The Phoenix (magazine)

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This article is about the Irish news and satire magazine. For other magazines with similar titles, see Phoenix (disambiguation).
The Phoenix
200px
January 2020 cover
Type Magazine
Format Current affairs
Satire
Owner(s) Penfield Enterprises Ltd.
Founder(s) John Mulcahy
Editor Paddy Prendeville
Founded 1983; 41 years ago (1983)
Headquarters 44 Lower Baggot Street
Dublin 2
Ireland
Website www.thephoenix.ie

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The Phoenix is an Irish political and current affairs magazine, established in 1983 by John Mulcahy. Inspired by the British magazine Private Eye,[1] the magazine has been edited by Paddy Prendeville since 1984. The publication is generally fortnightly, with a larger annual issue each December. The Phoenix "produces a fortnightly diet of cartoons and satire, smutty and sexist schoolboy humour, financial analysis, and news with an insider slant from the worlds of security, politics, media, arts, and law."[2]

History and operations

The magazine was launched in January 1983. It was established by journalist and publisher John Mulcahy,[3] who oversaw its operations until 2007.[4][5] The name Phoenix is a reference to its "emergence from the ashes" of two of Mulcahy's previous publications. These were the republican political magazine Hibernia, which ceased publishing in 1980 after a libel action, and the Sunday Tribune newspaper, which first collapsed financially in 1982.[3]

Published by a company named Penfield Enterprises Ltd., and based on Baggot Street, the magazine had an ABC-audited circulation of 19,014 for 2004 and 18,268 in 2007.[6]

The primary editor of the magazine is Paddy Prendiville, who took the role about a year after the magazine was started[7]

The magazine secures much of its material from "insider"[vague] sources, and promotes contact with its Goldhawk phone line.[8][9]

Layout and style

Features in the magazine include a news column; detailed profiles ("Pillars of Society" and "The Young Bloods"); "Affairs of the Nation", which looks at political scandals; "Bog Cuttings" which consists of humorous and unusual events outside Dublin (often bizarre court cases), "Hush Hush" and "On the beat", which deals with security and intelligence matters; and a satirical section, "Craic and Codology". It also has an extensive financial column, "Moneybags".

Like Private Eye, the cover features a photo montage with a speech bubble, putting ironic or humorous comments into the mouths of the famous in response to topical events. Other features include an "Apology" section (where the magazine offers an ersatz apology for the failings or success of some person or event), "That Menu in Full", the use of ("That's enough of this. -Ed" type interjections) and their derivatives, and the Christmas Gift lists, where implausible gifts with ridiculous features are offered for sale.

In contrast to Private Eye, the Phoenix is printed on magazine stock rather than newsprint, and uses colour, including photography, quite extensively.

Positions

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. In the 1980s, the Workers' Party was a frequent target of satire and investigation over its funding methods, which resulted in Phoenix founder John Mulcahy receiving threats from the Official IRA.[10]

In the late 2000s, it was highly critical of the Corrib gas pipeline and supported the Shell to Sea and Pobal Chill Chomáin campaigns against the laying of the pipeline. It published a supplementary summary and commentary on the Goldstone Report on the siege of Gaza[11] and attacked the actions of the Israeli government over the illegal use of Irish passports in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, and the Gaza flotilla raid.[12] The magazine was highly critical of the 2007–2011 Fianna Fáil–Green Party coalition. It called for the 2011 Irish budget to be defeated and pointed out that the money loaned as part of the EU stability fund would come at the cost of a crippling rate of interest.[13]

During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, The Phoenix was highly critical of Ukraine, and accused the Irish media of seeking to undermine Irish neutrality by exploiting "Ukrainian misery".[14]

See also

References and footnotes

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Dublin, Ireland: The Irish Times, 7 Jan 2006, p. 14, "Publisher who became monarch of the magazine sector."
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Founder of The Phoenix John Mulcahy has died Archived 12 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine The Journal, 8 September 2018.
  6. ↑ "Phoenix boast falls flat", Sunday Independent, 25 February 2007
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers’ Party
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ http://www.thephoenix.ie/phoenix/subscriber/library/volume-28/issue-11/page-02-06.pdf[dead link]
  13. ↑ http://www.thephoenix.ie/phoenix/subscriber/library/volume-29/issue-01/contents.pdf[dead link]
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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