It\u2019s a chapter in which I played a very small part. I first walked through the green door at 44 Lower Baggot Street, with the Phoenix masthead on a brass plate, in 1996, not long out of university. At UCD, I had founded and run a college newspaper (along with Dara \u00d3 Briain<\/a>, who went on to a less glamorous career in comedy and television), relishing the status of a Big Man on Campus. Now I was starting on the very bottom rung of real journalism life \u2013 editorial assistant at the Phoenix. I worked there for three years, inverting my title and becoming assistant editor (still the most junior member of the team, but progress all the same). I loved it, learned a lot and to this day owe a great deal to it and the journalists who mentored me there.<\/p>\n The magazine was founded in 1983 by John Mulcahy<\/a>, its Phoenix rising from the ashes of Hibernia magazine and from Mulcahy\u2019s period running the Sunday Tribune, itself established as a successor to Hibernia.<\/p>\n But if Hibernia was the journal of the leftist intelligentsia, the Phoenix intended to be more down and dirty \u2013 the magazine with the inside stories, that no one else would print, that the powerful and well-connected didn\u2019t want you to read.<\/p>\n It was above all the creation of Mulcahy, the original \u201cGoldhawk\u201d. He was a singular figure in Irish journalism. Tall, angular, always impeccably dressed, with an impish grin and an unashamedly patrician air, he would bound into the magazine\u2019s offices fizzing with lists of ideas scrawled on blue index cards. By the time I arrived, Mulcahy was in his mid-60s, and perhaps in his prime. He conducted editorial meetings with relentless energy. What about this? Had we looked into that? There must be a story here? Where were they getting the money? What politicians were on manoeuvres? Who is on the board? Someone knows something. He brushed aside objections. \u201cLet\u2019s go back at that again.\u201d Ideas that would not qualify as one of Goldhawk\u2019s \u201cinside stories\u201d were quickly dismissed: \u201cSounds like an end story\u201d. His demand was that every story should tell readers something they didn\u2019t already know. \u201cWhere is the new information in that?\u201d he would ask. <\/p>\n He seemed genuinely surprised that anyone would take offence at what the Phoenix had written, despite much evidence to the contrary. He was a rigorous editor, returning copy \u2013 supplied into a tray in his office on printed A4 sheets \u2013 with a series of impatient corrections. He could spot a potential libel before you had written it. He dispensed advice in a kindly but firm manner and expected it to be followed. Get up early. Stay late. Go the extra mile. Talk to everyone. Get the story. Check it, and check it again.<\/p>\n The offices were almost comically cluttered, on the top floor of what was then Larry Murphy\u2019s pub. Piles of newspaper clippings and files, official documents, Companies Office records, property searches, planning lists and all the raw materials of journalism before the internet were everywhere. Hard copies of the newspapers were put on racks and kept for months (no internet searches then); we kept our own index of files. Newspaper stories were photocopied and kept for reference and leads. There must have been several forests worth of paper there at any one time.<\/p>\n Mulcahy ruled from the corner office with an antique desk and the big table around which editorial meetings were conducted; beside him was Paddy Prendiville\u2019s tiny, smoke-filled office. Paddy was a proper old-school hack \u2013 scruffy, conspiratorial, hard-nosed. He spent about 10 hours a day on the phone to a variety of well-placed sources, and wrote most of the politics and media stories, the beating heart of the magazine. He loved cigarettes, scoops and annoying people. He freely admitted his enthusiasm for Sinn F\u00e9in (this did not surprise people) and he hated the Brits.<\/p>\n He also loved annoying Vincent Browne<\/a>, one of the Phoenix\u2019s great b\u00eates noires. The magazine revelled in its feuds; the one with Browne was probably the most intense, but there were many others \u2013 with Eoghan Harris, the Sunday Independent, a succession of dodgy businessmen and chancers. One chancer had $100,000 in counterfeit notes planted in John\u2019s (not insubstantial) pile on the Sandford Road in Ranelagh, where he was a neighbour of Mary Robinson, and heroin planted in the Phoenix offices. The Garda did not believe John was a drug dealer.<\/p>\n The deputy editor was Paul Farrell, who oversaw much of the business coverage, the humour section, the arts and racing coverage and much else besides. He shared Mulcahy\u2019s interests and his attitude, and would become, as John stepped back and eventually away completely in later years, the engine of the magazine. He was a wise and sympathetic mentor.<\/p>\n Occasionally callers to the office would arrive promising the most sensational stories. We were wary about granting access, because sometimes they had come to remonstrate personally about coverage that was not to their liking. Extreme violence was promised through the intercom by a famous singer one day. Other times, visits were more productive. One day a man arrived from Galway and with a story about difficulties he was having with his landlord, a Fianna F\u00e1il TD. He was admitted, and told his story. He was unusual on two counts: he had a mobile phone and exotic facial hair. Luke \u201cMing\u201d Flanagan (for \u2018twas he) is now an MEP.<\/p>\n All manner of the dispossessed, the discriminated against and the wronged contacted us to tell their stories. We did our best for them. Also a lot of cranks and nutcases got in touch. You had to develop a nose for it. \u201cWhat does your solicitor say?\u201d \u201cOh, I\u2019m suing him as well.\u201d \u201cAnd what did the judge say?\u201d \u201cHe\u2019s in on it as well. They\u2019re all in on it. I\u2019m suing the judge as well.\u201d Good luck with that.<\/p>\n Other stories were bigger. In 1996, the Phoenix broke the story that Charles Haughey<\/a> had received more than \u00a31 million from supermarket tycoon Ben Dunne. The magazine also reported that Fr Michael Cleary \u2013 a high-profile priest with his own radio show and a record of advocacy against things such as sex outside marriage (as we quaintly used to call it) \u2013 had fathered a child. Following on from the revelation that the Bishop of Galway Eamonn Casey had also fathered a child, and before the child abuse revelations destroyed much of the church\u2019s moral authority, it was a huge scandal. Phoenix put a picture of Casey and Cleary singing on the front cover. The speech bubble read: \u201cThere is [music symbol] nothing like [music symbol] a dame!\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Vincent](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/K7YQFNTNZ3AVIOWTNJUBQCEUII.jpg\")
Vincent Browne (left) and Paddy Prenderville (right) when the former was editor of the Sunday Tribune. Photograph: Eamonn Farrell\/RollingNews.ie <\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/EJZOTORINVBUHFQMGWD6PTRMI4.jpg\")
The Phoenix magazine used to be both loved and hated by people in positions of influence <\/p>\n