… Read more »

THE ABBEY’S DARK TIMES

Date: July 25, 2024 -

WITH HAPLESS chairwoman Frances Ruane stepping down from her starring role at the Abbey Theatre this weekend after seven years, the focus now turns to her successor. The position may once have been much sought after but the new cast member will be coming in on the back of some very poor reviews. Indeed, the… Read more »

SECURITY CONCERNS

Date: July 25, 2024 -

FOLLOWING THE move by the dreaded taxman to wind up GZ Professional Security Ltd (GZPS), Aiden Murphy of Crowe is now in situ as liquidator. Surprisingly, controversial company founder Gezim Idrizi – formerly one of Conor McGregor’s top security guards – was last week reappointed as a director of the company, 10 days after the… Read more »

IT’S NOT CRICKET

Date: July 25, 2024 -

ONE OF the most enduring lines peddled by post peace process British securocrats, and enthusiastically relayed by the UK and Dublin media’s security ‘experts’, is that British intelligence forced the IRA to negotiate in the early 1990s because they had infiltrated the paramilitary group at every level. Now Sam McBride, perhaps the most respected and… Read more »

VOL 42 NO 15

Date: July 25, 2024 -

ROBERT QUIRKE’S BATTLES

Date: July 25, 2024 -

ENSCONCED AS he is these days in sunny Malta, Westmeath businessman Robert Quirke continues to make waves back home. A judgement has just been registered against one of his companies, while a defamation battle with Paddy Cosgrave continues to rack up the legal bills. Quirke owns a number of firms, the most interesting of which… Read more »

DUBAI’S LEGAL STANDARDS REVISITED

Date: July 25, 2024 -

OUTRAGED HOWLS at the medieval treatment of Boyle woman Tori Towey in Dubai did not encompass any indignant statements from judicial quarters. This is a little disappointing given the atrocious legal standards at play, which were the direct cause of Towey’s nightmare in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) It is not as if the most… Read more »

ROBBO’S STARRING ROLE

Date: July 25, 2024 -

LAST WEEK’S Galway Film Fleadh featured the international premiere of Mrs Robinson, Aoife Kelleher’s Screen Ireland-backed story of the one and only Mary Robinson, who is now 80. Not surprisingly, one of the most interesting chapters in Robbo’s story concerns that ill-fated 2018 trip to Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum’s Dubai, when she was photographed (for… Read more »