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UNIONIST MINORITY VETO?

Date: October 19, 2022 -

It’s now universally accepted that the British don’t keep treaties and certainly not the parts that don’t suit any incoming government, like the Conservatives in 2010. This dishonourable behaviour isn’t new: Britain wasn’t known as ‘perfidious Albion’ for nothing. In the 1950s Charles De Gaulle… Read more »

FIANNA FÁIL MARCH ON DUBLIN

Date: October 19, 2022 -

MICHEÁL MARTIN has hit on a devilishly clever plan to boost Fianna Fáil’s alarmingly low support base in Dublin, with its recent ard fheis confirming poll ratings and other evidence that the party is at a low ebb in the capital city. The statistics revealed by the vote for the national committee showed that, of… Read more »

MARY, MARY AGAIN CONTRARY?

Date: October 19, 2022 -

MARY HANAFIN may be poised to perform a political Lazarus act and attempt a return in Dún Laoghaire at the next general election, according to alarming (for Fianna Fáil leader Taoiseach Micheál Martin and perhaps sitting TD Cormac Devlin) reports from Kingstown. It had been assumed that Hanafin’s long, mostly successful and highly individualistic political… Read more »

TIMMY DOOLEY’S HEALTH WARNING

Date: October 19, 2022 -

THAT MOST persecuted section of society, senior HSE managers, were ambushed by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael backbench TDs last June, according to a recent Sunday Independent report. A brief meeting about waiting lists and hospital emergency departments in the Limerick area went ahead last summer with senior HSE managers and health minister Stephen Donnelly… Read more »

DEIRDRE OF THE SORROWS

Date: October 19, 2022 -

IS COUNCILLOR Deirdre Conroy some sort of political masochist? As a Fianna Fáil by-election candidate in Dublin Bay South (DBS) last year, Conroy managed to pull in 4.6% of the first-preference vote in a disastrous campaign. It is hard to say whether the party nationally, leader Micheál Martin or local TD and leadership challenger Jim… Read more »

‘SUNDAY TIMES’ CULTURE CULL

Date: October 19, 2022 -

SOMETHING OF a cultural counter-revolution is happening at the Irish edition of the Sunday Times, where new staff to replace the allegedly over-paid literati are moving into the positions recently made vacant by a ruthless purge. Take the new deputy editor, Demelza de Burca, who takes over from the urbane, cosmopolitan No 2, John Burns…. Read more »

PLUGGING STEPHEN COLLINS

Date: October 19, 2022 -

HOPEFULLY PUBLIC ennui with Brexit will not diminish sales of the recently published book, Ireland’s Call: Navigating Brexit, by Irish Times columnist and former political editor Stephen Collins. The newspaper appears to be taking no chances and found several reasons in one week recently to plug the book by shoehorning it into stories three days… Read more »

WHO BOMBED NORD STREAM?

Date: October 19, 2022 -

Last month’s sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea was another godsend for the captains of the US gas industry who had surely thought things just couldn’t get any better after the outbreak of war in the Ukraine blew their profits sky high. The attack on the pipelines, which were due to… Read more »

OSSIAN SMYTH’S DATA ISLAND

Date: October 19, 2022 -

The CEPA energy security review commissioned by Eamon Ryan stresses the urgent need to reduce Ireland’s energy consumption and politely notes that data centres are the “main driver” as demand rapidly goes in the wrong direction. That’s one aspect of the review the Government seems certain to ignore. As data centres threaten our energy system… Read more »

BRENDAN’S BLING

Date: October 19, 2022 -

LAST MONTH Blanchardstown shopping centre got a taste of bling when cosmetics entrepreneur Brendan McDowell shipped in the 2022 Love Island bombshell winner, the suitably glamorous Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu, for the “grand opening” of his latest “mega store”. Although previously focused in the north, Bren’s remarkably profitable BPerfect operation has been expanding recently. The former Dragons’… Read more »

RACHEL FLYNN’S SWEET DEAL

Date: October 19, 2022 -

INTERESTING TO see a filing in the Companies Office showing that food investment firm BiaVest pumped €700,000 into former Vogue magazine digital marketing exec Rachel Flynn and hubby Brian Nolan’s vegan ice cream and chocolate operation, Nobó, in August this year. It had been reported back in March 2021 that BiaVest had bought into the… Read more »

JOHN EGAN’S APOLOGY

Date: October 19, 2022 -

VETERAN IRISH jockey John Egan has enjoyed something of a renaissance in his riding career over the past few seasons in Britain, where he has also been helping to mould the stellar career of his son and weigh room colleague, David Egan. John doesn’t appear to be mellowing as he ages, however, and he had… Read more »

O’CALLAGHAN’S CRYPTO LOSS

Date: October 19, 2022 -

TRAINING FOR Kia Joorabchian’s Amo Racing delivers access to some top-class horses but it also brings plenty of headaches when it comes to dealing with the boss’s erratic behaviour. Curragh trainer Michael O’Callaghan got the call this year to train some of Joorabchian’s expanding string and while it has, by and large, been a successful… Read more »

PHOTO FINISH FOR TITLE

Date: October 19, 2022 -

JOCKEY COLIN Keane started the flat season back in March as the heavy favourite to land his third champion title in a row but he clearly has a fight on his hands to keep rival Billy Lee at bay as the contest looks like going down to the wire. With only a handful of flat… Read more »

MAGNANIMOUS MAGNIER

Date: October 19, 2022 -

GIVEN THE focus on high inflation figures and the impact on the cost of living, it is unclear to some observers whether the amount of money being paid for flat yearlings during the sale season over the past month is reassuring or just plain bonkers. As the action moved from America to France to Ireland… Read more »

VIRGIN’S ‘VANISHING TRIANGLE’

Date: October 19, 2022 -

GIVEN THE popularity of the ‘true crime’ genre, including efforts “based on a true story”, it’s perhaps not surprising that the disappearances of some young women in Ireland’s so-called ‘vanishing triangle’ in the 1990s is getting the TV treatment for Virgin Media in Ireland in association with AMC’s Sundance platform in the US. Titled The… Read more »

CATHERINE MARTIN’S MUSEUM PIECES

Date: October 19, 2022 -

AFTER 15 months, arts minister Catherine Martin has finally got around to filling the vacancies on the board of the National Museum of Ireland (NMI), coincidentally during the Dublin Festival of History. Three of the new faces appointed on foot of an advert published in June are women, making the female-to-male breakdown 9:7 Possibly related… Read more »

HAVEN – EMMA DONOGHUE

Date: October 19, 2022 -

WHILE SHE has written successfully in many genres over the past 20 years, Emma Donoghue has repeatedly turned to historical fiction. Her latest novel is an imagined story about the first three monks to land on Skellig Michael in the early seventh century. This book is certainly not for everyone. After his pilgrimages in pagan… Read more »

END OF THE (PIPE) LINE FOR PETRONEFT?

Date: October 19, 2022 -

IN 2006 Denis Francis floated off Petroneft Resources, with its focus on exploring for oil in the Tomsk Oblast region of central Siberia. The company seemed to manage reasonably well after the war in Ukraine kicked off, but eight months on Petroneft looks banjaxed. This follows a move by Nord Imperial – the Russian transnational… Read more »

IMPRESSIVE DALATA RESULTS DON’T IMPRESS MARKET

Date: October 19, 2022 -

AFTER DALATA Hotel Group founder Pat McCann exited the company last year, the reins were handed over to Dermot Crowley. The market is starting to see the impact of the new man, with seriously impressive results turned in for the first half of 2022. The share price has not responded in kind, however, and there… Read more »

MIKE WEBSTER’S ‘BRIGHT FUTURE’

Date: October 19, 2022 -

THINGS CAN change pretty fast in the tourism business as Mike Webster, chief executive and founder of Killarney-headquartered hotel booking engine Arvoia, can surely attest. In April this year, a sponsored article in the local rag, the Killarney Advertiser, was headlined: “How Arvoia is changing the hospitality industry”. It concluded: “The future looks bright for… Read more »

PAUL HOWARD’S PAIN

Date: October 19, 2022 -

BETWEEN FORGETFUL politicians failing to declare rental income and the usual bleating before last month’s Budget 2023 about the ‘exodus’ of small, private landlords from the market, there has been no shortage of headlines about this most beleaguered group of enterprising service providers. One particularly beleaguered landlord – who has flown somewhat under the radar… Read more »

CLAYTON LOVE’S HAT-TRICK

Date: October 19, 2022 -

LAST WEEK’S liquidation of Piton Properties Ltd (PPL) represents the third strike for Cork merchant prince Clayton Love, Neill Love and Sarah Cronin. Earlier this year, Blackpool Developments Ltd was wound up, with Aidan Heffernan installed as liquidator. The company was behind Cork’s biggest retail complex, Blackpool Shopping Centre, as well as other projects, most… Read more »

FIONA MCHUGH’S DISAPPOINTING DISH

Date: October 19, 2022 -

FORMER SUNDAY TIMES editor Fiona McHugh continues to have unhappy experiences with her own businesses, with the liquidation of a Rathmines restaurant and bar her latest setback. McHugh was previously centrally involved with the Fallon & Byrne ‘food hall’ up the road in the Swan Centre, which shut its doors suddenly after Christmas 2019. Fiona… Read more »

ENDA WOODS’S ‘GLASS BOX’

Date: October 19, 2022 -

GOLDHAWK’S EYE was caught by an increasingly costly planning dispute in leafy Killiney between private equity titan Enda Woods of Signature Capital and a couple of his high-flying legal eagle neighbours. Woods has been busy over the last 15 years turning the old house, known as Coppins, on the Kilmore Avenue into the rechristened Villa… Read more »

VOL 40 NO 20

Date: October 6, 2022 -

MICHEÁL MARTIN’S NIMBYISM

Date: October 6, 2022 -

TAOISEACH Micheál Martin became a little tetchy last Sunday when Justin McCarthy of RTÉ’s This Week programme reminded him that he had described the housing crisis as “the single most important issue facing the country” and had also emphasised the need to speed up house builds. How then did the Fianna Fáil leader square this… Read more »

PROFILE: WILLIE MULLINS

Date: October 6, 2022 -

THERE ARE few personalities who have ever matched the dominance in Irish sport of the current number one national hunt trainer, Willie Mullins. His 15-year reign as champion jumps trainer renders him almost untouchable, although he has had his share of run-ins with the racing authorities. The ending last month of a high-profile stand-off with… Read more »

YOUNG BLOOD: PAUL MURPHY

Date: October 6, 2022 -

WHILE SINN Féin’s continuing increase in support is a source of horror and trepidation to the old established parties, spare a thought for the small groups on the far left. Will they be swept away by the SF tsunami or will they find a niche to get transfers from the bigger party? Among those contemplating… Read more »

BACIK’S NO-SHOW ON COST-OF-LIVING PLATFORM

Date: October 6, 2022 -

A RARE left-wing unity manifest itself recently with Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats, People Before Profit and left Independents as well as the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and others all participating in the Cost of Living Coalition (CLC) march against inflation. But the Labour Party’s aloof abstention from the coalition, the panel of speakers… Read more »

ANGELA SCANLON’S MANY HATS

Date: October 6, 2022 -

WITH A new season of Angela Scanlon’s Ask Me Anything returning to RTÉ, potential audience members have been asked to submit application forms. A question for the presenter might be, is there anything you think you can’t do. Angela Scanlon certainly has plenty of irons in the fire, including a jewellery business that she has… Read more »

MICHAEL D’S NEW YORK PALS

Date: October 6, 2022 -

TWO SIGNIFICANT twists in the ongoing saga of the attempt to sell off the prestigious American Irish Historical Society (AIHS) building in New York have created a dilemma for the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). Firstly, the death occurred of Kevin Cahill, the octogenarian tropical medicine specialist who has controlled the AIHS for decades and… Read more »

VARADKAR’S ‘BAD’ PRESS

Date: October 6, 2022 -

CLEARLY INTENT on hitting the ground running as he faces into his rightful place as taoiseach in two months’ time, Leo Varadkar must be concerned at the ongoing belligerence from Ireland editor of Mediahuis Fionnán Sheahan. Mediahuis publishes the Irish and Sunday Independent, the biggest-selling titles in the country, and Sheahan is effectively the group’s… Read more »

JOHN COLLISON’S PREDECESSORS

Date: October 6, 2022 -

THE ANNOUNCEMENT by John Collison that millions of euro are to be lashed out upgrading the derelict Millbrook House next to his impressive Abbeyleix House marks the latest chapter in the story of the property that was controversially acquired by Laois County Council a couple of years ago. Once part of the De Vesci estate,… Read more »

BARNIVILLE DEFENDS ‘PRIVATE’ JUDGES

Date: October 6, 2022 -

WITH IMPECCABLE timing, just as the first ever judicial misconduct complaints procedure is due, High Court president Mr Justice David Barniville proceeds to demonstrate – for the second time – that judges perceive themselves to be beyond criticism. The genial Barniville is regarded with much affection by his peers and he reciprocated this feeling in… Read more »

‘IRISH TIMES’ SAVES COVENEY’S BLUSHES

Date: October 6, 2022 -

INCORRIGIBLE JOURNALIST Sally Hayden recently spoiled one of those feel-good occasions so beloved by Irish ministers when they posture as benevolent, first-world statesmen comforting the afflicted. In particular Hayden, whose by-line is well-known globally and among observers of the Mediterranean refugee crisis of recent years, caused a diplomatic flutter for foreign and defence minister Simon… Read more »