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Riverdance profits down as company did not tour US

Riverdance profits down as company did not tour US

Irish Times20-05-2025
Post-tax profits were down at the company behind
Riverdance
last year by 87 per cent to €247,065 due mainly to dance company not touring the United States in 2024.
Accounts filed by Abhann Productions Ltd show that post-tax profits reduced from €1.9 million in 2023 to €247,065 in the 12 months to the end of June last.
The drop in post-tax profits followed revenues declining by €9 million or 54 per cent from €16.7 million to €7.7 million.
Commenting on the financial performance today, co-founder of Riverdance, John McColgan said: 'The main reason for the difference between the two years is because Riverdance did not tour the USA in the year ended 30th June, 24'
READ MORE
Mr McColgan said that Riverdance 'had another thriving year for the year ended 30th June, 2024'.
'In this period Riverdance was in the Gaiety in Dublin for the summer months with another very successful run. Also in the year Riverdance toured China, Australia and Japan and achieved excellent attendances and standing ovations in all these locations,' Mr McColgan said.
It is now 31 years since Riverdance made its debut at the Eurovision as the interval act during the 1994 contest in Dublin and Riverdance is this year celebrating its 30th anniversary as a global entertainment touring phenomenon.
Revenues are expected to increase sharply in the current year as Riverdance is currently touring the USA and Canada in a tour that commenced in January and is to end in June of this year.
Riverdance is scheduled for another US tour from January to June 2026 and os also planning a China tour in this period.
'In March of this year, Riverdance performed again in the Kennedy Centre in Washington and Radio City in New York to name a few locations and received standing ovations every night,' Mr McColgan said.
The strong profits of 2024, 2023 and 2022 follow Covid-19 related losses of €1.097 million in 2021 and €747,465 in 2020 as a result of the pandemic shutting down the show from March, 2020 to September, 2021.
Co-founder
Moya Doherty
sits on the board with Mr McColgan and accountant David Orr.
Aggregate pay to directors decreased by 31 per cent from €1.8 million to €1.24 million.
The amount owed by the company to the directors last year reduced sharply. Mr McColgan was owed €8,680 compared to €417,182 12 months prior while Ms Doherty was owed€161,006 compared to €594,891 at the end of June 2023.
Riverdance usually has two productions touring simultaneously each employing 50 to 55 cast and crew.
The firm's cash funds decreased from €5.34 million to €4.17 million. Accumulated profits at the end of June last stood at €4.18 million.
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Feminist punk fan mail from the Maze Prison
Feminist punk fan mail from the Maze Prison

Irish Times

time2 hours ago

  • Irish Times

Feminist punk fan mail from the Maze Prison

Political resistance has a long and varied history among the Irish people, from artistic defiance through WB Yeats's The Lake Isle of Innisfree (1888) and Seamus Heaney's poetry collection North (1975), to armed and carceral insurrection during the Easter Rising in 1916 or the 1981 hunger strike led by Bobby Sands and fellow Irish republican prisoners. Like other left-leaning and politically active Londoners, the women who comprised feminist punk band The Raincoats were keenly aware of the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland known broadly at the Troubles. Some members of the band were involved in anti-colonial demonstrations as part of the Troops Out Movement, or TOM for short, established in 1973 with the aim of ending British rule in Northern Ireland. Others had their own experiential knowledge of government oppression, migrating from fascist regimes in Portugal and Spain to the relative democracy of England. Yet nothing quite prepared the band for a handwritten piece of fan mail they'd receive upon the release of their first LP, a letter that would tether their own sonic history to one of fierce political struggle in Northern Ireland. The following excerpt from my new biography of the band, Shouting Out Loud: Lives of The Raincoats , chronicles that moment in which feminist punk became unexpectedly linked to the bloodshed of the Troubles. READ MORE Audrey Golden In 1979, The Raincoats received a piece of fan mail at Rough Trade from a writer named Jim Kyle. The return address at the top read 'Compound 19, H.M.P. Maze' – the H-Blocks near Lisburn. The letter had been sent from the feared institution that held political prisoners sentenced for acts of violence during the Troubles: Dear Raincoats, After repeated plays of the new album I just have to write and offer some praise, especially after reading the panning that bigot McCullough gave it when reviewing it in Sounds. I hope his article didn't discourage you too much as I'm sure anyone who reads Sounds regularly knows by now that he allows personality clashes etc. to influence his honesty. Stiff Little Fingers were another among many to incur his juvenile attitudes. As Ana said when replying in Sounds it makes one angry to think that someone like him has the power to influence people's choices. Anyway back to the album itself, which I think is brilliant. When I ordered it from Rough Trade a couple of weeks ago I also bought the new Jam, Fall, and Banshee L. P.s as they are among my favourites. However although they are very good it has been your album which has dominated the turntable and is what I'm listening to as I write this. A lot of things impress me. The actual music itself is first class especially on the Void and No Looking but I think it is the brilliantly structured vocals that makes it all so special. It's hard to explain in words what I feel impresses me in the album the highest accolade I can give it is that I really enjoy it. The standout for me is the excellent Off Duty Trip. Also your version of Lola would make a great single. I hope it's not too long before you release something else. In the meantime I think I'll be playing The Raincoats a lot. Cheerio, Jim The Maze prison was designated for prisoners during the Troubles and held detainees from 1971 to 2000. The Maze, as it was sometimes simply described, began as a series of compounds or cages making up an area known as Long Kesh, which was opened in 1976, replaced later by eight H-Blocks, named for their shape. It was a maximum-security prison that became known globally as a result of the protests occurring there, including the blanket protest and the 1981 hunger strike led by Bobby Sands. The prison was separated into 'cages,' as they were called by republicans, or 'compounds,' as they were called by loyalists. There's very little written information about the names of the prisoners who were held in the H-Blocks, unless they appeared in the media or have since given testimony to the Prisons Memory Archive. The 'Jim Kyle' who mailed the handwritten letter to Rough Trade in London identified his location as 'Compound 19', a loyalist area of the prison. On Shankill Road in West Belfast, a predominantly loyalist area, the ACT Initiative was established in 2008 as a conflict transformation program designed 'to facilitate the civilianisation of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).' Dr. William Mitchell, its director, remains in touch with many of those who were once imprisoned in Compound 19, where he himself was incarcerated for murder at the age of 17. He knows Jim Kyle well, and Jim agreed to Mitchell telling his story, centring on his abiding love of music and The Raincoats. 'Jim and I were actually in the same cell,' William explains. 'And my own personal development, musically, was initiated by Jim Kyle. Because as a 17-year-old, in 1976, he lent me an album by Bob Dylan, Desire .' From that point onward, Jim opened up the musical minds of many prisoners in Compound 19. It's a story, William explains, about difficult stereotypes of young people involved in the stark violence of the Troubles. Like many of their same-age counterparts, the young imprisoned loyalists were beginning to come of age as punk happened, and many saw themselves as part of the cultural revolution taking place in music, despite the very different sides of the conflict on which they committed acts of violence. 'I'd only been in prison about six months, same as Jim, we were arrested the same month in 1975,' William says. 'Both teenagers. I was 17, he was 18. We didn't know each other until we'd come into prison.' Thanks to Jim, William came to understand the deep politics and significance of Dylan's music, 'this protest singer who, as soon as I dropped the needle on Desire, sang, pistol shots rang out in a barroom, enter Paddy Valentine from the end of the hall. It was an epiphany moment, and it literally changed my world, changed my life. Through his music, I developed an interest in the characters in the songs and became introduced to William Burroughs, TS Eliot, Shakespeare, Arthur Rimbaud, all of these people who, as a young man, really fascinated me.' How was anyone listening to records in the H-Blocks? William explains, 'You were literally caged,' but they could roam freely within the compound and had access to study and educational facilities. There was a markedly large population of very young men, teenagers, and otherwise very young adults, like William and Jim, who'd been recruited during what William describes as 'the worst years of the conflict,' from 1972 to 1975. And those prisoners in Compound 19 together, around the same age, 'were drawn to the punk movement as a subculture, and we looked at it from afar with the disappointment that we couldn't engage in it. But we could listen to it and hear it on albums,' William says. Vicky Aspinall on violin, Palmolive on drums and Gina Birch on bass of The Raincoats performing at Alexandra Palace, London, UK, 16th June 1980. (Photo by David Corio/Redferns) Jim loved punk and post-punk, but he was also a well-rounded lover of music. William describes it, warmly, as a 'quite eclectic taste,' explaining, 'Jim used to religiously get the NME and Melody Maker and look for mail order opportunities, but of course, Rough Trade was his big focus. And we had this camaraderie, this group of young men. So any time someone got an album, they shared it. That record player was the only one we had between 80 prisoners,' he says as he points at a small suitcase record player behind him on a shelf. The record player 'lived' in the study area of Compound 19, and there was a hardback book that sat beside it. If you wanted to listen to a record, you'd put your name in the book and the hour you wanted it. Jim introduced the sounds of 'alternative music,' and music that was making a political impact in the UK, 'including, of course, The Raincoats,' William says. Jim recently reminded William of playing him The Raincoats' cover of Lola, but he emphasised that what drew him to The Raincoats initially was the Fairytale EP, 'their first single.' But he loved it all, and he sent the fan letter after receiving the self-titled LP from Rough Trade. Throughout his time in the Maze, he kept in direct contact with Sue Donne, who handled Rough Trade mail order. He gratefully recalls how Sue began sending him 'freebies' and discounting records for Jim to give a listen to. Did the records get censored? All the records would be opened and examined, and some things would be censored. But if there wasn't anything obvious – thank goodness for the subtlety of The Raincoats' political interventions – the records would be delivered to the prisoner who ordered them. But not before they'd been desecrated. William holds up some examples of records that had come into the Maze. There are large black redaction marks where the guards essentially made scribbles to damage the records. The prisoner's number would also be written largely on the front. 'But it actually gives them a kind of authenticity now,' he reflects. Jim would sometimes put on The Raincoats in the evening for everyone– 'And you can just imagine some of the criticism he would have got from the older folk,' William says. But it didn't deter Jim. The music was that important. He was imprisoned for about four years in total. During that time, he brought the world of Rough Trade to the prison, and he opened the sonic and political minds of many young prisoners in the larger compound with him. Jim loved music so much, and learned so much about it from the records he ordered and shared with fellow prisoners in the H-Blocks, that he opened a record shop in Smithfield Market in Belfast after he was released from the Maze. The market 'was a hard place,' William explains, with a long and violent history during the Troubles. 'It would get bombed every other month during the conflict,' he says, but after the Good Friday Agreement, it became a space of peace. And, thanks to Jim, of music. William used to visit the shop regularly until it closed, and he bought a fair amount of his current record collection from Jim. What was the shop called? 'Jim's Records.' That piece of fan mail, housed carefully in The Raincoats' archive for nearly 50 years, is a reminder of the stark power, and often unpredictable political resonances, that music can have. Had many tried to guess the identity of a Raincoats fan imprisoned in Long Kesh in 1979, they'd likely have made the assumption the writer had been a member of the IRA, whose politics seemed to align most closely to their own. Yet the truth is much more complex, and it reveals both the strengths and limitations of political ideology – and the assumptions we make – in moments of great unrest. Shouting Out Loud Shouting Out Loud: Lives of The Raincoats is published by White Rabbit

Dáithí Ó Sé on turning 50: "I want to get healthier and fitter"
Dáithí Ó Sé on turning 50: "I want to get healthier and fitter"

RTÉ News​

time2 hours ago

  • RTÉ News​

Dáithí Ó Sé on turning 50: "I want to get healthier and fitter"

Once again, Dáithí Ó Sé is back on his home turf to co-host one of the biggest shows on Irish TV. Donal O'Donoghue catches up a man seemingly in perpetual motion. Some 30 hours after Kerry won their 39th All-Ireland, the phone rings. It's Dáithí Ó Sé. "I'm hanging in there by a thread," says the man from An Daingean after what was, I'm guessing, a mammoth celebration. "Some win wasn't it?" he asks, although being from the Cork side of the border, I can't honestly comment. "After the game, I was invited to travel south to Kerry with the team, but it was time to call a halt and get the show back on the road." There's always a show on the road for Ó Se, from the Today show to Seal le Daithi to presenting The Fleadh, but in this case he's referring to the annual blockbuster that is the Rose of Tralee, an evergreen ratings monster that has its champions as well as its critics but is impossible to ignore, just like Ó Sé himself. Four days before the All-Ireland, I met Dáithí in RTÉ: dapper in a tux and looking fit as a fiddle. "It's the hair," he says, showing me a fine head of transplanted thatch. It's more than that. Off the beer for the most part (excepting All-Irelands), in the gym most mornings (he was there at 7am the morning we spoke) and early to bed most evenings (that's what a hyperactive 11-year-old does to you), he's raring for road. I suggest we talk after the Kerry-Donegal game, but he's having none of it. "I'm out of circulation next week, but I'll give you a ring after the game," he says (a man of his word), and he did. But first, the Zoom. The following day – and three days before the All-Ireland – Ó Se is back home in south Galway, Zooming in from a room walls festooned with GAA memorabilia, including a framed jersey of local club St Thomas's ("All-Ireland senior club champs from last year"). "There's no football around here at all, so Micheál Óg (Óige) is mad into the hurling," he says of his son, with his wife Rita, the former New Jersey Rose. Over blurry Zoom, he still looks a million bucks. "I'm 50 next year and it has been a huge confidence boost," he says of his hair, which arrived over two years ago. "I have two brothers, and they have fine heads of hair, and neither of them on TV. But sure, isn't that always the way?" It has been a hectic summer for Ó Se. "I finished the Today show on May 30, did 20 episodes of Seal le Daithí (his TG4 chat show returns this autumn) and after that I closed the gate and shut up shop." Well, not exactly true. In the week before the All-Ireland, Ó Sé seemed to be everywhere. He was on Oliver Callan's radio show jousting with Donegal's Daniel O'Donnell on the eve of the All-Ireland, he was on Up for the Match talking Sam Maguire and on the day itself he was in Croke Park introducing the Jubilee Team (the previous weekend, for the hurling final, he was also in Croker doing a half-time spiel on the big screen with former Cork and Tipp players). But that's the lot of the freelance broadcaster, and no better buachaill than the man who worked various odds and jobs – including teacher and circus ringmaster – before finding his home in broadcasting. This year, Rita and Micheál Óg will be in the Dome for both televised shows, a first for his son. "He has a velvet tux for the occasion, is getting his hair cut today and is very excited about going to the show, which he watched on TV last year." I ask him if he sees his late father, the celebrated writer and musician, Maidhc Dainín Ó Sé, in the ways and words of his son, and he nods. "I see myself turning into my dad as well," he says. "I'm going around the house at nighttime turning off all the lights, which was something my dad used to do. Those things that used to irritate my dad also irritate me. Like I was driving the other day, and this person did something, and I was like 'that fecking gobshite', only one step away from hooting the horn like my father used to do." Is turning 50 a big deal? "Not really," he says after a pause. "But I want to get healthier and fitter, make it easier for myself physically." There's the possibility of a party for the big day, if only to meet up with family and friends. "Outside of work, the only few times I've been home to Dingle in recent times were for funerals, so why not a party?" Back home, his mam is still going strong, but with a crammed work schedule including 166 episodes of Today, he says there's not a lot of time for anything else. But there is. Last year, he went back to college. "I now have a diploma in coaching and mentoring," he says. "I focused on conflict management, and it has helped me big time. I'm non-confrontational, so people see that as a weakness. So, you must show them it is, in fact, a strength. People are looking to be happy, but really, it's all about being content."

The most complained about companies in Ireland
The most complained about companies in Ireland

Irish Times

time5 hours ago

  • Irish Times

The most complained about companies in Ireland

Ryanair, Eir and Sky were the companies most complained about in the first half of 2025 while Ticketmaster saw its ranking with Ireland's consumer watchdog improve as concerns over high-priced Oasis tickets last September faded away. Conor Pope reports. Glenveagh Homes is weighing big changes to a 650-home housing development including omitting a number of housing units from the site, and a plan for a 379-unit, mixed-use development in Swords, Co Dublin. Hugh Dooley has the details. An Coimisiún Pleanála (ACP) has reopened an appeal over a 106 home development next to the Phoenix Park after the High Court quashed its decision to grant planning permission for the complex. Hugh has the story. How transformative is AI really going to be? At this stage it's an open question, but in his column Hugh Linehan shows how it is already having a huge impact on the media world. READ MORE Cantillon looks at an own goal by AIB, and why the Republic may not be a true ' rich ' country despite our GDP. In Your Money, Siobhan Maguire shows how it can be possible to make money out of watches , while Dominic Coyle answers questions on pensions and UK tax law, as well as whether borrowing from your children will impact the small gift tax exemption. Belfast-based neurotechnology company Neurovalens has closed a £6 million (€6.95 million) investment round to help fund its commercial expansion in the US and global markets. Ciara O'Brien reports. Dundrum Town Centre's owners have appealed a decision by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to refuse retention permission for long-standing food truck concessions at the front entrance to the retail complex. Hugh has the story. A row over demands by contractors involving a potential investor in the refinancing of debt-ridden airline CityJet, over proposed upfront payment terms for future maintenance work, could collapse rescue plans for the company which is currently in examinership, the High Court was told on Monday. Ray Managh was in court. Ticketing software specialist Future Ticketing has renewed its deal with top League of Ireland Football club, Shamrock Rovers until 2030. Barry O'Halloran has the story. If you'd like to read more about the issues that affect your finances try signing up to On the Money , the weekly newsletter from our personal finance team, which will be issued every Friday to Irish Times subscribers.

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