Villager - Village Magazine

 —  March - April 2012

Browne-nosing

Dermot Desmond has been pursuing Vincent

Browne for years about libel.

A testosterone-fuelled action was settled in

the High Court in  over an article written

by Browne’s favourite journalist, Ursula Halligan,

now of TV, in Magill in January , when

Browne was editor.

As part of the settlement, an apology was read

out: “Insofar as the article concerned gives rise to

the inference or innuendo that Dermot Desmond

and/or NCB were the beneﬁciaries of contracts

awarded to NCB by the State as a direct result of,

or in consideration, alleged payments made by

Dermot Desmond to Charles J Haughey, this is

regretted by Vincent Browne”.

Browne accepted the contracts were awarded

on merit and that the oﬀending statements

should not be repeated.

Desmond also threatened to sue over an arti-

cle written in Village in  by Browne and

Justine McCarthy “essentially inferring that I

did not do my job properly as Chairman of Aer

Rianta; that I did a favour for Ciaran Haughey

and indirectly Charlie Haughey” and “insultingly”

claiming Haughey felt Desmond neglected him

socially in the years before his death.

All a far cry from  years ago when Browne’s

tenure as editor of the Sunday Tribune

was terminated by another

Alpha plus, Tony Ryan, of

GPA and then Ryanair:

Dermot Desmond appar-

ently expressly called the

Tribune to make it clear he

would not be placing any

advertising, in sympathy with

our dislodged hero.

Doubtless Desmond believes

Browne has oﬀended, though

there does seem to be an element of

keeping Browne on his toes since the

aﬀair has dragged out into a third

decade. And Vincent does have

a history of Alpha Men getting

on his wick. Villager believes

that all these Titans actually love each other,

though they have the usual diﬃculties express-

ing their manly feelings. Villager is on hand for

mediation as required.

Anyway, before Christmas, Browne, Justine

McCarthy and Desmond were ‘seen dining’

together in Shanahan’s of the Green, Dublin’s

most expensive restaurant. What could they have

been talking about?

Under-audited Red Cross

The Dáil Committee of Public Accounts is con-

templating inviting Village hero, Noel Wardick,

to contradict evidence it heard from the Irish

Red Cross (IRC), led by former AIB Ireland MD,

Dónal Forde. Wardick claims the IRC’s Central

Council members should rotate and that funds

for the Haiti appeal in  were misallocated.

He is scathing of the IRC’s failure to audit its

branches.

Gorgeous genius

Farewell then Aengus Fanning. According to eight

of your colleagues writing at length in your news-

paper you were a genius not just at editing but at

cricket, jazz and family, and you had, according to

Barry Egan, “ﬁlm-star good looks”. You were, said

Anthony Cronin, “untouched by the corrupting

forces of Irish journalism. Which are cynicism and

its obverse, sentimentality”. It was left to clumsy

Geraldine Kennedy to tell Marian Finucane that

she didn’t like what he’d done to journalism. The

Sindo under Fanning was a clever product, which

often showed up some of its more worthy compet-

itors in the quality of its investigation as well as

in the ambition of some of its analysis, including

cultural analysis. But it got Irish readers used to

women gratuitously taking bits of their kit oﬀ; and

it promoted some evil views and campaigns, such

as the one seeking reductions in stamp duty. One

Sindo journalist told Villager polymath Fanning

was a bollix and always called him Jim (which is

not even his name). Still, good luck to his griev-

ing widow, Anne Harris (who comes th in our

Inﬂuential List), one of the shrewdest in the busi-

ness, who succeeds him.

Labour Dialectic – Higgins v Howlin

Villager was always sceptical about the pas-

sion and ideologies of anyone who’d surrender

themselves to the high but inert oﬃce of Ceann

Comhairle or even, as in the case of Brendan

Howlin (-), Leas Ceann Comhairle.

Anyway, the incumbent Labour Minister for

Public Expenditure has just announced the assets

the Government has identiﬁed for disposal, as

demanded by the EU-IMF troika. Bord Gáis’s

energy business and some of the ESB’s “non-

strategic power generation capacity” will be

sold. Consideration will be given to the sale of

some assets of Coillte – excluding land – and of

the State’s remaining  per cent stake in Aer

Lingus.

Contrast this with our increasingly conﬁ-

dent and occasionally subversive new President

who, in a recent address to the London School

of Economics, quoted Richard Powell as follows:

“Privatisation is the road back to autocracy, in

which a hollowed-out state is bereft of anything

meaningful to attract the support of the citizen

– especially the marginalised, excluded from the

mainstream of society”. Former Labour stal-

wart Michael D, if we can still call him that, later

claimed that: “to walk away from the State would

be a tragic error on the part of those who seek an

emancipatory transformation in our societies”.

Higgins also has a recurring bee in his bonnet

about our underperforming “intellectuals”, who-

ever they are.

Níos Mó

Replying to Kevin Humphreys in the Dáil,

Minister Jimmy Deenihan revealed a wide

range of remuneration and expenses for agen-

cies funded by his Department of Arts, Heritage

and the Gaeltacht – with the Chester Beatty

Library and National Archives advisory board

claiming no remuneration; the NCH and IMMA

claiming €,  for their chair and nothing

for board members; other established agencies

like the National Gallery, National Museum, Arts

Council and Film Board claiming €,  for

their chair and €, for board members; and

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