From handbags at dawn to the Kanturk Disaster: the campaign’s highs, lows, and outright clangers Miriam Lord: From the grand entrance of a baby girl for Holly Cairns to slagging off teachers and annoying the RSA, the 2024 campaign had its share of highlightsSat Nov 30 2024 - 06:00
Mary Lou gives a lesson in cavassing in CarlowSinn Féin leader’s ‘chatty’ campaign trail style a world away from Dáil barbsThu Nov 28 2024 - 06:00
Miriam Lord’s debate rankings: Did Harris get a shot at redemption? Did Martin or McDonald land a knockout blow?General election: Harris needed shot at redemption while other two just needed to get themselves noticed in RTÉ debate which covered a crowded list of topicsWed Nov 27 2024 - 06:53
The tears came from an unexpected quarter. Conor McGregor, holding his mother’s hand, gulping for air and cryingOver the two week hearing the events of that day in December 2018 were laid bare in the most raw and humiliating detail for Nikita HandSat Nov 23 2024 - 06:00
Usual hams hogging most of the limelight: Miriam Lord’s election debate leaders’ ratings Debate meandered for over two hours with the Simon and Micheál tag-team combining to stick it to the Shinners and anyone else who threatened to wreck their brotherly buzzTue Nov 19 2024 - 07:11
‘I mean, the cheek of him!’: Miriam Lord boards Blueshirt One with Simon HarrisPaschal tells the faithful ‘our economy is currently in a great place’Mon Nov 18 2024 - 06:00
Joy is a word Conor McGregor returns to again and again. Nikita Hand paints a much darker pictureMixed martial arts fighter fondly remembers bedroom encounter on second day in the witness boxThu Nov 14 2024 - 22:14
Conor McGregor stuns High Court onlookers with evidence about night of alleged sexual assault Mixed martial arts fighter begins evidence with graphic account of events on night Nikita Hand alleges she was sexually assaulted by McGregor and another manWed Nov 13 2024 - 22:21
Green Party prepared to grit teeth and re-enter coalition with new-found foesElection 2024: Serving with tormentors; buses for bingo and pints; political deal-breakers and ... baby on the wayWed Nov 13 2024 - 06:00
Fine Gael breaks unspoken ‘don’t frighten the horses’ campaign ruleIt was like a Mills and Boon break-up as political singletons Simon Harris and Micheál Martin and others battled it out for the public’s affectionTue Nov 12 2024 - 06:00
RIP FF-FG-Green Coalition, 2020-2024 - Miriam Lord’s look back at the GovernmentThree taoisigh, five budgets and a global pandemic: in unprecedented times it was a government like no otherSat Nov 09 2024 - 06:00
Mischievous Micheál cheekily grabs the GE24 champagne bottle from under Simon’s noseSimon Harris changes his tie to green as he and Micheál Martin wrestle with the champagne bottle to launch Election ‘24Thu Nov 07 2024 - 06:00
‘You’re a disgrace’: Dáil air turns blue after Danny Healy-Rae gets personal with Paul MurphyGed Nash gets the boot even before a vote is cast as chamber hears plenty unparliamentary languageTue Nov 05 2024 - 21:52
Miriam Lord’s week: Fine Gael’s mortifyingly cheesy general election videos hit Rock bottomNoel Rock appreciation video sees Paschal Donohoe gush there is now ‘only one Rock in my life’ as the Dwayne Johnson fan praises his FG colleagueSat Oct 26 2024 - 06:00
Healy-Raes stuck in a cycle of bike shed remarks – enough to make Ivana Bacik fly off the chainIt’s dog eat dog for parking spaces every Tuesday at the OireachtasThu Oct 24 2024 - 06:41
Sting is gone from the Dáil exchanges as they wait for Harris to fire the starting gun Mary Lou McDonald does not have a GUBU moment but a FUSA moment - a ‘Full, Unequivocal, Sincere Apology’Wed Oct 23 2024 - 06:00
Agent Cobalt slips off the radar as the truth comes dropping slow from Sinn FéinTaoiseach and his wife celebrate his birthday by going to see the musical Hamilton, which contains the perfect chorus for a young and hungry leader on the brink of his first general electionSat Oct 19 2024 - 06:00
Ireland is transfixed by the disappearance of a giant of the Golden Age of Sinn FéinBrian Stanley has gone missing in the political undergrowth, despite noble efforts to find him by media search partiesThu Oct 17 2024 - 06:00
Mary Lou lauds Sinn Féin’s peerless HR procedures as scandals mountSo why is Mary Lou announcing ‘a complete overhaul’ of these same governance procedures? An abundance of caution or an abundance of caught-out?Wed Oct 16 2024 - 06:00
Miriam Lord’s Week: Fine Gael’s poster boys undercut party message on timing of electionThe temperature is rising in Leinster House: telltale signs of a late November election are mounting, despite the denialsSat Oct 12 2024 - 06:00
Miriam Lord: Spy hunt has Senators laughing their heads off on Day of the CackleRightly or wrongly, one name was on everyone’s lipsThu Oct 10 2024 - 06:00
‘Agent Cobalt’ fills role of Banquo’s ghost as Oireachtas amuses itselfDeputies and senators address each other as ‘comrade’ in corridors as speculation continues about Oireachtas member allegedly recruited as a Russian agentWed Oct 09 2024 - 06:00
Mary O’Rourke, in the thick of it again – only this time, for the last timeForty years in politics. A trailblazer. When she arrived in Leinster House in 1981, she wasn’t ‘just there to make up the numbers’, says Micheál MartinMon Oct 07 2024 - 21:31
Miriam Lord’s Week: Consternation in the corridors of power as all on high election alertSinn Féin and the pricey phone pouches, being better than the ‘bloody Tories’ and the diplomacy of singing with 1990s heart-throb Peter AndreSat Oct 05 2024 - 06:00
Poll trolling and Sinn Féin baiting all in a day’s work for TaoiseachSimon Harris pained by assertions that his budget blowout was something other than a serious, sober annual financial statement with no ulterior motive lurking between the linesThu Oct 03 2024 - 06:00
We know the score as Bling Cycle shamelessly written to lift electoral spiritsBudget 2025: Chambers of Commerce Jack and Been-there-Donahoed-that Paschal cheerily served up a belly buster budget buffet for the votersWed Oct 02 2024 - 06:00
The Leinster Lawn bike shed of 1990s: Remember Haughey’s helipad?Plus: Leo unleashes his inner Shinner and throws a winners’ dinner and sang Dublin in the Rare Ould TimesSat Sept 28 2024 - 06:00
OPW’s penchant for wildly expensive lean-tos would put Kubla Khan to shameEven without the place going nuts about huts, there’s a heightened tension and general giddiness around Leinster HouseThu Sept 26 2024 - 06:00
Flippin’ ‘learnings’, they turn up like a bad penny whenever another billion is flushed down the panWhen under attack for the Children’s Hospital fiasco, Paschal Donohoe takes flak for Simon Harris - who is in New York - and pulls the word ‘learnings’ from the first aid boxWed Sept 25 2024 - 06:00
Miriam Lord’s week: Dáil return a damp squib as departure lounge fills with exiting TDs Taoiseach Simon Harris surprises Paschal Donohoe with chocolate gateau as youthful Minister for Public Expenditure celebrates milestone 50th birthdaySat Sept 21 2024 - 06:00
Miriam Lord: Expect back-pedalling as committees gear up to tackle the bonkers bicycle shed of Leinster LawnThe avant-mudgarde glass and steel erection is already shaping up to be a bucket-list destination for aficionados of Irish politicsThu Sept 19 2024 - 06:00
Daniel Wiffen sings and Kellie Harrington takes the biscuit at Irish Olympic homecoming Simon Harris sounded giddy with excitement as large crowds gathered at the GPOMon Aug 12 2024 - 21:40
Miriam Lord: Sixty years ago, the clerics denounced Edna O’Brien. On Saturday she was welcomed homeA flotilla of lake boats carried mourners to Holy Island, where the ‘brilliant, wild, soaring and indomitable’ Irish writer was laid to restSat Aug 10 2024 - 22:42
Kellie Harrington the gem of Diamond Park as crowd roars on their double Olympic championOlympics 2024: Dublin inner-city neighbourhood once more savours a stunning success by boxer Kellie Harrington on the world sporting stageWed Aug 07 2024 - 07:29
Finally apologetic, Derry O’Rourke’s now a paltry old man who doesn’t deserve to sleep at nightJudge Melanie Greally at Central Criminal Court praises rape survivor for her conduct amid O’Rourke’s trial and on her victim impact statement, confronting abuser with the consequences of his actionsThu Aug 01 2024 - 06:00
Miriam Lord: Not a dry eye in the house as final whistle sends Armagh supporters into orbitThere are always scenes of wild celebration in Croke Park when the winning county is crowned but the Orchard County fans were on another levelSun Jul 28 2024 - 21:44
Miriam Lord: Raymond Shorten is a dangerous liar. His sentencing did the State some serviceMr Justice Paul McDermott did the State some service when he sentenced the Dublin taxi driver to a total of 17 years for raping two defenceless womenThu Jul 25 2024 - 21:14
Miriam Lord: Swoosh! Down comes the guillotine, but controversial planning Bill is partially sparedDepending on one’s point of view, Minister for Housing’s landmark creation is either a dangerous folly or an architectural gemWed Jul 17 2024 - 21:53
Miriam Lord’s end of Dáil term awardsLooking back at the winners and losers of a term that was full of departures, arrivals, celebrations, apologies and the usual catfightsSat Jul 13 2024 - 06:00
Simon Harris and Mary Lou McDonald call a truce as State rushes to action over Tori Towey caseNo public prayer in the House, but private prayers for safe return of woman detained in DubaiThu Jul 11 2024 - 06:00
‘I won’t accept it!’ Dáil unifies around Michael Healy-Rae after emotional appeal over online abuseKerry TD’s mother ‘never said anything bad about any human being’, he told House - but she was still the subject of tauntsWed Jul 10 2024 - 06:00
Miriam Lord’s Week: Chambers puts his foot in it, while the Lord of the Dance makes Leinster House cameoMichael Flatley’s famous Feet of Flames should not to be confused with that long running Dáil Éireann production: Pants on FireSat Jul 06 2024 - 06:00
Another crime added to long list by GAAGoSimon Harris leaps to defence of Helen McEntee after Peader Tóibín decries ‘cynical nonsense’Thu Jul 04 2024 - 06:00
Girl power in the Dáil as ‘two very formidable politicians’ take centre stageCatherine Murphy and Róisín Shortall, two of the founders of the Social Democrats, take a bow as the third founder hides in plain sightWed Jul 03 2024 - 06:00
Fianna Fáil TDs rack up the air miles after recall from China junketParty had not cleared deputies for take-off, but James O’Connor flew straight back to Beijing after casting Dáil voteSat Jun 29 2024 - 06:00
Young Chambers of Commerce looked quite miserable during his installationTwo Fianna Fáil TDs ordered home from Beijing made it in time to see colleague welcomed to CabinetThu Jun 27 2024 - 06:00
We say never again. We voice outrage. We listen to the promises. Until the next timeSimon Harris made no secret of his anger at the way Natasha O’Brien had been treated. Might he really do something? He certainly talks the talkWed Jun 26 2024 - 06:00
Michael Collins banished but Enda Kenny welcomed back to Taoiseach’s office for Harris visitHugs between old allies in Government Buildings but friction is building in another Blueshirt bastionSat Jun 22 2024 - 06:00
Roderic O’Gorman is out suspiciously fast with a video he prepared earlierNerve-jangling continues amid much-changed Dáil but sense of pre-prepped choreography to some of the political danceThu Jun 20 2024 - 06:00
Three-cornered stool comes crashing down after another quiet quittingThe Government will runs its course, promised Micheál once more, with feeling. But the Greens have pulled the window downWed Jun 19 2024 - 06:00
