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LUNDY LIVES!

Date: October 16, 2025 -

LAUNCHING BEN Collins’s book, The Irish Unity Dividend, former president Mary McAleese recently told her Dublin audience: “The ending of partition and the unification of Ireland can be a really noble undertaking that can offer a new rising tide of energy and momentum.” This much and other parts of McAleese’s speech were recorded in an… Read more »

ALAN ENGLISH’S EDITING

Date: October 16, 2025 -

THE NEW associate editor of The Currency, Alan English – who resigned as editor of the Sunday Independent six months ago – has had a tumultuous ride in the sometimes contradictory wave of digital in the print world. When tendering his resignation earlier this year, English said he was leaving for personal reasons and that… Read more »

STARMER: CHINA NO THREAT

Date: October 16, 2025 -

THE SUNDAY TIMES Aawrish edition ran a special red China scare story last weekend – “one of the most serious cases of foreign interference uncovered in the state” – after “months of investigation” that focused on one (very, very dangerous) individual working for the “shadowy” United Front, a Chinese intel-gathering vehicle. Apparently gardaí engaged in… Read more »

JP McMANUS’S COMPO

Date: October 16, 2025 -

JP McMANUS and veteran light-weight jockey Niall McCullagh recently teamed up to land quite a punt in the valuable Friends of the Curragh Irish Cesarewitch. The Geneva-based zillionaire may have felt it was the least he deserved after a recent run-in with the authorities. Trained by Joseph O’Brien, the aptly named Puturhandstogether (his dam is… Read more »

MULRYAN’S FORM

Date: October 16, 2025 -

BIG-SPENDING racehorse owner Sean Mulryan also happens to be a minted property developer and he recently landed the Freedom of the City of London at the city’s Guildhall for putting up loads of buildings – sorry, helping to transform London’s urban landscape. On racecourses in the UK and Ireland, Sean and Bernadine Mulryan’s blue and… Read more »

JOHN CUNNINGHAM’S EXTRA TIME

Date: October 16, 2025 -

THE DIRECTOR of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Imma), Annie Fletcher, was celebrating least month after the national cultural institution landed the impressive-sounding 2025 Art Academy Award. No doubt, the board of the gallery toasted the win too – a board that, surprisingly perhaps, still includes former Irish Permanent suit John Cunningham. Fletcher travelled… Read more »

HYPED IPO PLAN AT KINGSPAN HELPS TO DISGUISE STAGNATION

Date: October 16, 2025 -

KINGSPAN CEO Gene Murtagh’s announcement last month that he will target the data-centre boom by floating off 25% of the so-called ADVNSYS business came as a real surprise. What is clear, however, is that Murtagh has created a bulked-up unit with a suitably buzzy name that is actually dominated by the group’s Light, Air +… Read more »

SMURFIT WESTROCK COMBO FAILS TO EXCITE THE YANKS

Date: October 16, 2025 -

SMURFIT WESTROCK (SWR) CEO Tony Smurfit is not having a smooth journey on the New York Stock Exchange. Rather than taking off as anticipated, based on synergies etc, the share price is struggling a year on from the audacious deal between Smurfit Kappa Group (SKG) and the US WestRock operation and the last accounts provide… Read more »

A FAMILY AFFAIR

Date: October 16, 2025 -

THERE HAVE been some tough times of late for John Kieran Brennan, founder of Moralltach, a vehicle set up after the crash to bail out heavily indebted property companies, but the good news is that he made some progress this year, courtesy of a familiar partner. Brennan found himself in the spotlight back in 2017… Read more »

TAXING TIMES FOR DALY AND COLLINS

Date: October 16, 2025 -

GOLDHAWK SPOTTED a hefty judgment registered by the dreaded Revenue Commissioners against a company with links to well-known Cork accountancy firm O’Brien Cahill & Co, which was founded back in 1972. Last month, the taxman registered a judgment for no less than €409,000 against the company O’Brien Cahill Ltd (OCL), where the principals are the… Read more »

ODHRAN O’REILLY’S BOUNDARY

Date: October 16, 2025 -

A LITTLE-known company called Landour Ltd, owned by a minted couple in the heart of Ballsbridge, has just registered a significant judgment against one Odhran O’Reilly, an experienced financial suit who has been active in the fast-growing family office sector – ie moving money around for so-called high-net-worth individuals. O’Reilly, who lives in Sandymount, D4,… Read more »

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S HOUSING SCAPEGOATS

Date: October 2, 2025 -

CONSIDER THE recent astonishing sequence of events in Brussels, Strasbourg, Ireland and New York, which will have a potentially multibillion-euro effect on housing in the EU and Ireland, even if the responsible and restrained Irish media do not seem to be unduly concerned about it. In July EU finance ministers in Brussels gave permission to… Read more »

PROFILE: CATHERINE CONNOLLY

Date: October 2, 2025 -

CATHERINE CONNOLLY’S ‘game changing’ presidential campaign finally got off the ground this month. This was despite having to face down attempted sabotage from old-guard members within one of her own support organisations, the Labour Party, as well as pearl-clutching indecision from Sinn Féin. The show… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: CMAT

Date: October 2, 2025 -

DESCRIBED BY the Guardian as “pop’s gobbiest, gaudiest star”, singer-songwriter CMAT has a penchant for sharing her opinions on a wide range of topics. It’s a tactic that has served her well thus far, as by having a go at Bertie and pulling out of festivals over their sponsors,… Read more »

STEEN GRIPPED BY NEW RIGHT

Date: October 2, 2025 -

THE OUTRAGE displayed by Maria Steen’s allies and supporters at Michael McDowell’s failure to return her calls as she lobbied him for a presidential nomination was a master class in media manipulation by seasoned pros at this kind of game. Goldhawk suspects the headline ‘Politician fails to return call from ambitious candidate shock!’ would probably… Read more »

SANCTUARY’S ROUGH RIDE

Date: October 2, 2025 -

THERE WAS plenty of media interest last month in the colourful spat between international showjumper Michelle Kenny and her business partner, the wonderfully named Rafael Ariza Sanctuary. The court action – which is due back in the Four Goldmines next week – is not the first controversy that poor old Rafael has been dragged into…. Read more »

ZAPPER’S ZIGZAGS

Date: October 2, 2025 -

FORMER MINISTER, TD and senator Katherine Zappone is one of the most accomplished operators that ever climbed the greasy pole into Cabinet. The MO of this most resourceful politician does not accord with the modest account of her own selfless character and the political causes she espoused before leaving Ireland when she lost her Dáil… Read more »

BEN GILROY V GOOGLE

Date: October 2, 2025 -

GOLDHAWK SPIES more legal proceedings issued by the colourful Ben Gilroy – anti-eviction campaigner and founder of right-wing political party Liberty Republic (which has gone rather quiet since last November’s general election). The outspoken campaigner has previously sued the likes of the State, RTÉ, LMFM Radio/Independent Broadcasting Commission and the Dublin Inquirer publication. (This latter… Read more »

THE O’REILLYS’ UKRAINE ADVENTURE

Date: October 2, 2025 -

ELSEWHERE IN this issue (see p19), Goldhawk looks at the upcoming sale of a D4 property part-owned by low-profile couple Eva and Ian Sutherland (son of Peter). While the Sutherland name is well known, courtesy of ‘globalist’ and former Goldman Sachs chairman Peter, Eva’s dad – Eugene O’Reilly – is far from a household name…. Read more »

VOL 43 NO 20

Date: October 2, 2025 -

O’DONOVAN’S BUM NOTES

Date: October 2, 2025 -

THERE HAVE been late additions to the list of recipients for the Grassroots Music Venues Support Scheme, which was unveiled earlier this year by culture minister Patrick O’Donovan. With €½m to go around, there was plenty of interest in the fund but the manner in which the moolah has been dished out has raised eyebrows…. Read more »

THE CULLEN-VELDONS DEPART

Date: October 2, 2025 -

THERE HAVE been four managing directors at the Irish Times in the last five years and the departure of the latest MD, Deirdre Veldon, has provoked sighs of exasperation from the hacks at the inability to find or retain the most appropriate personnel for this key position. The latest MD (acting) is chief financial officer… Read more »

CHARLIE V GARRET: NO SMOKING GUN

Date: October 2, 2025 -

IN 2007, Michael McDowell – the then tánaiste, justice minister and leader of the Progressive Democrats – told Dáil Éireann that gardaí knew the source of the Star pistol used by the left-wing republican paramilitary group Saor Éire to kill Garda Richard Fallon during a bank raid in 1970. That should have put an end… Read more »

SIMON HARRIS AND THE ARMS TRADE

Date: October 2, 2025 -

The recent Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) biennial defence and security trade exhibition in London indicates how militarisation is becoming an issue for Ireland, as well as Germany and other EU states. Some 51 Israeli arms companies displayed their products, while US firm Lockheed Martin – which manufactures the F-35 fighter jet used by… Read more »

RIGHT-WING SPLIT

Date: October 2, 2025 -

JUST AS negotiations between various right-wing parties and Independent activists regarding the formation of a united right-wing party were concluded recently, news of a major split in the Irish Freedom Party (IFP) was being revealed online. At its ard fheis in May, IFP president Hermann Kelly faced a heave against his leadership. A motion tabled… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: October 2, 2025 -

I know I write beautiful sentences, but they are to other people, not to me. It would be fatal if I loved my own work. John Banville’s humility, Irish Times Roy Barrett, the grizzled dealmaker and corporate warrior, has joined up with the magnificently “woke” Bohemian FC in one of the most unlikely collabs since… Read more »

HEYDON ARGUES FOR EXCEPTIONAL IRISH

Date: October 2, 2025 -

AT THE UN General Assembly on September 23 Donald Trump took aim at climate regulation, telling over 150 world leaders that climate change was “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”. This comes amid growing speculation that the US will remove itself from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Taoiseach Micheál Martin… Read more »

DRAINING THE SHANNON

Date: October 2, 2025 -

“Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink,” went the famous line in ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’. Published in 1798, the poem may also describe water provision in Ireland in 2025. Driven by poor water infrastructure, unsustainable suburban planning and water-guzzling industry such as data centres in the greater Dublin region, the quango… Read more »

DUBLIN CAVES IN ON LEGACY

Date: October 2, 2025 -

On September 19 the press gathered in Hillsborough Castle, just outside Lisburn, to hear Tánaiste Simon Harris and northern secretary Hilary Benn announce the newly agreed Legacy Framework between Britain and Ireland. The assembled hacks were handed another document, which detailed a “protection package” for veterans. The UK government website shows it was presented by… Read more »

EU: THE REAL CON

Date: October 2, 2025 -

WITH DONALD TRUMP dissing the European Union and also declaring climate change to be one big con, it’s worth looking at the real cons being played by the EU when it comes to climate change right now. The European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), first finalised in 2023 and delayed in 2024, has been pulped once… Read more »

FF COUNCILLORS VOTE DOWN MARTIN’S ‘SHARED ISLAND’

Date: October 2, 2025 -

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S attack on local councils over housing policy is not the only cause for local dissent with the Taoiseach and his northern policy has, in effect, been roundly trashed in recent weeks by votes on two of the biggest councils in the state, Dublin City Council and Cork City Council. Meehole’s northern policy is… Read more »

CONNOLLY’S COLONIAL COMRADES

Date: October 2, 2025 -

THE MAIN bone of contention for some in Sinn Féin at Catherine Connolly’s presidential nomination (see p14) was whether she was serious about her commitment to a united Ireland. This was eventually settled to the satisfaction of the leadership and most party members after she made assurances to that effect. But will everyone in Catherine’s… Read more »

GELDOF WAIVES AWAY THE ÁRAS

Date: October 2, 2025 -

LIKE GROUPIES throwing their underwear at a real rock star, the fawning behaviour of various hacks at the feet of Bob Geldof as they urged him to save Ireland and run for the presidency was unsettling. But the story line from Bob and his media courtiers took a sharp turn when Micheál Martin made clear… Read more »

HUMPHREYS’ ‘ORANGE’ LINK

Date: October 2, 2025 -

THE IRISH TIMES was quick to publish a denunciation of the Irish Mail on Sunday for questioning presidential candidate Heather Humphreys and hubby Eric about any Orange links they had in the past. The man they chose to denounce the Mail was Edward Burke, who thought it “self-evidently inappropriate” to ask such questions. It is… Read more »

FIONNUALA’S FANTASIES

Date: October 2, 2025 -

FORMER CAMBRIDGE young Tory, now Irish Times columnist Tory, Finn (Fionnuala) McRedmond likes to lecture the Irish for being no better than the British anti-Irish media. “In reverting to base instincts – indulging latent nationalistic one-upmanship – we reveal ourselves to be no better than the British tabloid press,” she told a perhaps receptive IT… Read more »

MOLI’S SCARY PLOT

Date: October 2, 2025 -

ALMOST 20 months on from when it first emerged that the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) on St Stephen’s Green was in financial disarray, the operation continues to haemorrhage money despite significant cutbacks. The new boss clearly has a hell of a job on his hands. It will be recalled (see The Phoenix 22/2/24) that… Read more »