No Catholics or bastards please, we’re British Villager despises royalty, as anyone who believes in equality, merit or good taste, must. Interesting though that new-born Prince whatsit will come in fifth in line to the “throne”. Time was the new “Prince” would have been advanced to it over his older sister (Princess whatsit), as a male. The Bill of Rights 1689 and the act of settlement 1701, restrict succession to the legitimate Protestant descendants of Sophia of Hanover, of which there are over 5000, who are in “communion with the Church of England”. Spouses of Roman Catholics were disqualified from 1689 until the law was amended in 2015. The succession to the Crown Act 2013 leaves succession to the Crown no longer dependent on gender for lucky heirs born after 28 october 2011. With such incremental progress it will only be a few aeons now before the monarchy passes for democratic. INMajor trouble 23 years ago Vincent Browne got €90,000 in a private settlement with the state because the Garda tapped his phone over an eight-year period in part believing he was talking to IRA leaders for Magill Magazine. a decade earlier journalists Geraldine Kennedy and Bruce arnold were awarded £20,000 in the high court after their phones were tapped for a short period, for absolutely no reason. So how much will the around 200 lucky victims of Leslie Buckley’s version of phone-tapping – data breach – collect? INM has a cash pile of €90m but a stock-market value of only €110.9 million valuing INM in effect at less than €20 million, plus the cash. The problem is that 200 complaints of data breaches could easily hoover up most of that sum. O’Brien has spent €500m building up his stake, partly to show the O’Reilly family what good management looked like and er partly to boost his popularity, but his holding is now worth only €33m and shares are down 40% over the last year. This is an investment even worse, though not nearly as predictably so, as one in Village Magazine over the last decade. STabbing the competition On 22 april The Sunday Times (Irish edition) unkindly editorialised that the INM group was leaking selective extracts from the 240-page affidavit of the ODCE on which it has grounded its application for the appointment of high court inspectors who would examine various allegations against the media group and its former chairman, leslie Buckley. In particular, The Sunday Times claimed that INM was strangely silent on the allegations leaked from the affidavit that the largest shareholder, Denis O’Brien, had access to sensitive commercial information, courtesy of communications minister, Denis Naughten, before other shareholders. But ironically The Sunday Times is part of the Rupert Murdoch stable, news International, which was forced to close down its News of the World brand in 2011 in the light of damning revelations that some of its senior editorial staff had condoned the widespread tapping of phones and other criminal offences. At one point former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, soon after his inelegant departure from office in 2008 amid evidence of financial wrongdoing, graced a TV advertisement for the News of the World from inside a kitchen cupboard, his most ignominious television appearance until the recent Tim Sebastian interview. The Sunday Times was famously less than wholehearted in pursuing the politician for failing to account for over £200,000 unexplained in various bank accounts while he was Minister for Finance in the 1980s. ahern cultivated Murdoch whose sky division famously obtained rights to cover the Ryder cup in Ireland under Bertie’s premiership. Equally intriguing is the insistence by O’Brien that the leaks to INM from the affidavit came from the ODCE rather than from the copy provided to the newspaper organisation in which he is the largest, though – significantly – non-controlling, shareholder. The leaks came from people close to the non- O’Brien wing of INM. Radio Caroline ended party early Chris Donoghue, Niall O’Connor and Ed Carty have joined the ranks of independent journalists who now advise government. Government Press advisor Nick Miller once toiled for regional titles such as the Kerryman, Tullamore Tribune and Evening Echo. Now the one-time series producer of RTÉ’s ‘The Sunday Game’, and regular voice of ‘It says In The Papers’ on ‘Morning Ireland’, Caroline Murphy, has become press advisor to Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan. She is of course married to Sean O’Rourke, presenter of RTÉ Radio 1’s flagship current affairs programme, the ‘Today show’. The formidable Murphy described some years ago to the Irish Times how she fell for the uncontroversial presenter: “We met around 1983, when I had a singles BBQ in a house I’d bought in Killiney: everyone invited had to bring a friend of the same sex and Fintan Drury (later chairman of the RTÉ authority who resigned because of a conflict of interest over rights to cover the Ryder cup) brought Seán. He was still there with Fintan at 2am when I threw them out – Seán was shocked. I couldn’t believe anyone would think it wasn’t my right to say the party’s over”. Murphy told the Irish Independent her work at the national broadcaster has been “marginal” in recent years. Neutering neutrality Cosying up to NATO is now de rigueur inside ‘modern’ Fine Gael. Four of the party’s MEPs, Seán Kelly, Brian Hayes, Deirdre Clune and Máiread McGuinness, advocate a policy which would see us dilute neutrality by falling in line with deepening EU military co-operation. In a statement issued to accompany the launch of a discussion paper ‘Ireland and the EU: Defending our common european home’, by Brian Hayes on 9 March, the MEPs stated, “We want to make it clear that we do not support the creation of an EU army. However, Ireland can do so much more in collaboration with our EU partners in the area of security and defence”. These MEPs have not gone off on a frolic of their own volition. This is now FG and Varadkar’s euro-military policy. Ironically, the Taoiseach is known to
