Mean to the fiddler: Band in unfair sacking case had more than €376,000 in earnings

Kildare-based country‘n’Irish singer Michael English was ordered to pay €44,000 to fiddler Matt McGranaghan last week by the Workplace Relations Commission after the latter was sacked abruptly by email, despite having gigged with English for six years. The entity that sacked McGranaghan, MEPC Music Ltd, jointly owned by English and country music promoter Paul Claffey, will have little trouble funding the compensation award, according to its accounts.
The company had more than €376,000 in retained earnings at the end of 2022 when it last filed accounts, making a profit of €92,945 that year, an impressive sum given this was at the tail end of the Covid pandemic, which brought severe restrictions on public gatherings. So was there any need to be so mean to the fiddler? At one meeting English told the musician that he didn’t need to hire him on a full-time basis as he could “easily pick up a fiddle player”.
Working gig to gig, what a way to make a living, as Dolly Parton almost sang.
When Domino’s Pizza was looking for its first Irish franchisees in the early 2000s, Brian MacGoey, a former Irish under-21 rugby international, decided to get a slice of the action. He remortgaged his house to raise the €190,000 it cost to open a store in his native Limerick. Soon enough he was earning more than just a crust, opening several other outlets and becoming the largest Domino’s franchisee in the west. MacGoey, who divides his time between Ireland and Portugal, subsequently invested in care homes before selling up his stake four years ago.
Word reaches us that he has now invested in a swanky apartment in Lansdowne Place in Dublin 4, where prices range from €1.5 million to almost €7 million. That’s a lot of dough, even if you’re rolling in it.
Although Lansdowne Place is the most expensive scheme in Dublin, the Capital Dock development on Dublin’s south docklands set a new benchmark for rents when it opened in 2019, with two-beds starting at €3,200 a month. For that you’d imagine you could expect a car parking space. Not always, it seems. A case at the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) by a tenant of the scheme against his landlord, Capital Dock Residential Fund, shows access to a parking space was initially used to incentivise tenants to move into the development but they were not explicitly included in leases.
When one tenant fell into a month’s arrears, his parking space was revoked. He complained to the RTB. The landlord said it had suspended the tenant’s access to parking not because of arrears but because his car had an oil leak. But they admitted that access to a parking space was not guaranteed, saying if it had been included in the rent, if would have been mentioned in the lease agreement between the parties. Despite this, the RTB ruled the tenant had been treated unfairly. It ruled that while he should pay the arrears, the landlord should recoup him €1,337.60 in damages for revoking his parking for two months.
Google’s Boland’s Mills development in Dublin is due to open to the public this autumn, with only two ground floor units still to be leased by local businesses. One looks set to be turned into a pub, despite objections from locals. Google wants to turn the other empty space, originally envisaged for cafe or retail use, into a gym, it has told Dublin City Council in a planning application. The tech giant told city planners last week it wanted all of its ground-floor units to be occupied before opening, and that a gym had “an active interest” in the space.
Google certainly thinks the development, comprising offices, food businesses and retailers, is going to capture the public’s imagination. Last week it applied to trademark a logo featuring the slogan “Boland’s Mills, since 1873″ for use on merchandise, including clothing, footwear and headgear, although there may be a bigger market for Google drip in Silicon Valley than Ringsend.
Last week it emerged that Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola had given a £10,000 bonus to each member of his first-team support staff, including kitmen, chefs, security staff, bus drivers and physios, as a gesture of appreciation for their contribution to City’s success last season. For those working in Newstalk’s sports department during Euro 2012, the story must have brought back memories.
The Second Captains Podcast recounted the story last week of how the station’s then owner, Denis O’Brien, who was at the time part-funding Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni’s salary, visited the broadcaster’s chief executive, Frank Cronin, after the tournament. O’Brien congratulated Cronin on the station’s coverage of the Euros and handed him €1,000 in cash to split between the members of the sports department, the team was told. Alas, the €80 each received was some way off Pep’s five-figure gesture.
It’s safe to say Young Fine Gael is not on the same page as Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly when it comes to his proposal to ban social media for under-16s.
“The idea that people under 16 cannot be trusted to be on social media is frankly insulting to these teenagers,” the party’s youth wing said last week. “At the age of 15 in Ireland you are permitted to work and pay taxes but we are now saying that you shouldn’t be allowed to be on social media.”
It went on to describe the proposals as “delusional”, “unworkable” and “complete nanny state stuff” from Donnelly, saying the Fianna Fáil’s TD’s idea was “lazy” and “ill thought-out”. And of course they launched their attack on Donnelly’s plans on social media. Where else would young people turn to get something off their chests?