The position of director of communications at the National Lottery is rolling over almost as fast as its jackpot. Shane Dempsey, who has served just a year in the post, is stepping down, according to an internal announcement, and there is now going to be a restructuring in the marketing department.
Shane, son of former Fianna Fáil minister Noel Dempsey, is acknowledged as having done a good job, helping to steady the National Lottery ship after the stormy waters it sailed through in 2021. You’ll remember that Bernard Durkan, the Fine Gael TD, led the criticisms when the twice-weekly lottery jackpot was not won for seven months. “This didn’t happen in Ronan Collins’s day,” Durkan complained. The saga finally ended with a must-win draw in January 2022 that had a guaranteed jackpot of €19 million.
The highly experienced Dempsey joined the following month from the Construction Industry Federation, where he had also been director of communications.
In the lottery role before him was Nikki Gallagher, who did two years before leaving to become head of public affairs at Ibec. From June 2019 to March 2020, the role was filled on an interim basis by Paul Bradley, who left to become a director at FleishmanHilliard. Before that, Miriam Donohoe, a former journalist who is now head of comms at Trócaire, held the role for two years up to April 2019.
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One half of Happy Pear gets permission for Greystones house
Stephen Flynn must be a very happy pear. One half of the hummus-hawking twins has just been granted planning permission to build a new house in Greystones, Co Wicklow. The local planners are notoriously tough to please but Flynn, who was raised in the seaside Wicklow village, won them over by locating his new-build in the grounds of his parents’ home.
The four-bedroom house will have its own office, but we didn’t notice any sign of a gym. Curiously, he has included a firepit for the garden. Given that the Happy Pear twins are committed vegans, we imagine they won’t welcome you bringing beefburgers if you’re invited for a barbecue.
We also note Flynn will be living in the house with his wife, Justyna, and their children. Somehow we always imagined the buff brothers living together, like Jedward.
Liebherr’s choice of location for his first foreign factory had probably more to do with sentiment than objective commercial logic
Liebherr’s love of Killarney
How come a German engineering company opened a manufacturing plant in Killarney, of all places, in the economically backward Ireland of the 1950s? It’s a mystery explored in The Liebherr Story, a new book by Tom Foley, who retired from Ireland’s first and most enduring multinational in 2009 after 46 years’ service. So you could call this a Liebherr of love . . .
When the industrialist Hans Liebherr first considered opening a plant here, the Industrial Development Authority tried to steer him towards Mallow in north Cork. When he visited the region in 1957, however, the only accommodation deemed suitable was the Great Southern Hotel, 60km away. By chance, the chef there was Franz Knoblauch, from Ravensburg in southern Germany, who had come to Ireland in 1948 after fighting in the second World War and spending four years in a Russian prisoner-of-war camp.
The two Germans hit it off, with Knoblauch acting as translator in Liebherr’s meetings with locals, while the industrialist greatly enjoyed his compatriot’s cooking, especially sautéed potatoes done in the German style. On being shown the splendour of the local landscape, Liebherr is said to have declared: “Ich fühle mich hier zu Hause.” (I feel at home here).
The author agrees that “Liebherr’s choice of location for his first foreign factory had probably more to do with sentiment than objective commercial logic”. Building a factory in rural Kerry was straightforward, though, as in 1958 no planning permission was needed for buildings outside urban areas.
The crane factory in Killarney now has 800 employees, and a turnover of €236 million. Liebherr also opened three hotels, and many German, Austrian and Swiss nationals came to work in them, with some marrying locally and staying in Ireland. Among them was Josef Fassbender, who moved here in 1979 and eventually opened the West End House Restaurant. You may know him better as Michael’s father.
IRFU and German discounters
Speaking of Germany, we wonder if eyebrows were raised at Aldi headquarters this week when the IRFU unveiled its new director of communications. The chain presumably takes an interest in such matters, being the official “fresh food partner” of the IRFU and a sponsor until 2024. Why might it have been surprised at the appointment? Because the blazers chose Aoife Clarke, who has spent the past 14 years as communications director of Aldi’s great rival, Lidl Ireland.
No doubt it was Wallace’s thirst for truth and accuracy that led him to clarify this week that he does not in fact own three wine bars, as previously claimed
Wallace fails with complaint against Irish Mirror
Mick Wallace has failed in a bid to have the Irish Mirror censured by the Press Ombudsman. Wallace, along with fellow MEP Clare Daly, submitted a complaint against the newspaper to Susan McKay’s office. The pair were unhappy about a short opinion piece in the Mirror which took issue with their vote against a European Parliament motion on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. McKay ruled that the article did not fail to strive for truth and accuracy, as alleged, nor did it report comment as fact.
No doubt it was Wallace’s thirst for truth and accuracy that led him to clarify this week that he does not in fact own three wine bars, as previously claimed, “even though I always feel I sort of did”. Instead, the oenophile is paid an average of €53 a month by the directors of Wallace Calcio Ltd, to “give the lads advice and stuff”.
Wine expert Wallace has a nose for fighting the media, having launched a libel action against RTÉ last year.
Noone sailing in calmer waters
The political career of Catherine Noone capsized in 2020 when she failed to win a seat for Fine Gael in Dublin Bay North, and then lost her place in the Seanad. Leo Varadkar’s former running mate in Dublin West has now resurfaced as a board member of the Atlantic Youth Trust, a charity that teaches young people how to sail and appreciate the ocean.
Noone has been busy in recent months, according to the Lobbying Register, contacting officials in the Department of Defence to see if they will put money towards the restoration and upgrading of the Grace O’Malley, a 164ft schooner that the charity bought in 2021 and hopes to restore and upgrade into a sail training ship.
