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FINAL FENCE FOR HBL

Date: January 25, 2024 -

THREE MONTHS after the passing of high-profile Kilkenny bookmaker Triona Harrington, her company, Harrington Bookmakers Ltd (HBL), is being removed from the companies register. The good news is that business continues as usual under the popular Harrington name. Fans of The Phoenix will be familiar with HBL, which managed to attract a few headlines in… Read more »

NIGEL ROGERS PULLS THE TRIGGER

Date: January 25, 2024 -

THERE WAS endless oohing and aahing when a huge 8,600 sq ft mansion in Shankill, Co Dublin, featured on RTÉ’s Selling Ireland’s Dream Homes earlier this month. Maybe that will give the property enough of a shove to ensure a sale is achieved seven months after it was put on the market by its minted… Read more »

COSGRAVE FAMILY FEUDING

Date: January 25, 2024 -

AS FAMILY spats go, the one involving members of the fabulously wealthy Cosgrave building family is set to be one of the biggest. In the week before Christmas, three new affidavits were lobbed in and the next outing in the Four Goldmines in pencilled in for February 12. Meanwhile, it appears to be business as… Read more »

PAUL FITZPATRICK’S MIS-STEP

Date: January 25, 2024 -

GOLDHAWK SPIES a creditors’ meeting called for one of the companies linked to the Fitzpatrick shoe retailing dynasty. Meanwhile, it turns out that the prime property on Grafton Street, previously owned by the family, is now fully owned by an investment vehicle controlled by auctioneer Keith Jameson, now based in Toronto. The Fitzpatrick family has… Read more »

ACTION REQUIRED AT MOLTEN VENTURES

Date: January 25, 2024 -

IT CONTINUES to be very difficult to make sense of what is going on inside Molten Ventures plc. There have been some startling contrasts between the company’s own value of its investments and how the market treats them when they float. The latest interim results boast a net asset value (NAV) per share of £7.35,… Read more »

TIME FOR KEATING TO DELIVER AT FD TECHNOLOGIES

Date: January 25, 2024 -

OVER FOUR years on from the death of FD Technologies founder Brian Conlon, the company continues to struggle to convince the market that all is well. In the recent half-year figures, CEO Seamus Keating talks a good game but investors will be keeping a close eye on the profit performance for the year to the… Read more »

LEO MOHAN’S MISHAPS

Date: January 25, 2024 -

Goldhawk has followed the exploits of Leo Mohan for many years since the Monaghan entrepreneur was involved in a substantial Christmas tree business that came a cropper in the 1990s, leaving scores of unfortunate farmers out of pocket (see The Phoenix 22/5/98). He has just suffered another significant hit after finding himself on the wrong… Read more »

KIERON MCQUAID’S ROUGH RIDE

Date: January 25, 2024 -

IT WAS reported in the Irish Examiner last week that, in the lead-up to last October’s budget, finance minister Michael McGrath had sought to have the VAT rate for both pedal and electric bikes slashed in order to encourage their purchase. The proposal, however, was shot down by mandarins wary that other business groups “may… Read more »

IRISH ARMS TO ISRAEL

Date: January 11, 2024 -

IT WAS hardly surprising that little or no fanfare accompanied Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Simon Coveney’s release of the 2022 Annual Report on activity under the Control of Exports Act 2008. Covetous Coveney has been relatively outspoken – in EU terms – in… Read more »

PROFILE: JOHN HEGARTY

Date: January 11, 2024 -

TO ALL other media, the Irish Times exudes high principles, standards and a commitment to objective journalism. The paper claims to be liberal, a wholly independent voice with no hidden financial or political bias. It is especially censorious of sectarianism and narrow religious dogma. Overseeing… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: SINÉAD SHEPPARD

Date: January 11, 2024 -

With Cork East’s Fine Gael TD David Stanton having announced his intention to bow out at the next general election, has an opportunity opened for ambitious Cobh FG councillor Sinéad Sheppard to make it to the Big House? A mother of three, Sheppard originally won… Read more »

GOLDEN GLOBES GUFF

Date: January 11, 2024 -

WHEN THE heat really came on last year, RTÉ emphasised its news and current affairs output as evidence of its commitment to public service broadcasting. Its Six-One News coverage, however, of Cillian Murphy winning a Golden Globe for his title role performance in Oppenheimer differed little from the gushing accounts splashed across celebrity fan sites… Read more »

FINTAN O’TOOLE ON ISRAEL

Date: January 11, 2024 -

A RATHER Jesuitical argument from Irish Times resident ideologue Fintan O’Toole came in a polemic this week claiming: “It’s striking how brazen incitement against Irish Jews has become.” O’Toole used the rantings of far-right journalists Gemma O’Doherty and John Waters in the freesheet they edit,… Read more »

SIMONE ROCHA’S FRENCH FANCY

Date: January 11, 2024 -

LATER THIS month, superstar fashion designer Simone Rocha will appear at the prestigious Haute Couture Week in Paris, where she will be filling the role of guest couture designer for one Jean Paul Gaultier. She is only the fifth guest couturier to be invited to deliver their take on Gaultier’s aesthetic since he announced his… Read more »

DAVID WHELAN’S DANCE MOVES

Date: January 11, 2024 -

THERE WAS the usual hype in the run-up to last weekend’s launch of the latest season of Dancing With the Stars on RTÉ 1 and Goldhawk was struck by the fact that one of the contestants is David Whelan, front man for the band Wild Youth. But there is no sign of production company Shinawil’s… Read more »

DEIRDRE VELDON’S LOVE LETTER

Date: January 11, 2024 -

JOURNALISTS AT the Irish Times – once jealously regarded by their peers elsewhere as the pampered literati of the newspaper world – were not exactly swooning with gratitude at the letter sent to them a few days before Christmas from managing director Deirdre Veldon. The hacks were (and are) still smarting at the largesse doled… Read more »

Ó RÍORDÁIN’S EU ELECTION TACTIC

Date: January 11, 2024 -

COMMENTARY ON the EU election bid of Aodhán Ó Ríordáin has noted that it is effectively another defection from the Labour Party as it lies crashed on the dual rocks of its devastating ‘austerity’ coalition with Fine Gael and the emergence of Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats and the far left. There is also the… Read more »

RYANAIR SHARES SET TO SOAR, UNLESS…

Date: January 11, 2024 -

THE STARS have been aligning for Ryanair, with Mick O’Leary keeping one eye on the share price given the potential astronomical bonus on the line should it hit €21 over the next few years or if after-tax profits hit €2.2bn. A recent reversal of policy to deliver a chunky dividend to shareholders should certainly boost… Read more »

VOL 42 NO 01

Date: January 11, 2024 -

NO DRAMA AT THE IRISH TIMES

Date: January 11, 2024 -

THIS IS the time of year when the Irish Times announces the various luvvies who have been shortlisted for the annual IT Theatre Awards. That familiar script has been binned, however, and there is still no sign of the 2023 awards, nine months after the… Read more »

PRINCESS COLONNA’S NEIGHBOUR

Date: January 11, 2024 -

FANS OF Goldhawk with long memories will recall that the Clonmannon retirement village in Ashford, Co Wicklow was bought out of liquidation in the 1990s by Roddy and Jane McGrath, after which the couple introduced controversial new care contracts that reduced the level of service to the elderly residents. The issue ended up being the… Read more »

MARY LOU BETS THE HOUSE ON IT

Date: January 11, 2024 -

THE MOST interesting item in last weekend’s Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks opinion poll was not the 1% rise in those who prioritised immigration but instead the focus on the housing crisis illustrated by the stat that said 69% supported the proposal – from Sinn Féin – that the average Dublin house price should fall from €430,000… Read more »

DONALDSON RETREATS AGAIN

Date: January 11, 2024 -

THE BACKLASH over the Irish Government’s case against the British government’s legacy act began with ex-northern secretary Brandon Lewis making a full-frontal assault against Dublin at the end of December (see p11). But south of the border, Irish Times columnist Newton Emerson last week criticised… Read more »

BLOODY SUNDAY: KITSON AND WILFORD

Date: January 11, 2024 -

COL DEREK WILFORD, the commander of 1 Para in Northern Ireland in 1972, died last November. His former superior, Brigadier (later, General) Sir Frank Kitson, passed away earlier this month. Both men brought secrets about Bloody Sunday with them to the grave. ‘Soldier F’, formerly… Read more »

ORBÁN’S IRISH YOUNG EAGLES

Date: January 11, 2024 -

When Hungary takes over the presidency of the Council of the European Union for six months in July, Viktor Orbán hopes that the media outlets his government is sponsoring in Brussels – the European Conservative and Brussels Signal – will have laid the groundwork for the acceptance of his Eurosceptic and conservative views in the… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: January 11, 2024 -

I think in the UK, I’m underrated. Not so much here, but in the UK. And I think I know tailoring as good as anybody. I still think I’m a good designer. I don’t have any qualms about that. Paul Costelloe on himself, Sunday Independent, Life Magazine It’s not about being sexy, it’s about delivering…. Read more »

FOSSIL FUEL FINITO?

Date: January 11, 2024 -

In light of the PR trainwreck that was Sultan Al Jaber’s presidency of the Cop28 climate summit – including his extremely high-profile row with Mary Robinson – you’d imagine future host countries will steer clear of fossil fuel industry veterans when choosing their summit presidents…. Read more »

HOT AIR HOLIDAYS

Date: January 11, 2024 -

One of the Irish Times’s last editorials of 2023 called for “a more radical approach” to climate action. Goldhawk looks forward to the day when the new generation at the helm – editor Ruadhán Mac Cormaic and MD Deirdre Veldon – feel radical enough to stop running ads exhorting readers to fly more. The paper… Read more »

ORANGE AND GREEN STILL BLOOM

Date: January 11, 2024 -

At least we know there will be one election in the north this year. British prime minister Rishi Sunak has said he’s operating “on the working assumption” that he will call a general election in “the second half of this year”. Of course, that doesn’t rule out a May election to coincide with English council… Read more »

LABOUR AND SOC DEMS: NO DEAL

Date: January 11, 2024 -

FOR YEARS the debate between left and right in the Labour Party was over whether or not to enter coalition government with ‘right-wing’ parties such as Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil. That argument now appears to have been settled by the Social Democrats, albeit in the most negative manner possible, with Labour withering on the… Read more »

EOGHAN HARRIS’S GRIPE

Date: January 11, 2024 -

EOGHAN HARRIS may have lost his platform in the country’s biggest-selling newspaper – the Mediahuis-owned Sunday Independent – but he appears to be welcome in the strongly unionist News Letter, a rival of another Mediahuis title, the Belfast Telegraph. Following the recent release of Irish government state papers 1993-2003, Harris took umbrage with coverage in… Read more »

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S ‘SHAMELESS’ NEW POLITICS

Date: January 11, 2024 -

POLITICAL CORRESPONDENTS appear to be disinterested in the discernible differences between Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Tánaiste Micheál Martin on Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians, including thousands of children, and also on their differences on Anglo-Irish issues (see The Phoenix Annual 2023 and edition 24/2/23). On the latter issue, it will be interesting to see precisely… Read more »

ARSON ABOUT

Date: January 11, 2024 -

THOSE MOST-favoured words of security correspondents, “security… senior… sources”, can cover a multitude of issues when gardaí want to get a message across without having it ascribed to them individually or as An Garda Síochána. There are, of course, other reasons why the media sometimes uses the phrase when publishing stories about cops ‘n’ robbers… Read more »

‘SUNDAY TIMES’ NEW LINE

Date: January 11, 2024 -

THE NEW editorial regime at the Aawrish edition of the Sunday Times – with editor Kieran McDaid and associate editor Michael McNiff – appears to have overturned decades of imperialist views on foreign policy and its disdain for Irish independence, judging by a thundering editorial a week before Christmas. The editorial was a stiff rejection… Read more »

MORGAN’S PLOT TWIST

Date: January 11, 2024 -

FANS OF Goldhawk have been kept up to date with the travails of John Arkins’s Irish Film Workers Association (IFWA) over the years. The organisation took to picketing film and TV productions and raised thorny questions about “quality employment” – a supposed cornerstone of the generously state-backed industry that soaks up over €100m in tax… Read more »

TONY MARTIN’S CHRISTMAS PRESENT

Date: January 11, 2024 -

WHILE TRAINER Tony Martin must have breathed a sigh of relief after avoiding having his licence suspended before Christmas, he has nevertheless lodged an appeal against the severity of the fine imposed on him. For its part, the IHRB has also lodged an appeal against what it says is the “undue leniency” of the sanctions… Read more »