With Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s latest brush with political mortality, the fuel blockade that threatened to bring Ireland to a standstill two weeks ago continues to shape national politics in unpredictable ways.
The Government’s wounds are at first glance superficial. The loss of a junior minister and a two-seat erosion of its Dáil majority is manageable. The Fianna Fáil TDs who attempted publicly to coax Martin’s potential challengers to instigate a heave were relatively peripheral figures in the parliamentary party – a mix of the perennially disaffected and a clutch of younger TDs coming slowly to the realisation that being a backbench government TD is one of the worst places to be in Leinster House.
When our reporters contacted the party’s 47 TDs and Senators on Thursday, Martin had the numbers to survive any confidence vote. He is secure for now, Political Correspondent Harry McGee concludes in his end-of-week assessment, though he can expect a more serious attempt to dislodge him from the party leadership at some point.
What is more worrying for the Government, our editorial argues, is the apparent breach that has emerged between it and a constituency it has done so much to cultivate: rural voters.
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“Ireland in 2026 is a more complex society than is allowed by the simplistic binary of rural versus urban. But it is clear that from its inception this Government represented a shift in sectoral priorities from its predecessors,” the piece suggests. That shift could be seen in its opposition to the Mercosur deal, in its campaign to extend the nitrates derogation and in the shift in transport priorities towards roads. “Government Ministers may now be reflecting on why they have been rewarded with increased militancy.”
Our coverage of the fallout from the week’s political ructions includes some on-the-ground reportage from Colm Keena in Kilgarvan, the Kerry stronghold of the Healy-Rae operation; Pat Leahy’s analysis of Simon Harris’s disinclination – rare among ministers for finance – to say no; and Conor Brady’s opinion piece on what he sees as Jim O’Callaghan’s ill-advised call for the Army to intervene during the protests.
One of the stranger sub-plots of the political week was the intervention of Minister for Media Patrick O’Donovan, who called on the media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, to investigate RTÉ and other outlets’ coverage of the fuel protests – coverage he disapproved of. That drew criticism from the opposition and from the National Union of Journalists. Our editorial saw the comments as consistent with the minister’s talk-first-think-later approach to public policy and said he should withdraw them. O’Donovan duly did so on Friday, saying he “made a hames of” his position. (He later mused that Labour leader Ivana Bacik would not have compared him to outgoing Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán “if I was Patricia O’Donovan”.) In the view of academic Eileen Culloty, O’Donovan was wrong to say what he did but he had a point on the media.
For her first overseas trip, President Catherine Connolly chose to go to a conference organised by left-wing heads of government in Barcelona. Political Correspondent Jack Horgan-Jones reports that there was unease in Government about her choice - a fact that will please her voters and displease her detractors. “[The Department of Foreign Affairs] would have much preferred the first [visit] be to the UK and state head-to-state head type visit,” one Government source told him.
We could see for some time that the net was closing on the Kinahan drug cartel, whose senior figures have been holed up in gilded luxury in Dubai for several years. News duly arrived on Friday afternoon that one of those leaders, Daniel Kinahan, had been arrested and is due for extradition to face trial in Ireland.
“It seems he … will be charged with directing organised crime in Dublin related to the [Hutch] feud,” writes Crime and Security Editor Conor Lally. “His hatred for the Hutch gang, it seems, drew him too close to the flames. And though it has taken almost a decade for those mistakes to come for him, it appears that day has arrived.”
Grace O’Malley-Kumar, an Irish teenager, was killed in a stabbing attack in Nottingham in 2023. This week, London Correspondent Mark Paul spoke to her family about a young woman who was “too good to be true”.
If you Googled our recent stories about Rob Heneghan, who runs a betting advice business, it’s quite likely those articles would not have appeared. That’s because, as Mark Tighe reports, they were removed from Google search results earlier this month following bogus copyright complaints that were in some cases made from southeast Asia.
Pope Leo has been in the news this week after a series of excoriating criticisms of military aggressors, delivered against the background of the US/Israeli war on Iran. Europe Correspondent Naomi O’Leary reflects on the tensions between the US-born pope and the administration in his home country, while columnist Breda O’Brien remarks on the “breathtaking” audacity of a newbie Catholic – vice president JD Vance – presuming the lecture the pope.
Elsewhere in Opinion, Mark O’Connell writes that while he loathes Conor McGregor, there is something intriguing about him; and Patrick Freyne argues that AI is making us dumber and more lonely.
Finally, take the time to read Arthur Beesley’s in-depth piece on Rory McIlroy, who is set to become Ireland’s first sporting billionaire.
Ruadhán Mac Cormaic
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