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PROMOTING FERGUS CRONIN

Date: June 1, 2023 -

CONGRATULATIONS TO scribbler Fergus Cronin, whose debut collection of short stories, Night Music, has attracted the sort of promotion and exposure usually only afforded to established writers. But then Cronin is no ordinary aspiring fiction writer. He is also the hubby of Arts Council head… Read more »

PETER GAYNOR SELLS UP

Date: June 1, 2023 -

GOLDHAWK WAS interested to see that the spacious Rembrandt House at 1 Longford Terrace in Monkstown is on the market with a tasty €2.5m price tag. This address – with its “breath-taking uninterrupted sea views over Dublin Bay” – was formerly occupied by one Peter Gaynor and the impressive pile would be very familiar to… Read more »

VOL 41 NO 11

Date: June 1, 2023 -

RYEVALE HOUSE RESISTANCE

Date: June 1, 2023 -

THERE IS still significant opposition to the decision to use the impressive Ryevale House outside Leixlip, Co Kildare, to provide emergency accommodation for up to 80 refugees. It is, however, not clear if Ronan Mallon’s Coldec Props, which has been most closely associated with the controversy, owns any of the high-profile property. The Georgian mansion… Read more »

JOE MACKEN’S FORMER PARTNER

Date: June 1, 2023 -

GOLDHAWK’S one-time favourite restaurateur Joe Macken (see Young Blood 6/4/12) was in the news again last week when he took a pop at his former business partner, who turns out to have picked up some heavyweight backers. Hipster Macken has generally tended to get a soft ride from the press and even when it was… Read more »

MI5 MACHINATIONS

Date: June 1, 2023 -

HIS MAJESTY’S legislation to snuff out Troubles-related legacy cases looks like it will pass into law this year. The probe into the RUC’s failure to act on intelligence and prevent the Real IRA’s bombing of Omagh in August 1998 will, however, proceed. It is a statutory enquiry, an entity that is immune to the new… Read more »

BEDS BONANZA IN D6

Date: June 1, 2023 -

THE BLOCKADE in Inch and the burnt-out tent village in Dublin city centre have focused attention on the issues surrounding the housing of asylum seekers and those fleeing the war in Ukraine. It has also drawn more attention to the big bucks being generated in… Read more »

HAUGHEY’S GUBU ENEMIES

Date: June 1, 2023 -

Harry McGEE’S new book, The Murderer and the Taoiseach, describes the homicides perpetrated by Malcolm McArthur in 1982. Sensationally, McArthur was arrested while staying at the Dalkey apartment of Charles Haughey’s attorney general, Patrick Connolly. Within days the front page of the Sun was describing Patrick Connolly as “ballet-loving”, while the Daily Star described him… Read more »

TRIPLE-COCK-UP BY GREENS

Date: June 1, 2023 -

THE BUSINESS POST recently had on its front page a piece about the Green Party’s shift towards abolition of the triple lock – championed by Fianna Fáil leader and Tánaiste Micheál Martin – and the next day a similar report was published in the Irish Times. The chief argument recently deployed against the triple lock… Read more »

BURYING MOUNTBATTEN

Date: June 1, 2023 -

ANOTHER EXAMPLE of the ‘special relationship’ between the US and Britain is the revelation – covered in the British media but not, for some reason, in the Irish media – that the US authorities ordered the FBI to destroy incriminating documents they held on the… Read more »

KATE HASN’T GONE AWAY, YOU KNOW

Date: June 1, 2023 -

AN AIR of mystery and intrigue surrounds Fine Gael councillor Emma Blain’s step onto the political chess board of Dublin Bay South (DBS) with her nomination for the Pembroke area of Dublin City Council sweeping through the DBS convention last week, facilitated by some of the party elders. This is despite Emma being a councillor… Read more »

HUGO MACNEILL’S GONG

Date: June 1, 2023 -

THE EXCITED word among the goys in south Dublin rugger clubs is that Hugo MacNeill will shortly receive a measure of compensation for losing last year’s TCD Seanad by-election to former army officer Tom Clonan. This comes, ironically, in the form of an OBE, or Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire…. Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: June 1, 2023 -

Who else can boast that they were invited into Number 10 Downing Street to interview simultaneously then prime minister Tony Blair and the then taoiseach Bertie Ahern, had a stint hosting Celebrity Love Island, ran a race with Prince William for Sports Relief and sang with Johnny Vegas in a spoof version of the boyband… Read more »

NAH NAH PANA

Date: June 1, 2023 -

THE MEDIA, military and Government mantra is for a serious debate about neutrality. Newspapers and airwaves are full of strident cries to end neutrality and the ‘free ride’ we get from Nato members, so substantial statements from (at least) two peace groups recently should have been most welcome to editors anxious to cover the issue…. Read more »

‘BUSINESS POST’ REVISES NORTH LINE

Date: June 1, 2023 -

NEWLY MINTED Business Post editor Daniel McConnell clearly felt the need to not only assert a politically pristine editorial line on the north but to attach his name to this line. The Post was founded in 1989 by a quartet of business journalists led by Damien Kiberd, who advanced a constitutional republican position. Kiberd was… Read more »

AIDAN O’BRIEN’S HANDICAP

Date: June 1, 2023 -

THE DEATH of Galileo two years ago was a seismic day for the international bloodstock industry and it is now becoming apparent just what a pivotal role the former dominant stallion played in the success of Aidan O’Brien and the Coolmore/Ballydoyle axis over the past 15 years. This is especially relevant in the lead up… Read more »

JP’S ‘MYSTICAL POWER’

Date: June 1, 2023 -

JP McManus recently marked a milestone at his Martinstown Stud with the 31st birthday of his triple champion hurdle winner Istabraq. The former brilliant hurdler could easily pass for a horse half his age (thanks to the five-star treatment he and various other McManus winners receive when they retire there). It is not all about… Read more »

TIME FOR A STEWARDS’ INQUIRY?

Date: June 1, 2023 -

A FEW weekends ago there were some stewarding decisions that left punters wondering if the acting stewards were watching the same races as everyone else. It is far from the first time that the stewards appear to have been out of step. There was the much publicised Rachael Blackmore incident at Kilbeggan (see The Phoenix… Read more »

KIESWETTERS HAPPY TO STUMP UP

Date: June 1, 2023 -

IT IS a truth universally acknowledged that horseracing is for those with deep pockets. The latest figures from the South African-owned Barnane Stud outside Templemore in Co Tipperary – run on the ground by Patrick Wynn Jones – reveal that accumulated losses topped €3.3m at the end of June last year, after the operation dropped… Read more »

EATHOS’S EXPANDING WAISTLINE

Date: June 1, 2023 -

GOLDHAWK SPIES from his perch that a third upmarket Eathos cafe has opened on the stretch from Lower Baggot Street to Upper Baggot Street. Clearly, this is a target-rich environment for moneybags Larry Murrin. Although the burgeoning chain is run by siblings Lisa and Peter Murrin, the moolah comes from daddy, who is best known… Read more »

RYANAIR BOOSTS PROFITS ON FOOT OF HIKED FARES

Date: June 1, 2023 -

MONEYBAGS HAS previously queried Mick O’Leary’s near obsession with growing Ryanair’s capacity for the sake of growing it, rather that seeking to optimise returns in the context of evolving demand and competition. He has now announced another major capacity expansion and, thus far, the market has reacted positively. But yet again the bottom line has… Read more »

SHAREHOLDERS WELL PLACED DESPITE FBD’S QUIRKS

Date: June 1, 2023 -

HAVING FAILED to pay out on business interruption insurance to assorted publicans shut down during the pandemic, the deadline is imminent for the release of the judge’s written ruling. Now three years on from the claims, mid-June has been pencilled in for the judgment on foot of the High Court test case successfully taken against… Read more »

TOM HIGGINS GETS READY TO BLAST OFF

Date: June 1, 2023 -

COULD MINTED Tom ‘Psychics Live’ Higgins be about to finally blast off for space, 18 years after he stumped up the equivalent of $¼m to Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic? Way back in 2005, Tom Higgins was one of 800 moneybags who splashed out for a ticket to be among the first ‘space tourists’ but, although… Read more »

MORE MILLIONS FOR MOVIES

Date: June 1, 2023 -

ARTS MINISTER Catherine Martin is currently seeking applications from “suitably qualified candidates” for two vacancies on the board of the state film funding agency, Screen Ireland (SI), created by the end of the terms of Marian Quinn and Kate McColgan. Those worried about the quality of many Irish films in recent years will be reassured… Read more »

FERGAL NAUGHTON’S SALES

Date: June 1, 2023 -

GLEN DIMPLEX heir Fergal Naughton and his missus, Rachael, are selling up their Georgian mansion in Howth, Drumleck House – with a cool €8.75m on the price tag. They have another deal to keep them occupied too. Earlier this month, celebrity ‘hospitality service experts’, Francis and John Brennan, put their Kenmare, Co Kerry, hotels –… Read more »

PIOTR SKOCZYLAS’S SOLICITORS

Date: June 1, 2023 -

MALTA-BASED Piotr Skoczylas, the man behind Scotchstone Capital, continues to battle on bravely in his decade-long campaign to secure compensation for the government’s nationalisation of Irish Life and Permanent, in which Scotchstone had a stake. It has been a long slog with many setbacks and the litigation has generated plenty of its own controversy –… Read more »

WHITE EUROPEANS

Date: May 30, 2023 -

At the Aviva Stadium last October, defence department secretary general Jacqui McCrum opened proceedings at ‘Building the ecosystem – identifying connections for collaboration in security, defence and dual technologies’. The gathering hoped to nurture the growth of an Irish arms industry by bringing together Irish industry and research institutions with leading figures from Ireland’s armed… Read more »

NORMAN’S WISDOM

Date: May 30, 2023 -

NORMAN CROWLEY’S fans in the Irish Times gave him another outing in the paper earlier this month, where the ‘energy efficient solutions’ motor mouth boasted about signing a “€50m electric trucks deal” no less. Maybe this is the deal that will make those long-promised profits finally easier to track. According to Stormin’ Norman, he has… Read more »

IN DEFENCE OF PADDY COSGRAVE

Date: May 18, 2023 -

IT WAS hardly surprising to see the ‘nwl’ Twitter account wading into the controversy over Paddy Cosgrave’s €1m in funding for The Ditch website, courtesy of a broadside against Fianna Fáil senator Malcolm Byrne, who had just lodged a complaint with the regulator. The anonymous Twitter account has long been parroting what both The Ditch… Read more »

PROFILE: ANNE HARRIS

Date: May 18, 2023 -

THE IRISH TIMES prides itself as leading debate on the big issues of the day and down the years has acted as the vanguard – for good or bad – on social issues, the peace process, EU matters, neutrality and so on. One of the most divisive such issue was, of course, the peace process,… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: ANGELA SCANLON

Date: May 18, 2023 -

IT MAY once have sacked her from a high-profile gig but RTÉ has certainly shown faith in the gobby Angela Scanlon by giving her Saturday night chat show a third run. This faith may have been misplaced as, when Ask Me Anything debuted on April 15, it had an average audience of 250,000 viewers. By… Read more »

CONTENDERS CIRCLE VARADKAR

Date: May 18, 2023 -

THE FEAR of an unseemly power struggle being displayed in public is one reason for the paralysis in Fine Gael over increasingly poor poll figures since Leo Varadkar reassumed leadership of the nation last December. Another is that the reaction of coalition partner Fianna Fáil to any such change is unknown or, even worse, that… Read more »

WATT’S PUBLIC SPENDING CONTROLS

Date: May 18, 2023 -

While many politicians and commentators have been falling over themselves to characterise health department secretary general Robert Watt as “dismissive”, “cocky”, “combative” or  “arrogant”, civil service insiders have been perusing copies of the public spending code. This internal document sets out the protocols and procedures at the different thresholds that all ‘accounting officers’ – ie secretaries general,… Read more »

FAKE TAN AT NEWSTALK

Date: May 18, 2023 -

MUCH HAS been written about the Irish Times’s chatbot debacle and there are plenty of red faces on Tara Street this week. It turns out, however, that the IT is far from the only news organisation that got carried away. The Newstalk Breakfast team of Ciara Kelly and Shane Coleman was quick to jump on the… Read more »

RITA CROSBIE’S BATTLES

Date: May 18, 2023 -

GOOD NEWS for Rita Crosbie (Harry’s missus), with Dublin City Council having given the thumbs up for two retail kiosks on Grand Canal Square, despite significant local opposition from the likes of the Marker Hotel and the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre. The planning hurdle that was overcome was only the latest step in a process… Read more »

PADDY KEHOE’S ROUGH RIDE

Date: May 18, 2023 -

HORSERACING PUNTERS have been enjoying the incendiary online spat between one Paddy Kehoe, the owner of racehorse Princess Zoe, and her former trainer, Tony Mullins (brother of superstar Willie). Kehoe’s name may ring a bell with readers with long memories given his central role in a high-profile lottery coup three decades ago. Despite a long… Read more »