The Sunday Times Ireland, Macken House, 2nd Floor, Mayor Street Upper, North Wall, Dublin 1, Dublin (2025)

28/04/2025

DCC, the sales and marketing support group, has completed the first stage of its transformation plan: selling its healthcare unit for just over £1 billion to the same Italian private equity company that saved Aston Martin, James Bond’s favourite car maker

Investindustrial is a former conglomerate that is now a private equity company. DCC is a former venture capital firm that became a conglomerate. There was clearly a meeting of minds

DCC also plans to shed its technology division soon, so its days as a conglomerate are numbered. So too, one fears, is its time as a stock market-listed entity. It’s hard to see any other outcome

28/04/2025

When Liam Cahill sat down with Shane Brophy of the Nenagh Guardian in February, Brophy excavated deep, probing Cahill with 21 searching questions for a piece that ran to well over 6,000 words. Cahill is a straight shooter. His answers are rarely choked by self-censorship. A dire championship last year hadn’t given Cahill anywhere to hide but he didn’t run from any of Brophy’s questions

Brophy threw everything at him. After pleading for more supporters to get behind the team in the aftermath of Tipperary’s opening league win, Cahill’s clarity, honesty and transparency in that interview was another means of trying to turn a passing glance into full engagement

Every minute detail of Tipp’s preparation was assessed in their end-of-year review but some key areas needed more forensic attention. The ruinous pattern of Tipp’s second half fade-outs was an urgent priority. Cahill held his hands up. Tipp got their conditioning wrong last year. “I felt we hadn’t enough work done,” Cahill said

28/04/2025

It’s not an easy thing to leave a house you adore and have lovingly renovated, but the fashion stylist and influencer Marianne Smyth and her partner felt that their mid-century home in Northern Ireland, which was situated on a busy road, was less than ideal for their two young children, so they made the decision to sell up and search for a forever home

Luckily Smyth didn’t have to wait long to find her dream property — she was immediately captivated by an Edwardian red-brick house on the Co Down coastline when she saw it advertised online. At the first viewing her partner fell in love with it too and in 2020, just before Covid struck, the couple, their son and daughter and labrador puppy, Jess, picked up the keys to this majestic five-bedroom period property

With its sweeping driveway, wraparound mature gardens and panoramic views of the Irish Sea, the plot was perfect. However, the property had a double-storey modern extension that needed to be demolished and rebuilt. “The original half of the house felt very grand, with high ceilings, large spaces and original details,” Smyth says. “But the extension, which was added on by the previous owners, had low ceilings and small, box-like rooms. The flow felt off.”

28/04/2025

In the 14 years Fine Gael has been in power, the question has often been asked: what does the party stand for? On becoming leader in 2017 Leo Varadkar, who had made his name as a fiscally conservative Young Turk, preached the traditional party gospel that it represented those who got up early in the morning and mirrored Ireland’s social progressivism

It was Fine Gael in government when the divorce and same-sex marriage referendums were passed two decades apart in 1995 and 2015. It prefers to forget that it was also in power when the 1983 abortion referendum was foisted on the Irish public but, to be fair, it was also in government when the eighth amendment was repealed in 2018

The party never got any thanks from the public for its leadership in social affairs. It was ousted from office 18 months after the divorce referendum success. Nine months after the historic same-sex marriage referendum it lost 26 seats in the general election

28/04/2025

A few weeks ago TJ Reid was home in Ballyhale at his brother Patrick’s place for his nephew’s birthday party, watching Dara flaking away with the neighbour’s children, dazzled and dazed by the scenes unfolding. “I don’t know how they did it,” he says. “They were out since, I’d say, nine o’clock. Hurling, soccer, football, rugby. They had their cake at five o’clock and you see the red faces on them

“No care in the world there. Nothing about getting ready for a match or mortgages or work. Just out there having fun. They’re beating the heads off each other. There was probably three or four kids crying because of belts here and there. ‘He pushed me. He hit me.’ But then they’re great friends after. For me, just reflecting on that, that’s when it all started. That’s when you fell in love with the game.”

It was all they ever knew, Aylwards, Fitzpatricks, Shefflins, Holdens, Masons, Fennellys and the rest hurling the days away till Mrs Reid called them in for chips and nuggets and sausages at half-time

28/04/2025

The difficulty when interviewing a thriller writer is you can’t write about their thriller. Reveal anything about the plot and they will never speak to you again. In this regard the work of John Connolly is especially tricky

The Dubliner’s 1999 debut novel, Every Dead Thing, introduced readers to Charlie Parker, a private investigator chasing the killer of his wife and child. It won awards and, more important, sold by the box. There have now been 24 entries in the Parker series, with his new book, The Children of Eve, topping the stack. Connolly’s supernatural sleuth and his supporting cast of assassins, heavies, spirits and otherworldly assailants are loved by his fans

The central idea for The Children of Eve, which Connolly describes as “a kind of chase novel but you’re never sure what the object of the chase is”, came from a trip to Argentina. “I was on a publicity tour and thought I’d go exploring,” he says. “The guidebook said the road could be dodgy but it didn’t say you’d need a four-wheel-drive car. I was going to a town called Cafayate and it was pitch dark until the car caught on fire because a tyre came off

28/04/2025

She is estimated to be worth €140 million and has sold more than 80 million albums worldwide, quietly building a fortune from her Killiney castle, but the elusive Enya’s mystery endures

Despite being Ireland’s bestselling solo artist and second overall behind U2, Enya has never toured or even performed a solo concert. Heavily decorated with four Grammy awards and six World Music Awards, she remains intensely private, rarely gives interviews and has not made a public appearance in years

This, it seems, has only added to her allure, and more than 38 years after the release of her self-titled debut album, Enya’s new-age ethereal voice, meticulously layered and haunting melodies have found a new audience. The 63-year-old Only Time singer has clocked up millions of views on TikTok

28/04/2025

When Helen Behan and Brendan Gleeson were jointly given honorary fellowships by the nursing faculty of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) in February, she had a confession to make to the older actor. Behan, who started acting after a chance encounter in a pub in Co Meath, could not shrug off her feeling of impostor syndrome. “I wandered in off the street into acting,” she told him. “I have this guilt because other people train really hard and maybe don’t get the opportunities I did.” Gleeson was having none of it. “You have to park that feeling,” he replied. “Accept it and get on with life.”

Behan was being honoured for her services as a nurse while Gleeson was being recognised for his support of hospice care in Ireland. But even though Behan began life in hospitals, she is more likely to be found today on film and TV sets alongside actors such as Cillian Murphy and Stephen Graham. “When I was five years old I had the doctor’s stethoscope while I was singing into a microphone. I wanted to be either a superstar or a nurse,” she says. “But acting didn’t seem like a possibility, so everything was dedicated to nursing — and then this flip happened.”

28/04/2025

Lisa O’Connell set up Forus Training in 2000, when she was just 23. It has become one of the country’s leading adult education providers, delivering 800 Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) certifications in healthcare and childcare a month

With the 2025 budget committing the government to 1,600 new special needs assistants, enrolments are booming, particularly among those re-entering the workplace or changing career

O’Connell started out as a primary school teacher, but trends elsewhere in the workforce led her to give up her permanent and pensionable job

28/04/2025

Many political leaders fear a lull in the calendar, knowing that trouble can brew when people have too much time on their hands. Party TDs, normally busy with the daily parliamentary grind, find time to grab a few pints and gossip about their political masters. And so it was during this two-week Dail recess, as speculation began to simmer about the future of Micheál Martin

Next weekend, Martin will mark his first 100 days as taoiseach, in what is his second spin of the wheel in the job. The Sunday Times spoke to sources at all levels of the party — backbenchers, veteran TDs, backroom staff and ministers — and three things have become immediately apparent about Martin’s second stint

The first is that a large section of the party expects the Fianna Fail leader to step down in the late summer of 2027 to allow for an orderly transition of power to a new leader

28/04/2025

Three years ago, the Ireland women’s football team landed themselves in huge trouble when they were filmed singing “Ooh, aah, up the ’Ra” in their dressing room to celebrate their World Cup qualifying victory. Uefa subsequently fined the Football Association of Ireland €20,000 for violating “the most basic rules of decent conduct” in the incident

A few months later, Leinster Rugby also apologised for playing the same chorus following a match in the RDS Arena, and promised it would never happen again. The message is clear: chanting “up the ’Ra” in any public setting or performance is strictly forbidden, as it appears to glorify the IRA over a quarter of a century since the organisation signed up to the Good Friday agreement, and will be punished

The chant comes from the chorus of the Wolfe Tones’ song Celtic Symphony. And while the Tones may be popular — a burst of defiant downloads sent the song to the top of the Irish charts after the women footballers’ transgression — they are certainly not cool

28/04/2025

Seven years ago this summer, 45,000 people flocked to the Knock Shrine in Co Mayo on the final day of Pope Francis’s visit to Ireland. On Saturday there was only a trickle of visitors but they all had fond memories of the pontiff

Fewer than 20 people were present in Knock’s basilica at any one time, sitting with hands clasped and eyes closed in silent prayer. Two televisions beamed live coverage of the funeral from St Peter’s Square in Rome. Between the screens was a portrait of a smiling Francis at the Knock church altar

While buses delivered some pilgrims to the site — where Mary Byrne, a villager, reported an apparition of the Virgin Mary in 1879 — the grounds were quieter than usual

28/04/2025

A chief superintendent has initiated High Court proceedings against the garda commissioner Drew Harris and the Department of Justice, alleging they were targeted after exposing the cancellation of tens of thousands of emergency 999 calls by colleagues

The whistleblower made a protected disclosure claiming that senior gardai attempted to orchestrate a cover-up after they uncovered that emergency calls were being cancelled en masse without explanation

Some of the cancelled calls had been made by women and children in domestic violence situations. The state has indicated it will contest the action

28/04/2025

Mary McAleese, the former president of Ireland, has criticised the “fake theology” that bans women from becoming priests and implored the cardinals entering the conclave to vote for Pope Francis’s successor to significantly reconsider the role women play in the Catholic church

In an interview with The Sunday Times, McAleese described “false barriers” prohibiting women from being ordained as priests as “bonkers” and said that the next pope should revise Catholic doctrine that excludes women from the clergy

“The church has 1.4 billion people and half of them are women. Half of the world is female, they are all god’s creation, so no one has the right to put fences around where their talents will go, no one. The church has done that,” she said

28/04/2025

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27/04/2025

Parents think they are doing the right thing by taking their children’s phone or tablet off them, until the kicking and screaming begins. It’s tempting to give in, because it can’t be that bad, right?

“In the future giving devices to our children will be as bad as giving them fizzy drinks, or maybe even drugs,” Dr Charlotte Armitage, author of Generation Zombie: Why Devices Are Harming Our Children and What We Can Do About It, says

It’s a hard pill to swallow but we have allowed our children to become hooked on devices, even more so than we are ourselves

27/04/2025

The general manager of Baltray golf club in Louth has filed legal proceedings against the company behind RIP.ie over allegedly defamatory comments about him on the website

Ryan Donagher, who is the general manager of County Louth Golf Club, better known as Baltray, is seeking a Norwich Pharmacal Order (NPO) to discover the identity of the person who made the comments

An NPO is a type of order delivered by the High Court which can compel a respondent to disclose information on any wrongdoing or wrongdoer “who seek to hide behind the mask of anonymity”

The Sunday Times Ireland

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