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BILL SHIPSEY’S ART WORK

Date: September 22, 2022 -

IT WAS surprising to see former barrister Bill Shipsey caught in the crosshairs last week, when Amnesty International (AI) commenced legal proceedings against him linked to the work he has been doing to promote fundraising events linked to the charity’s work. The limited-by-guarantee company that was incorporated for the purpose in 2002, Art for Amnesty… Read more »

CLEVER TREVOR’S SPEAKERS

Date: September 22, 2022 -

INTERESTING TO see who is speaking at the upcoming ‘Icon’ series at the Little Museum of Dublin, where director Trevor White has signed up historians Patrick Geoghegan (sometimes speech writer for Leo Varadkar) and, surprisingly perhaps, Dr Mary McAuliffe, who specialises in Irish women’s history at UCD. Two of McAuliffe’s subjects for the lecture series… Read more »

VOL 40 NO 19

Date: September 22, 2022 -

LIZ TRUSS’S ‘ETHICAL’ SPYMASTER

Date: September 22, 2022 -

British teasock Liz Truss appears determined to maintain his majesty’s ship of state on a collision course with the EU. If she hopes to grab any sort of a Brexit victory from the jaws of another Euro mauling, she is going to need the full support of the cloak-and-dagger merchants at MI6. The chief of… Read more »

KING CHARLES AND THE IRISH

Date: September 22, 2022 -

THE MEDIA seemed to be competing with their British counterparts when it came to recording the devotion of the British royals’ would-be subjects in this part of the world over the last fortnight. But often it’s what is omitted rather than what is said that reveals the benevolent and civilising effect that the media tries… Read more »

SHE LOVED US, SHE LOVED US NOT

Date: September 22, 2022 -

YOU HAVE to hand it to the late Queen Elizabeth, whose act in coming over all friendly toward Ireland in recent years was consummate, due largely to her usual willingness to dutifully support her government’s policy (in this case, the Good Friday Agreement). As if a general order had gone out to the media, they… Read more »

GERRY O’BRIEN’S BUDGET PLOT

Date: September 22, 2022 -

IN A flurry of recent social media publicity on Facebook and Instagram, Gerry O’Brien, the president of the Irish Equity actors and performers union, has upped the ante in his dealings with the Government over the treatment of Irish performers, whose precarious situation suits the Irish production companies that avail of the generous Section 481… Read more »

IRELAND COMPLICIT IN MALI COUP?

Date: September 22, 2022 -

IRISHMAN Rory Keane has risen to become head of the Brussels-based United Nations Liaison Office for Peace, which exists to improve UN co-operation with the EU, Nato and other multilateral organisations. A recent presentation by Keane to a European Parliament sub-committee says much about Irish foreign policy in the dangerous, Sahel region of Africa, including… Read more »

THE HOT AIR BRIGADE

Date: September 22, 2022 -

We know her as an actor, writer, Instagram hoot, witty Tweeter, other half of rugby legend Brian O’Driscoll, mother of three, host of Mamia & Me, a podcast on the adventure of parenting, and all-round gas ticket. Elle Gordon on Amy Huberman, RTÉ Guide We will continue to provide our customers with the services they… Read more »

SINN FÉIN COURTIERS RULE OK?

Date: September 22, 2022 -

MARY LOU McDonald was surely correct when she told Virgin Media’s The Tonight Show that she was “absolutely not” worried about risking the confidence of Sinn Féin voters by expressing condolences on the death of Queen Elizabeth. As she said, the world has moved on a lot in a quarter of a century of a… Read more »

HAS FF TURNED A CORNER?

Date: September 22, 2022 -

FIANNA FÁIL ministers and TDs – and not just Micheál Martin loyalists – will be heartened to see the two most recent poll results, which show the party’s constant trailing behind Fine Gael since the general election in February 2020 seems to have gone into reverse – perhaps. The latest poll results from the highly… Read more »

MARTIN’S SHARED FUTURE

Date: September 22, 2022 -

FIANNA FÁIL’S ard fheis next weekend is just one of several meetings that could affect Micheál Martin’s future as party leader. A large rally is expected on the same weekend, with the 3Arena booked on Saturday 1 October for a rally that the organisation Ireland’s Future hopes will rival Martin’s party event (see profile pgs… Read more »

‘IRISH TIMES’ RUNS FROM ESB

Date: September 22, 2022 -

THE ESB got both barrels in a recent Sunday Independent article about the “Georgian pastiche façade” to its former HQ, which was derided as an “elaborate cloak for a shameful property play that will cause lasting damage to Georgian Dublin”. The article is not typical editorial fare for the Sindo and neither is its author,… Read more »

JUSTINE MCCARTHY’S NEW GIG

Date: September 22, 2022 -

McCarthy has fared rather better than some of her journalist colleagues at Murdoch’s Aawrish edition of the newspaper and has landed on her feet with a weekly column at the Irish Times. The latter’s stable of writers badly needs someone that is not Eoghan Harris lite, young Tory, liberal unionist or a pale imitation of… Read more »

‘IT’ EDITORIAL FACTIONS

Date: September 22, 2022 -

THE EDITORIAL view of some journalists at the Irish Times is that the newspaper is conventional (ie right-wing), overtly pro-business, partitionist and old fashioned, and the next editor should revert to something that reflects the new, younger Ireland. This would mean appointing someone like assistant editor Ruadhán Mac Cormaic, public affairs editor Simon Carswell or… Read more »

LIZ TRUSS’S FOSSIL FUEL FRIENDS

Date: September 22, 2022 -

LIZ TRUSS didn’t waste much time in coming good for the fossil fuel donors who helped fund her Tory leadership campaign. Two days after being installed as prime minister by the late monarch Elizabeth, the younger Liz reversed the moratorium on fracking in Britain. But what will the ascendancyof Liz Truss mean for fracking in… Read more »

NET ZERO BIG ZERO

Date: September 22, 2022 -

OIL GIANT Shell’s much-advertised commitment to a pathway to “net zero” emissions actually “has nothing to do with our business plans”, according to an internal company memo from 2020, one of hundreds of thousands of files obtained under subpoena by a US congressional committee investigating the fossil fuel industry’s decades-long efforts to mislead the world… Read more »

BEN DUNNE’S SHRINKING COLLECTION

Date: September 22, 2022 -

CONGRATULATIONS TO the wily James Gormley et al at Gormley’s Fine Art on Dublin’s South Frederick Street, the boys scored quite the coup by landing the gig for the sale of Ben and Mary Dunne’s collection of 39 paintings, carrying an optimistic-looking €10m valuation. The exhibition and sale at the South Frederick Street gallery close… Read more »

ASH QUINN MOVES ON

Date: September 22, 2022 -

INTERESTING TO see the Sunday Times reporting on a move by glamorous Ash Quinn, daughter of footballer-turned-businessman Niall, to become a senior exec at Rónán Ó Dálaigh’s Thriftnifty online charity shopping business. Until now, Ash Quinn has been running online retail operation MoShoppa, where she is also a shareholder, along with daddy and assorted investors… Read more »

DAVID MURRAY’S TWO HOUSES

Date: September 22, 2022 -

THERE WAS a predictably glowing profile in the Irish Times last week of Ingleside, a large five-bedroom house on the corner of Brennanstown Road and Glenamuck Road in south County Dublin, which has been placed on the market with the price tag of almost €4m. Significantly, the wily owners – who turn out to be… Read more »

NCAD’S CHAIR

Date: September 22, 2022 -

THIS WEEK sees the election of a new chair of the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), following the recent vacancy on the board left by the retirement of chairman Richard Thorn (ex-president of Sligo IT). Earlier this year, higher education minister Simon Harris advertised for expressions of interest in serving on the college’s… Read more »

SONGWRITERS’ SWAN SONG

Date: September 22, 2022 -

THE FINAL creditors’ meeting has been held by the liquidator of the Irish Association of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (IASCA), which was set up in 2011 “to foster a community of songwriters, composers and authors and to lobby and campaign on their behalf”. Not surprisingly, the cupboard was pretty bare. Singer Cathy Davey was in… Read more »

NO WORRIES IF NOT! – RTÉ2

Date: September 22, 2022 -

BATTLE-SCARRED survivors of RTÉ’s comedy output will have felt a cold shiver at the pitch for No Worries If Not!, which promised “quirky characters and off-the-wall sketches” featuring online “stars”. It follows the national broadcaster’s now-customary template for developing new comedy – machine-gunning commissions to comics with a half-decent social media following in the increasingly… Read more »

THE NIGHT INTERNS – AUSTIN DUFFY

Date: September 22, 2022 -

THE DUNDALK author’s debut novel, This Living and Immortal Thing (2016), featured an Irish cancer researcher in a New York medical centre. Austin Duffy (who also works as an oncologist) returns to a similar setting in his latest book, The Night Interns. This short but compelling sketch follows the experiences of three permanently exhausted interns… Read more »

JP’S ROUGH RIDE

Date: September 22, 2022 -

JP MCMANUS may well be the self-appointed patron saint of Irish racing courtesy of the millions he spends every year on training fees and buying horses. That status, however, does not grant him immunity from the watchful eyes of the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board stewards and the Geneva-based zillionaire might be feeling rather aggrieved over… Read more »

HUSBANDS’S HANDICAP

Date: September 22, 2022 -

IRISH CHAMPIONS Weekend may have been a success from a racing point of view, with top-quality action over the two days at Leopardstown and the Curragh, but the event is still not delivering the kind of attendance numbers that it should. Just over 10,000 punters went through the turnstiles at Leopardstown on a sunny afternoon… Read more »

EMPTY SADDLE AT AIR

Date: September 22, 2022 -

ANOTHER SENIOR racing administrator has announced that he is to dismount. Paddy Walsh, chief executive of the Association of Irish Racecourses (AIR), has signalled his intention to call it a day in March next year, after 20 years in the saddle. Although due for retirement in November, Walsh is to stay on to oversee some… Read more »

O’LEARY SHAKING UP OWNERS’ CONTEST

Date: September 22, 2022 -

AS HE does every year, Michael O’Leary offloaded a good few of his lesser-performing horses at a Goffs UK sale recently. The Ryanair supremo netted around €400,000 when he bade farewell to some loyal servants, such as Grade 1 winners Battleoverdoyen, Notebook, Hardline and Felix Desjy. While this approach is consistent with the announced plan… Read more »

MANIFOLD’S GLOBAL CRH STRATEGY DERAILED

Date: September 22, 2022 -

ALBERT MANIFOLD took the top job at CRH in January 2014, having joined the firm as a 36-year-old accountant back in 1998. Despite being immersed in the company culture, he brought a new strategic vision to CRH, focusing on its core competencies on the heavy side of the construction industry – in particular cement, aggregates… Read more »

KIBO ENERGY SHARE COLLAPSE LOOKS OVERDONE

Date: September 22, 2022 -

GALWAY-BASED Kibo Energy was founded 14 years ago by Irish geologist Noel O’Keeffe. There have been a number of developments since then, with complete shifts in sectoral focus ensuring investors got the jitters. Today, the shares are friendless but there are some interesting projects in here. Capitalised at just £5m, Kibo could prove tempting to… Read more »

DORIAN’S GREY DAY

Date: September 22, 2022 -

A CREDITORS’ meeting will be held next week to oversee the winding up of a Donnybrook, D4 restaurant/wine bar business that shut its doors after just a few months of trading. Dorian was a collaboration between Matthew Farrell, who founded Diep Le Shaker, and his daughter, Samantha, alongside Ray Power of Centric Health and “international… Read more »

BARRY O’CALLAGHAN’S HOSPITALITY

Date: September 22, 2022 -

IT’S BEEN a busy few months in Waterford for tech moneybags Barry O’Callaghan, where he’s been ringing the changes at his swanky Cliff House Hotel in Ardmore. Baz is planning to add more rooms to the hotel and also double the use of the posh restaurant, but that expansion project, inevitably, got wrapped up in… Read more »

KEATING’S CREDITORS

Date: September 22, 2022 -

DOCUMENTS FILED by joint liquidators Kieran Wallace and Andrew O’Leary reveal that the hapless unsecured creditors were owed a whopping €18m when Clare construction/civil engineering operation L&M Keating Ltd was wound up last year. Fans of Goldhawk will recall (see The Phoenix 12/2/21) that the Clare-headquartered engineering outfit collapsed into liquidation four months after a… Read more »

NIALL QUINN’S SHOPPING LIST

Date: September 22, 2022 -

AS NOTED elsewhere (see p18), Ash Quinn, the daughter of former Irish international striker Niall Quinn, has moved on from her chief executive role at online retail operation MoShoppa. Whoever takes the reins next will find they have rather a lot on their plate, with heavy losses having been built up at the parent company…. Read more »

UKRAINIAN SILVER LINING

Date: September 8, 2022 -

WITH AROUND 50,000 Ukrainian refugees now in Ireland, accommodating them has obviously caused some headaches. What is interesting, however, is that millions of euro continues to be allocated to some very familiar names without any formal tendering process taking place. Under EU rules, the State has to publish a list of contracts signed off each… Read more »

PROFILE: EAMON MARTIN

Date: September 8, 2022 -

AGED 61 with already a decade of donning the purple behind him and 15 years to go before his retirement in 2037, Eamon Martin is likely to go down in history as the first Roman Catholic primate of all Ireland since partition to actually hold office in a reunified Ireland. Yet, he might also go… Read more »