Ireland's political and cultural magazine
1. The Classified Garda Files. The information provided by the brothers, John and Pat Barry, confirms that the Garda (Irish police) had a checkpoint at the gate of Classiebawn castle in August 1977. Garda security appears – by some accounts – to have been downgraded in 1979, shortly before Mountbatten was murdered by the Provisional […]
Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar has come to be known as a leaker. The hashtag #leotheleak has trended on Twitter on several occasions after Varadkar was accused of publishing things he shouldn’t. That Leo leaks however hasn’t yet been proven—or become a political liability for the tánaiste. That may change with evidence from a healthcare whistleblower that Varadkar, while taoiseach, leaked a confidential document to a personal associate.
INTRODUCTION Last December Taoiseach Leo Varadkar had to slap down Priti Patel MP, who now serves as Britain’s Home Secretary, when she threatened the Republic with food shortages if the Irish Government did not drop demands for the Irish backstop. Varadkar reminded Patel of the starvation that had engulfed Ireland in the 19th century and […]
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With the new Dáil term beginning today, any new post-election alignment could be terminal for Micheál Martin’s leadership.
Leo puts the reputational cart before the horse; “affordable” housing in Dalkey; and no change in Ireland’s quality of water – news miscellany from the latest issue.
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Brzezinski was part of a triumvirate of Western powerbrokers whose malign influence has scorched the Earth for more than 50 years. One of his confreres, David Rockefeller, died last March aged 101. Now, only the third member of the coven, Henry Kissinger, is left to serve the interests of the billionaires and trillionaires of Wall Street and NATO. When Kissinger goes, their combined legacy will be plain to see: a mountain of twisted and broken skeletons.
As a younger, and perhaps wiser, Leo Varadkar once said: there is no messiah who will lead Fine Gael from the desert into the promised land. This did not prevent him from presenting a decidedly messianic image as he posed for the cameras following his decisive victory in the party’s leadership contest on 2 June. Since then […]
Pádraig Ó Ríordáin, a partner with Arthur Cox solicitors, is recent governments’ go-to lawyer for finance and now aviation. After a seven-month search by Fine Gael’s scrupulous Minister for Transport, Leo Varadkar, the appointment, over the becalmed Christmas period, of high-flyer Pádraig Ó Ríordáin to the role of chairman of the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) […]
Bertie Ahern topped the Village web poll of who was most responsible for the recession, beating Brian Cowen, George W Bush and “people like you”. He got 58% of the vote.