Niamh Walsh’s Manifesto
Ronan’s grab for glass is hardly stain on his image
JOHNNY RONAN, the High Priest of property developers, is at the centre of yet another brouhaha. Johnny is suing Bewley’s over the ownership of the café’s iconic Harry Clarke stained-glass panels, estimated to be worth around €2m.
A dispute erupted in December after Bewley’s owner Patrick Campbell pledged to gift the valuable artwork to the State. The same Irish State that bailed out Ronan and the rest of the developers and the banks that backed them.
Ronan – who loves playing the
martyr – cleared his Nama debts in full some years ago and has claimed constantly that he was crucified by the state agency.
Recent years have seen him rebuild his empire with huge developments across Dublin. So quite why he would want to claim ownership of valuable stained glass windows and deprive the nation of this generous gift is a mystery.
It is testament to Johnny’s selfinterest that, at a time when State funds are depleted daily to literally save lives, he thinks only of himself. And his actions are in stark contrast to the generosity displayed by Patrick Campbell.
Whether he owns the panels or not is to my mind entirely irrelevant. What is crystal clear is that giving back is not in the Ronan rule book. .
The little people get hurt in big games
A ‘PUMP and dump’ scheme this week saw an army of activist small investors weaponise themselves against the big guys in an attempt to short-squeeze hedge funds and wallop Wall Street where it hurts most – in the wallet. The Robin Hood short-sell sent shares in the rather dowdy gaming chain GameStop surging and traders into a tizzy. This is all fun and games until someone loses a few billion or their livelihood.
The stock-market shenanigans began when small investors enabled by the Robinhood investor app set out to put a ‘shortsqueeze’ on hedge funds and manipulate the market price. There was a mass buy-up of stocks in firms GameStop, cinema chain AMC and BlackBerry among others. While many championed the little guy socking it to the greedy traders the reality is these games have dangerous repercussions for the ‘rest of us’. American Airlines, a company that employs tens of thousands of ordinary people and has already had its wings clipped by coronavirus can ill-afford more financial turbulence. People’s pensions are reliant on the markets.
While anarchy, whether actual or virtual, may have its genesis in the noblest of causes it often results in harming rather than helping us little people. Billionaire traders may have lost a few million from the bottom line and been taught a much needed lesson in humility. But an American Airlines air-hostess living hand-to-mouth is an example of the little people who will suffer the fallout from such schemes.
Martin’s bid for Irish beef gave a bad taste
I WAS once a fan of Micheál Martin and did think he would make a good Taoiseach. But this week he sank to new depths in my estimation when he went with the begging bowl to his Chinese counterpart.
Micheál heaped humiliation on himself, and by extension us, with his mealy-mouthed plea to China’s Premier Li Keqiang to lift a ban on Irish beef which has been in place for the past six months.
Never mind the meat – had he any backbone he would be sending China the bill for having to put food on the tables of Irish families. Now I am not so obtuse that I am unaware of the financial effects of this ban on the meat industry. But, a bit of Irish pride would be nice from our Taoiseach.
And whether coronavirus came from bats in a cave or a lab in Wuhan, it came from China. That is not in dispute. The ultra-secretive state then later engaged in a coverup and a global blame-game amid the fallout of the catastrophe while failing to forewarn the world that a killer virus was headed our way. Hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved had the rest of the world been ready.
Martin, in his letter to Li, was at pains to point out that Irish beef has ‘proved very popular with Chinese consumers’. Considering bats heads are a delicacy there, this a culinary critique that is, to me, unpalatable.
I’ll pray for Ganley and his holy show
DECLAN GANLEY has risen from the ashes of his failed political career as an anti-European to make another almighty holy show of himself.
Ganley made a costly legal challenge over restrictions on religious services claiming that he cannot leave his home to attend Mass.
His challenge and others, like the recent failed action case brought by the coursing club, serves not the public good but the selfish selfinterests of the apllicants.
Have they have no shame? No sense of anything but self?
Disabled children cannot go to school. People are dying without the dignity of even a goodbye. But Declan Ganley is denied the right to direct access to his Lord. God love him. Where are the monied men and the court cases fighting for the disabled, the children, the most vulnerable. Cases such as Ganley’s cost the State time and money to defend. Money that is needed elsewhere. I will be praying for retribution for such selfish sorts as Ganley.
Emer Cooke broke the sartorial rules
WHILE some rules of fashion can be flouted, others are sacrosanct. So while it was wonderful to see Ireland’s Emer Cooke, the European Medicines Agency’s Chief Executive, deliver to the world the AstraZeneca vaccine news this week, her outfit slightly tarnished the moment. She broke the cardinal ‘blue and green should never be seen’ fashion diktat for me.
I know, I know, given the seriousness and gravity of the great news, her style should be of no matter.
And of course her fashion choice was barely comparable to Liz Hurley’s who posed in nothing but skiboots and a totally open coat and was clearly not concerned with the ‘cleavage or legs but never both’ rule. That she has a fantastic body is not in doubt. But in my sartorial estimation, the sexy ski-lady style did nothing for Liz, unless of course total t*t was the look she was after.