How the fuck D’ya think a potless country functioned at all…. Bearded pricks in Liberty Hall thinking they could run the show, endless strikes and fuel shortages and Thatcher and her ilk sneering down their noses at us. Fair play to CJH he took no shit from her to the point she referred to him as “that dreadful little man Hockey”….
We’re alive and thriving thanks to Mr.Haughey and his team. Show some decorum. 
Very succinct and pretty much covers it.
Time flies. Larry had his fingers in a lot of pies, all of them as lucrative as the next.
To say he has a brass neck doesn’t cover the half of it.
What do you think of Larry @Chancer ? The long flowery answer please not the short quip
No. Dundalk area.
CJH once mused (using CJ voice) “Ah yes, young Bartholemew, the most skilful, the most devious, and the most cunning of them all," and he wasn’t wrong.
Goodman is the most ruthless, malevolent, treacherous, creative, dictatorial cunt the state has ever produced. His capacity to monetise massively every single ounce of product that comes into the factory is legendary. The reclassification of shin beef to sirloin, defrosting 13yo stewing beef, whacking a Temu stamp on it and away she goes.
He squashed with maximum levels of vengeful force any and all attempts by competitors to get their noses even near the troughs. He strongarmed successive Governments to keep the export credit wheeze going and availed of each and every loophole his minions could spot all to his personal benefit.
There’s no fear Labhras wandered like that gobshite Quinn into shark infested water or ventures that may have been alien to him. Larry found his niche, put the gearstick into D and the foot to the floor sweeping everyone and everything before him.
You’d nearly award Joe Sheridan a Knighthood for what he did to Louth….
Did he not go bankrupt only for the FF to bailhim out?
The Dail was recalled in the summer for only the second time in it’s history to push through a new Companies Act that allowed his companies to be put into examinership and they were thus saved by cramming down the creditors.
That’s how it unfolded. He kept the foot to the floor and the head down for a while as he slowly and meticulously reassembled the empire.
Was an awesome level of debt at the time.
Larry is our Donald
If nothing else, Ray D’Arcy sounds excited, if slightly nervous, as he begins his new career chapter as a podcaster.
“This is something I’ve dreamed of doing forever,” the former RTÉ Radio 1 presenter remarks during the first edition of his podcast, Ray D’Arcy Daily, on Monday. But while podcasting offers an opportunity for the host to reinvent himself following last year’s acrimonious exit from RTÉ, it’s the very much old D’Arcy who features in the opening instalments.
For his daily venture – he also launches an interview podcast, Being Human, next week – D’Arcy doesn’t break new ground so much as follow the well-worn formula he established as a radio host. While there’s no faulting his enthusiasm, his first two episodes feature familiar content such as self-consciously quirky items and random chats, as well as the rambling introductory monologues that marked his Radio 1 afternoon show.
The podcast iteration of the latter element is even more aimless, in fact. He ponders the correct pronunciation of “marathon” (“Loads of words in English are pronounced differently than they’re spelt,” he observes), plays clips of the late GAA commentator Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh and discusses – for two days running – the sound effects on a vintage toothpaste ad. To describe these opening spiels as meandering is to give a false impression of dynamism.
The choice of guests also harks back to his radio days. Mairead Ronan, who worked alongside D’Arcy during his peak years on Today FM’s midmorning show, joins him on Monday, chatting about the latest developments on Dancing with the Stars and advising him on building his Instagram following. This is hardly stuff with which to grow a podcast following.
He’s also joined by his long-time producer – and wife – Jenny Kelly, for a daily debrief. While palpably affectionate, these conversations have all the mass appeal one would expect from hearing a married couple chat in their livingroom.
Other segments are less predictable but try too hard. On day two D’Arcy introduces an item called Pin Drop, which involves him gingerly calling businesses in random parts of the country: if listening to D’Arcy navigate voicemail messages is your idea of enthralling listening, you’ve hit pay dirt.
True, the resultant conversation with a Co Clare agribusiness owner has a certain shaggy-dog appeal, but it’s not nearly enough to anchor a podcast.
Media veteran that he is, D’Arcy knows he has a formidable task in attracting his old audience to the online sphere each day. “We’re going to have to change your listening habits,” he says. But on this (very early) evidence, it’s difficult to discern what incentive there is for putative listeners to work his podcast into their routine. There’s no obvious purpose or mission on display beyond the chance to hear D’Arcy shoot the breeze about whatever’s on his mind.
While this approach may have worked – or at least sufficed – for afternoon audiences already tuned into national radio, it seems insufficient to bring over erstwhile fans in large numbers, much less win new followers in the ultracompetitive podcast world. (In contrast, his fellow ex-RTÉ presenter Ryan Tubridy has parlayed his much-trumpeted love of books into a literary-adjacent podcast, The Bookshelf.)
In this light, D’Arcy’s decision to devote another podcast to long-form interviews is possibly overly ambitious, robbing his daily show of a potentially strong component.
For all that, D’Arcy sounds happy, which wasn’t always the case in his latter years on radio. And while the opening episodes are more throwback than forward-looking, he makes it clear that the daily podcast is a work in progress. “It’ll be great over time,” he says, chuckling.
He certainly has the time to make it work, and even the scope, too: as last weekend’s interview with my Irish Times colleague Patrick Freyne attests, D’Arcy can be reflective and revealing presence, a side he might tap into more. If he’s to make the most of his fresh start, he will need more than stale retreads.
Evelyn O’Rourke (who hasn’t missed a dinner in 10 years) reporting from the red(ish) carpet in Los Angeles in the advance of the Oscar brúha.
One wonders the value for money we’re deriving from this expenditure. Any ex-pat with a phone could provide the content required.
Go on, you can say it.
Cunt.
Cunt. Its not difficult.
Give it a try?
Two biggest stars on Irish TV. Tubridy is basically Hulk Hogan, Tommy is Razor Ramone, cooler but not as big of a star.
Within the wrestling community, Hulk Hogan was always seen.as a "company man " cunt, so you may be on to something
A massive one.
I see they’re back to shorter bulletins for the News at One and Six One until Thursday. They must all be on holidays knowing a few reruns of Reeling In The Years will hold the fort.
Thankfully all calm in the world
The Dail is off. All the government advisors where they get their ‘news’/briefings are off. There is no news anymore, just government press releases to regurgitate.
