Latest news with #CoTipperary
Irish Times
18 hours ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Cercene provides Joe Murphy and Gary Carroll with first Group One success in Coronation
One of Irish racing's stalwart partnerships, trainer Joe Murphy and jockey Gary Carroll, tasted Group One success for the first time in their careers when Cercene belied 33/1 odds to land Friday's Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot . Murphy described it as the culmination of half a century of work after Cercene rallied when headed by the French favourite Zarigana inside the final furlong to win by half-a-length. Back in third was Aidan O'Brien's January while stretched further back were blue-blooded runners form some of racing's powerhouse operations. The diminutive Cercene had already belied her relatively meagre €50,000 purchase price by finishing third to Lake Victoria in the Irish Guineas. READ MORE Having held a license since 1977, Murphy's ability to make the most of his relatively small Co Tipperary string was well established. It might even have made Cercene's SP something of an insult. But the pluck to take on such an elite challenge paid off in style. A former dual-champion apprentice, Carroll (35) had previously enjoyed a couple of Royal Ascot wins for Gavin Cromwell. He recently got a boost with the likelihood of more rides for Ger Lyons on the back of Colin Keane's Juddmonte appointment. His abilities got the perfect shop window here as despite a slow start he got Cercene into a good position on the rail and was strong in the finish. His use of the whip, reportedly using it eight times, could yet prove costly in fines, but the satisfaction of a first top-flight victory was obvious. 'I've been riding a long time now and been placed in plenty of Group Ones. This is my first one and if I was ever to ride a Group One winner it was for Joe Murphy,' he said. 'I've been riding for him since I was a 7lb claimer and he's been very good to me so I'm delighted I can repay him.' Cercene, ridden by Gary Carroll, winning the Coronation Stakes on day four at Royal Ascot. Photograph:for Ascot Racecourse The wait was even longer for the trainer who commented: 'This is 50 years of work, of love and care, and all for the owners we have, all our people. It's just a whole group of people together. This is heaven on earth. 'It's a lifetime's ambition to have a Group One winner. She's by Australia – a sire I love – and her half-brother (Perotto) won the Britannia so the pedigree was there: if she was an inch bigger, I wouldn't have her!' Another Irish trainer hitting the board this week was Willie Mullins , who landed the Duke Of Edinburgh Handicap with Ethical Diamond under Ryan Moore. The 3/1 favourite was Mullins' 11th Royal Ascot success. 'We will give him a little break and look at York, that is normally where we go from here. The Ebor would look possible. We would love to go to Melbourne. If we can get him qualified, that would be wonderful. We might see if we can get him Group-placed. I think he would suit the race,' he said. Ireland's tally for the week to date is nine winners with Aidan O'Brien saddling five of them. The best Irish haul ever at the meeting was 12 in 2022 with eight trainers contributing. Friday's other Group One, the Commonwealth Cup, also went to an outsider as the 25/1 Time For Sandals edged out the Irish hope Arizona Blaze. It was a second top-level victory of the week for trainer Harry Eustace who landed the Queen Anne with Docklands. Venetian Sun was described by Karl Burke as the best juvenile filly he's trained after an authoritative Albany Stakes success. 'I think Venetian Sun is a very special filly. The work she has done at home over the last six weeks – I haven't had a two-year-old filly work like that. She has been kicking all the Group horses out of the way,' Burke said.
Irish Times
5 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
What will €290,000 buy in Killaloe and Co Tipperary?
Town Apartment 42, Harbour View, Killaloe, Co Clare €289,500, Harry Brann Boasting views across to Kincora Harbour and Lough Derg from its terrace, this smartly appointed two-bedroom, two-bathroom ground-floor apartment is within easy walking distance of all amenities in this popular lakeside town. Originally a three-bedroom unit, it has been reconfigured to create a sizeable broken-plan living space with seating area zoned around a fire, a roomy dining table with a fashionably dark kitchen in an espresso colour. It is in walk-in condition. Both bedrooms are sizeable doubles with plenty of built-in storage. It extends to 70sq m (753sq ft), has a large and private terrace and a C2 Ber rating. Plus Within viewing distance of all the harbour action Minus Potentially too central for those seeking solitude Thomastown Demesne, Golden, Co Tipperary Country Thomastown Demesne, Golden, Co Tipperary €295,000, Sherry FitzGerald O'Dwyer & Davern About 32½ kilometres outside the village of Golden, this detached three-bedroom bungalow is set on a large plot that extends to about 1.26 acres. It is unusual in that the gardens and the adjoining field, which can also be accessed via a separate five-bar gate, have been amalgamated into one large green space – big enough to accommodate a football pitch. The detached house has been upgraded. The works include an external wrapping of the property, which brings it up to a C1 Ber. Internally it extends to 99sq m (1,068sq ft) and has an on-trend sage-green coloured kitchen. READ MORE Plus Ample room to extend subject to planning permission Minus Current layout means you have to go through the kitchen to get to one of the bedrooms
Irish Times
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
John Simpson: ‘It's been great to watch how Ireland went from a pretty backward country to a real powerhouse in Europe'
With a grandmother from Co Tipperary , the veteran journalist and broadcaster John Simpson holds dual British-Irish citizenship. Speaking from his home in Oxford, he says the idea of moving back to Ireland is a topic of quite regular discussion with his wife. He has lived in Rathgar in Dublin 'but even more gorgeous was moving to Dalkey , to Bullock Harbour in Dalkey'. 'My life has been bound up with Ireland for a very long time. I got married very early [to his first wife], too early, at the age of 21, and we had our honeymoon in Ireland, in Co Cork , which was just delightful. From that age, through to today, Ireland has been part of my life.' He accepts that television 'is a medium which does of course bulk up your ego', but he says having a Doppelgänger helps keep him humble. 'Everybody thinks I'm David Attenborough . They think I'm doing two jobs or something. For years now any self-image has been modified by the knowledge that people can't even recognise who you are.' A number of paths led Simpson to a career in journalism. 'I found when I was at university in particular, that I was good at writing and love the sound of my own voice,' he says. The other was reading George Orwell's 1984 when he was 15. 'I was so horrified by the thought that you could scrub out the past and rewrite it according to the interest of the government of the day, that I remember thinking very, very clearly then ... I want to do something to make sure that doesn't happen. READ MORE 'The desire to see things as they are, and present them to people as they are, and to make sure that people don't forget what they were like – that was something that mattered to me when I was 15 and it still matters to me now that I'm 80.' He continues to present Unspun World with John Simpson, which is broadcast on BBC2 . 'That's a high even in [the sense] of, with one foot in the grave and the other one on a banana skin, I can still have a real enjoyment of journalism.' For a low point in his storied career, he points to his time in Beirut in the 1980s reporting on the Israeli invasion of Lebanon for the BBC . 'I was captured, and accused of being a spy, and tortured and subjected to mock execution. I've talked about some of those things in the past, but I've never talked about the torture, never to anybody, not even to my wife ... I realise, while I was being messed about with by these torturers, that I would tell them anything. 'I was so humiliated ... I like to have a good opinion of myself and I realised I wasn't strong enough to resist it, that I kind of kept silent about it, kept it a secret, and it's only in the last five years that I felt free to talk about it ... It doesn't come much lower than that, sort of gibbering with fear and pain and praying to be free of it. And then having a mock execution at the end of it. I really do know what a near-death experience is because I was about half a second away from it. It's just that there wasn't a bullet in the gun.' He has had other near-death experiences. 'Getting bombed in Iraq, by the Americans. A 1,000lb bomb landed 15 paces from where I was standing, killed my translator who was standing beside me. God knows why I wasn't killed. Being nearly ripped apart in Iran, that was a pretty fierce experience.' John Simpson: 'Everybody thinks I'm David Attenborough. They think I'm doing two jobs or something' But his first such experience was a little closer to home, he explains, during The Troubles. 'I was BBC correspondent in Ireland. On the very first day I covered an IRA funeral in Belfast. The key thing was to get a sound recording – I was working for radio – of the moment when the guys pulled out their guns and fired over the grave. And I had a tiny little tape recorder which was new on the market – this was 1972, I think. Every time I thought someone was going to pull out a gun I sneaked out my little tape recorder and thought nobody could possibly notice what I was doing, and of course they did and they said I was a British spy. And the man in charge clearly of Provo security for the funeral said to the other guys who were around us, 'Give him one up the nostril.'' A colleague of Simpson's had noticed what was going on. 'All the other journalists had left by this stage, because the end of these things is always the most dangerous. I was too new to the game to realise that. This man from the London Sunday Times spotted what was happening and came back, and said in a very Brit way, 'Oh hello, John. Is there any problem?'' [ John Simpson: My torture was 'deeply humiliating, wounding to the spirit' Opens in new window ] Although his colleague vouching for him was enough to get Simpson out of the situation in that case, the experience was sufficiently frightening to make him question if journalism was really for him. 'I sat down on the bed and I thought, 'this stuff isn't for me. This is too dangerous. It's too nasty. You can get seriously hurt and I want to go home.'' He paused and considered before making a decision. 'I mean, whoever said journalism should be a safe profession? And as I worked my way through to that thought, I just thought, 'Well, you should just be really grateful you got out of that. Make sure you don't get into similar situations through your own stupidity again, and give it a bit of a try.'' Simpson's family lived in Dublin then and he commuted to Belfast. 'There were great stories in the Republic too, at that stage,' he says. 'It was a textbook perfect start to a career ... I've loved Belfast and I've loved Ireland, as a whole, ever since. I'm very much afraid that the future for Palestinians is to be driven out of their own country — John Simpson 'I made a huge number of friends, particularly in Dublin.' he continues. 'In the South I was much, much freer.' Simpson doesn't have any big concerns about the Irish and UK relationship post-Brexit, even with the growth of Reform UK , the party led by Nigel Farage . 'I don't know how strong Reform is going to be. I certainly don't think it or anything else will really get in the way of a good relationship with Ireland,' he says. 'As we're seeing with Donald Trump, there are these big waves and troughs. But we mustn't ever think these things are permanent. Donald Trump will be gone in just over three years' time and the world will carry on without him. And it will carry on without individual politicians in Britain. 'One of the great things in my life has been to watch how Ireland went from being a frankly pretty backward country, through to being a real powerhouse in Europe ... And that has been such a joy to me to see. Ireland needed to get out of Britain's shadow and it's done that and the Brits have been obliged to regard Ireland as a serious entity which they've got to treat with as much care and thought as they treat France or Germany or the US.' Just as in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, he's aware of some of the unrest and discontent around issues such as immigration in Ireland. 'I think it's just a matter of governments learning how to balance themselves with these difficult circumstances ... I don't think any recent government in Britain has been terribly good at it. And I don't think any government in Ireland has been terribly good at it,' he adds. As much of the world looks on in despair at what is happening in Gaza , Simpson doesn't see any solution in the short term. 'I'm now running out of hope for the longer term,' he says. 'I've always assumed that at some stage a form of a two-state solution would be established and, well, I think Binyamin Netanyahu has made it impossible for that to happen. 'I'm very much afraid that the future for Palestinians is to be driven out of their own country. It's a terrible thought to me, but I think that is where Israel is going ... and I think that at the moment, at any rate, the US is allowing that to happen.' Influencing public opinion in Israel is the only potential solution he sees at the moment. 'Not by being angry and dissociative, but by supporting the quite large number, the proportion must be about 40-45 per cent of Israelis, who don't want to go down that route. But isolating Israel and condemning it – it may be morally the right thing to do, many countries might feel it's the right thing to do, but it wouldn't have the effect of helping the future of the Palestinian people,' he says. John Simpson and his son, Rafa, in Brighton As Simpson reflects on his extensive past and continuing career, it's hard to imagine how he managed to combine it with being a father. 'Badly for the first two,' he admits. 'My two daughters are absolutely lovely girls and they've been so nice to me. I was an absentee father. I was never really around properly. Then I married again in 1996 and we had a son who spent part of his life in Ireland, went to Castle Park School in Dalkey and loved it. I was [at] a kind of level then where I was able to say, look, I'm not going to catch a plane because somebody's shot themselves in the toe in Vladivostok. I'm going to stay in London, and if you, the BBC, don't like it, well, I'm sorry, I've got other commitments.' 'I've been around much, much more for my son, and if he's as nice to me as my daughters have been I'm a lucky man.' Simpson's son is 19 and he's finding the experience of fatherhood quite different from when his daughters were born in the late 1960s and early 1970s. For one thing, his son has introduced him to the world of football. 'I'm now as fanatical a supporter of Chelsea as he is,' he says. 'Fatherhood has been, I think, the most exciting and profitable thing that I've done. To have children and to [see] the world through their eyes. It's just we've got this slight desert at the moment because he's at university ... and I haven't got anybody to talk to about Chelsea'. John Simpson's The Leaders and Lunatics Tour comes to the National Concert Hall on Thursday, November 6th, 2025
Irish Times
01-06-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Go nuclear?
Sir, – Ireland stands at a critical juncture in its climate action journey. Our national emissions reduction targets are ambitious – and increasingly unattainable. The Environmental Protection Agency warns that we will only achieve a 29 per cent reduction by 2030, falling dramatically short of our 51 per cent commitment under the Climate Act. I wonder if, or hopefully how many, of Ireland's population will consider how a proportion of nuclear energy, delivered through one of the recent interesting types of small modular reactor, could greatly improve our situation? – Yours, etc, ANNE BAILY (Dr) READ MORE Co Tipperary.
Irish Times
28-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
‘Are you trying to rile me? You're doing a good job,' John Magnier tells Barne Estate's barrister
In the witness box, John Magnier appeared nonplussed about the extent of his wealth; money was only his way of 'keeping the score' . He left school at 15, he told a rapt and packed Commercial Court. Therefore, he wasn't familiar with a lot of legal jargon. All that stuff he left to his experts. 'Who are these experts?' asked barrister Martin Hayden, representing the Barne Estate owners. 'They're too numerous to mention,' was the response. Mr Magnier hoped his second day of evidence in his court case over his alleged purchase of the Barne Estate in Co Tipperary for €15 million would be his final day of ever giving evidence in court. READ MORE At the heart of the dispute is whether an enforceable sale took place when Mr Magnier shook hands with auctioneer John Stokes and the owners of the Barne Estate, Richard Thomson-Moore and his wife Anna, on August 22nd, 2023. The meeting took place at Mr Magnier's Coolmore home in Co Tipperary and he thought he had a deal. Mr Hayden, senior counsel for the Thomson-Moores, mixed flattery with a forensic dissection of the nature of the disputed Barne Estate deal. 'Congratulations, you have been a very successful businessman,' he offered by way of his opening gambit. 'I have had good days and bad days,' Mr Magnier responded. Mr Hayden continued: 'If it was a profit-and-loss account, your good days would outweigh the bad ones by a reasonable margin. Is that so?' 'I've been fortunate,' said Mr Magnier. 'You have a world-class establishment in Coolmore. In essence, would you say you are in the category of billionaire with your overall assets?' continued Mr Hayden. 'I hope so,' Mr Magnier responded. Later Mr Hayden suggested Mr Magnier is a 'very intelligent man'. The star witness was having none of it: 'That will get nowhere with me. If I was this intelligent, why would I need all these people around me?' The people he referred to were the solicitors and tax experts. 'Are you trying to rile me? You're doing a good job,' he said at one stage to Mr Hayden. On another occasion, he accused Mr Hayden of treating him like a parrot by making him say the same things over and over again. Mr Magnier denied he purchased 20,000 acres of land in Co Tipperary but admitted he did not know exactly how much land he owned. Mr Hayden posited to him that he had acquired a huge property portfolio at home and abroad. He asked whether he was really suggesting he did not know the meaning of the phrase 'subject to contract'. Stressing again that he left school at 15, Mr Magnier responded: 'I haven't a good education. I employ people to do things on my behalf. It is what it is. 'I don't understand this legal jargon as I should, but that's the reality. I have people better than me looking after it.' Solicitors, he said, 'cost enough, you do have faith in them'. Much of the evidence on day two of the case focused on the nature of the sale. Mr Magnier was asked whether he was buying the land or the company that owned the Barne Estate when he offered €15 million for it. Mr Magnier said it was 'either/or', and he had an open mind about it. Mr Hayden asked Mr Magnier if he would still pay €15 million for the company if it transpired it had debts. 'I would leave it to the experts. You are putting hypothetical questions to me,' said Mr Magnier. The barrister countered: 'You are trying to convince people that you never made a decision in your life. We both know that is not true. Why do you need an expert to decide?' Mr Hayden said the option to buy the company rather than just the land only emerged in September when it was clear that an exclusivity agreement to buy the land had lapsed. Mr Magnier, therefore, had no enforceable contract to buy the land, the lawyer said. The case continues.
