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JOHN MAGNIER’S MASTERPIECE

Date: January 12, 2023 -

IN JUST eight weeks an export ban will expire on the famous Sir Joshua Reynolds masterpiece, Portrait of Omai, which has been the subject of intense debate across the Irish Sea as the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) has sought to keep it in the country. John Magnier, the squire of Coolmore, famously picked up the… Read more »

VOL 41 NO 01

Date: January 12, 2023 -

STILL STANDING AND SHOUTING

Date: January 12, 2023 -

NEARLY 40 years ago to the day – January 7, 1983 – The Phoenix rose from the ashes of a previous media venture and it is still standing. Buffeted by legal threats from the rich and the crooked and opprobrium from the ‘responsible’ media; squeezed by mega media platforms and ongoing hostility from most (if… Read more »

O’LEARY PULLS NO PUNCHES

Date: January 12, 2023 -

PAUL KIMMAGE began 2023 by reminding his Sindo readers on New Year’s Day that he hasn’t given up when it comes to exposing a doping culture in the Irish racing industry. This is despite having failed to land a killer blow courtesy of his series of incendiary articles last year. After dishing out a hefty… Read more »

BLUESHIRT PLAYBOOK

Date: January 12, 2023 -

SOME AGEING Fine Gael members have been muttering about Irish Times anti-American liberals who blame the antics of Brazilian ex-president Jair Bolsonaro’s fascist fans on the precedent created by Donald Trump’s rabble storming Capitol Hill. The FG Good Ol’ Boys are quite put out as they claim their antecedents in the Blueshirts should receive the… Read more »

GARDAÍ’S GOOD TIMING

Date: January 12, 2023 -

JUST BEFORE Christmas there was a high-profile conference, called ‘Breaking the Silence’, held in Dublin focusing on issues to do with the sex trade, trafficking and sexual violence. It was presumably entirely coincidental that, in the run-up to the event, the boys in blue got busy raiding the apartments of sex workers. No doubt the… Read more »

HARRY’S GAME OF CHESS

Date: January 12, 2023 -

RICHARD KEMP, a former commander of British armed forces in Afghanistan and ex-chair of the Cobra Intelligence Group – co-ordinating MI5 and MI6 and answerable only to the British cabinet – was wheeled out to attack Buck House traitor Prince Harry last week. Kemp used the occasion to advertise his own security credentials and spoke… Read more »

TURN AROUND FOR LEGAL EAGLE

Date: January 12, 2023 -

LIMERICK SOLICITOR Gerard O’Neill will have been pleased at the fight back he successfully mounted against press statements issued by the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association (Isme) following a High Court case presided over by Judge Michael Twomey in 2019. At that time, Judge Twomey threw out the personal injury actions of O’Neill’s two… Read more »

IRISH ARMS TO ISRAEL

Date: January 12, 2023 -

THE CONTROL of Exports Act was passed in 2008 to ensure that Ireland would finally be in compliance with the provisions of the European Union’s Council Common Position, which was agreed in June 2003. This provided for controls around the export of goods and technology to certain military end users. The act requires that each… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: January 12, 2023 -

In these places, character must be erased lest it tell a story. A sense of place must be rinsed until what emerges from the white walls is what Kyle Chayka labelled “AirSpace” – “a profusion of symbols of comfort and quality” – the triumph of the generic, the homogenous. Una Mullally on new-build studio apartment… Read more »

DONALDSON’S BIG CALL

Date: January 12, 2023 -

DUP LEADER Jeffrey Donaldson has a big call to make in a couple of months as the EU and UK move inexorably towards a deal on the Northern Ireland Protocol. Since early 2021 Donaldson – egged on by loyalist bloggers and wary of the electoral threat of Jim Allister’s extremist TUV party – has adopted… Read more »

A TAOISEACH ONCE AGAIN

Date: January 12, 2023 -

ONE PRESUMES that former taoiseach, now Tánaiste, Micheál Martin, was not entirely gulled by the remarks of Leo Varadkar, then his second-in-command, to the Fine Gael ard fheis in November when he praised Martin to the rafters. In fact, Martin may have felt a shudder down his spine at Vlad describing him as a “good”… Read more »

ARISE LAZARUS O’DONNELL

Date: January 12, 2023 -

THE PROMOTION of long-time Fine Gael backbench TD Kieran O’Donnell to the post of junior minister for local government and planning was described by the Irish Times as not widely anticipated. However, one source said it was for recognition of “many years of hard work”. That’s one way of putting it for a man whose… Read more »

BRENDAN GRIFFIN’S AMBITIONS

Date: January 12, 2023 -

FINE GAEL TD and former junior sports minister Brendan Griffin walked off the pitch in what looked like a sulk as he was offered a junior ministerial post that was apparently beneath him just before Christmas. Griffin in fact cited family reasons for refusing the offer but his Kerry colleague, Independent TD Michael Healy-Rae, taunted… Read more »

MARTIN’S PAYROLL VOTE CAPPED

Date: January 12, 2023 -

THE WEEKS leading up to the most uneventful ministerial reshuffle in memory saw repeated references to a possible expansion of junior ministers by two. In the event, no such ministerial additions were made. Why was this kite-flying exercise carried out and why was it rejected? The ostensible reason for the proposal was the need to… Read more »

‘IRISH TIMES’ CRITICS

Date: January 12, 2023 -

“SPECIAL CONSIDERATION shall be given to the reasonable representation of minority interests and divergent views,” according to the “principles of the Irish Times”. However, with political debate nowadays tainted by populists and extremists (ie those who disagree with the IT’s right-of-centre liberalism), the paper of reference cannot allow just anybody to sully its opinion columns… Read more »

MEDIAHUIS RETREAT

Date: January 12, 2023 -

EFFORTS BY Mediahuis, publishers of Independent titles and others north and south, to colonise the Sunday market in the north via the Sunday Independent have failed and the Belgians have fallen back to Dublin. This follows a previous and similarly unsuccessful effort to seize the northern Sunday market some years ago when the then neo-unionist… Read more »

RTÉ’S MILITARY ‘EXPERTS’

Date: January 12, 2023 -

TWO DAYS after Christmas RTÉ’s Morning Ireland interviewed the Atlantic Council’s Nicholas Blanford, an expert on the Middle East. Listeners were told that the council was a “US think-tank” and Nicholas Blanford spoke about the detention of an alleged suspect in the recent fatal shooting of Private Seán Rooney in Lebanon. The “US think-tank” is… Read more »

BRIGHT RED FLAGS

Date: January 12, 2023 -

GOLDHAWK WAS browsing the lobbying register during the Christmas break and was intrigued to see that a board member of Oxfam Ireland has been lobbying minister Eamon Ryan on behalf of a power-generation company. Deirdre Grant, a former special adviser to ministers Ruairí Quinn and Ged Nash, was seeking to “create better understanding of challenges… Read more »

NOTEWORTHY EMISSIONS

Date: January 12, 2023 -

AN INVESTIGATION by the excellent Noteworthy website has revealed that data centres’ on-site carbon emissions are 35 times higher than a decade ago. This is about to get much worse. Last year regulators finally imposed some restrictions on how much these vampires can suck from the electricity grid but data centres are circumventing this by… Read more »

DÉSIRÉE’S IN-TRAY

Date: January 12, 2023 -

THERE IS no sign of a plot twist at Screen Ireland (SI) when it comes to publishing its annual reports. Successive head honchos, including current chief executive Désirée Finnegan, have presided over a release schedule that they clearly believe is building suspense. At the time of writing, the most recent accounts available are for the… Read more »

CATHERINE MARTIN’S UNJUST TRANSITION

Date: January 12, 2023 -

WITH THE Arts Council planning to significantly expand its scale, maybe one of the new hires could keep an eye on the activities of Creative Ireland, the slush fund established within the arts department a few years ago. Shortly before Christmas, arts minister Catherine Martin and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan launched a €3m fund… Read more »

LIMERICK’S MYSTERIOUS CROWDS

Date: January 12, 2023 -

FORMER JUMP jockey Tom Rudd took over as the manager of Limerick racecourse late last year amid hopes that the track would see some continuity among the senior management after a turbulent few years. Former manager Patrick O’Callaghan vacated the role in autumn 2021 and was succeeded by Emma White, who had relocated from a… Read more »

AMO KEEPS OPTIONS OPEN

Date: January 12, 2023 -

ONE MAJOR flat owner who likes to keep his trainers guessing is Kia Joorabchian of Amo Racing. The football club investor and tech entrepreneur upped his spending again last year, including buying the Michael O’Callaghan-trained Crypto Force for £900,000 at the Goffs London sale during the summer, and now has upwards of 100 horses in… Read more »

COMERS’ CHRISTMAS PLAN

Date: January 12, 2023 -

EIGHT YEARS after the Comer brothers, Luke and Brian, acquired the Kilternan sports and leisure complex in south Co Dublin for €7m – 96% less than the €171m spent on the site by the late Hugh O’Regan – a planning application has been submitted to help regularise development that has taken place at the so-called… Read more »

AN ENEMY OF THE CROWN – DAVID BURKE, MERCIER

Date: January 12, 2023 -

DAVID BURKE’S An Enemy of the Crown provides essential reading on British disinformation and smears, bringing readers up to speed on what is sometimes referred to as the ‘seamier side’ of the conflict in the north. The term implies that sleaze was peripheral to the hostilities and mainstream political activities. In fact, it is central… Read more »

MOLTEN VENTURES INVESTMENTS EXPOSED TO THE DAYLIGHT

Date: January 12, 2023 -

IT IS far from obvious just what has gone wrong at Molten Ventures, the investment fund previously known as Draper Esprit. What is clear, however, is that on foot of certain fundraising exercises a number of the company’s investments are awfully less valuable than shareholders may have suspected. This has been bad news for the… Read more »

CAN FD TECHNOLOGIES DELIVER ITS SECOND ACT?

Date: January 12, 2023 -

NEWRY WOULD not be known to most people for its prominence in the high-finance technology sector, courtesy of Brian Colon, who developed what is the world’s biggest financial derivatives software house in his home town. From nothing, Conlon managed to grow a phenomenally successful business resulting in the first Newry ‘unicorn’, with his First Derivative… Read more »

JOHN MAGNIER’S BEDROOMS

Date: January 12, 2023 -

WHILE MONEYBAGS John Magnier has tended to be seen as something of a deity in south Co Tipperary, where he has been splashing the cash for decades, the locals in part of the county also have a particular soft spot for the Rock of Cashel. While the businessman has attracted plenty of praise for his… Read more »

WILL PRENDERGAST’S PREDICTIONS

Date: January 12, 2023 -

AFTER TWO years in situ as a director on Advisable.com, venture capitalist and member of the Society of Kauffman Fellows Will Prendergast has stepped down from the board. Having recently divined that the investment market is in a tricky spot at the moment, he may be taking time out to plan for the next chapter…. Read more »

RICK EARLEY’S LATEST SETBACK

Date: January 12, 2023 -

A LOW-PROFILE Co Longford company called Profill Ltd was wound up immediately before Christmas. Having started life as a mattress manufacturer in Tralee with a different name and under different ownership, Profill ended up going into liquidation having managed to build up millions of euro in losses. The main player here is Dún Laoghaire-based Rick… Read more »

DESMOND BOUNCES BACK

Date: January 12, 2023 -

ACCOUNTS HAVE just been filed by LN-Gaiety Holdings Ltd (LNGH), the joint venture between loaded concert promoter Denis Desmond and the Live Nation behemoth. It is clear that, post-pandemic, business is well and truly back on track. LNGH is owned by the London-headquartered Live Nation and Desmond’s Dublin-registered Gaiety Investments Unlimited, where the other director… Read more »

WINDHOIST HOISTED

Date: January 12, 2023 -

THE WEEK before Christmas, a business involved in providing services to wind farms – Windhoist Ireland Ltd (WIL) – was wound up by the High Court on foot of a petition from the directors, following the liquidation of its UK-registered parent company. It turns out that the collapse came as quite a shock to all… Read more »

NEW REGIME IN ROSSLARE

Date: January 12, 2023 -

DESPITE THE hectic social calendars of members of Rosslare Golf Club, they somehow found time to squeeze in an extraordinary general meeting on December 27 to install a new chairman. This last-minute action was required as a result of the unusual outcome of its annual general meeting a couple of weeks earlier, when the incumbent… Read more »

KISS AND TELL?

Date: December 15, 2022 -

THE MEDIA handling of that video showing incoming Taoiseach Leo Varadkar kissing a man in a nightclub combined a mixture of fear, ethical simplicity and conservatism. But in the end, forward-looking Mammon triumphed and the story was published, ironically, in two Sunday newspapers — the Sunday Independent and the Irish edition of the Sunday Times… Read more »

PROFILE: MALACHY STEENSON

Date: December 15, 2022 -

TO SOME, Malachy Steenson is a political buffoon who careers around Dublin’s north inner city posturing as a modern James Connolly and other republican icons while crashing and burning at various elections over the years. To others, he is the real deal – a self-educated, working-class hero who stands up for his community. Right now… Read more »