\u201cThe idea is simple: however the economy fluctuates, people still need to buy food,\u201d went one sales pitch, accurately diagnosing a trend of widespread hunger across society at breakfast, lunch and dinner time (and sometimes in between if interesting-looking Polish biscuits are available).<\/p>\n
Many potential investors would have learned of the opportunity on a podcast called Path to Power, hosted by Matt Cooper and Ivan Yates<\/a>. <\/p>\n Path to Power came to the attention of the wider public in the autumn after it emerged that Yates had worked on it as he provided media training<\/a> to Fianna F\u00e1il contender Jim Gavin, simultaneously one of the most successful Gaelic football managers and least successful presidential candidates of all time.<\/p>\n [\u00a08,000 Irish investors blocked from withdrawing cash from German retail property fundOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Yates departed the podcast, and a number of investors unrelatedly departed the heavily Irish-funded Greenman, with a spike in requests in the third quarter of the year, as Ian Curran reported for this paper<\/a>. Seeking stability, the fund\u2019s chief executive Johnnie Wilkinson (not that one) kicked to touch. <\/p>\n Anyone who bought in after hearing the pitch on last Saturday\u2019s Path to Power episode about Miche\u00e1l Martin\u2019s world travelling ways would have had a maximum of five days to admire their decision before finding out that it could be 18 months before any redemption is possible. <\/p>\n Still, as Yates said during his ad reads over the summer: \u201cAll investments carry risk, values can go up or down, and past performance isn\u2019t a reliable guide to future returns.\u201d Cooper echoed that on a recent episode. That message applies, whether it\u2019s Jim Gavin or German supermarkets. <\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Mike Tyson and Belfast are both known for their boxing bona fides, so it came as something of a surprise to learn that the Baddest Man on the Planet was in the neat little town this week \u2013 not for boxing reasons but on pigeon business.<\/p>\n Tyson was visiting long-time friend Kevin McKinney and his family in north Belfast, local media reported. Word spread, understandably, when he was spotted in public on the Cliftonville Road, and crowds gathered to snap photos and, endearingly, to sprint after his car<\/a> like the children of Zaire before the Rumble in the Jungle.<\/p>\n McKinney is a pigeon world champion in a niche corner of the pursuit called \u201cRoller Fly\u201d, which involves the passerines doing somersaults, rolls and other acrobatic endeavours. At Overheard, we will hop on any sporting bandwagon at the merest sniff of success, so we\u2019re big fans. <\/p>\n Tyson, meanwhile, is on the record as a pigeon-lover. A 2011 article he wrote for The New York Times opens with the line<\/a>: \u201cIt\u2019s no secret that I love pigeons,\u201d going on to outline that pigeons got him into boxing by prompting him to fight a bully who killed one of his birds.<\/p>\n As recently as March of this year, he told People magazine<\/a> that he has \u201cmaybe a thousand pigeons\u201d across a number of lofts. \u201cBoxing is over and pigeons are still here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n This column has previously c<\/a>overed the travails of the North\u2019s feathery foragers<\/a> in the wake of Brexit. Perhaps Iron Mike can help officials find the focus to arrive at a solution. <\/p>\n A merry Christmas is in store for American children as billionaire couple Michael and Susan Dell pledge $250 (\u20ac214) a head for investment accounts benefiting 25 million individual kids.<\/p>\n The goal is suitably capitalist: to give a stake in the economy and a feel for investment to the masses. The funds, launched at the White House, are called \u201cTrump accounts\u201d, because that\u2019s how you get things done in Washington these days, but the $6.5 billion is coming from Dell\u2019s computer fortune rather than the Fed\u2019s Fort Knox gold reserves.<\/p>\n Michael Dell is well known in certain parts of Ireland, first for setting up a large manufacturing facility in Raheen, Limerick in 1991, bringing thousands of jobs and an economic bounce to the area, and then for closing it again in 2009 in a move declared the \u201cBlackest Day\u201d by the Limerick Leader newspaper at the time.<\/p>\n He told local Fianna F\u00e1il TD Willie O\u2019Dea \u2013 dispatched to suggest not closing the factory during one of Ireland\u2019s periodic economic collapses \u2013 that \u201cit wasn\u2019t personal, it was just business\u201d. This sort of acumen seems to have served him well, as he remains the world\u2019s 11th richest man.<\/p>\n Hence what might be the single biggest act of privately funded philanthropy in history, though the likes of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, who have also routed billions worth of good business through Ireland in their time, are also launching money at various social ills in less direct ways. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat we hope is that every child sees a future worth saving for,\u201d Dell said. \u201cYou think about the compounding effect of a programme like this in 10, 20, 30 years on millions of children. That\u2019s what gets us excited.\u201d<\/p>\n Prudent Paschal has piled Ireland\u2019s tax cut of Big Tech\u2019s eye-watering profits up in a rainy-day fund for the country. Will Sensible Simon \u2013 as Harris dubbed himself on the Six One this week \u2013 consider giving it to the kids after taking over as Minister for Finance?<\/p>\n The Vikings get a bad rap. After a period of youthful indiscretion spent learning the black market trade in chalices, they settled down to founding most of Ireland\u2019s cities and inaugurated the tradition of defending Leinster from the overlordship of self-appointed Munster kings, a ritual which has evolved from warfare to rugby over time.<\/p>\n A job opening therefore caught our eye: the National Museum of Ireland is seeking an assistant keeper grade II for its antiquities division \u2013 which is to say, a boffin \u2013 specialising in Viking-age Dublin.<\/p>\n![\"Mike](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/EIWAZC5KGZGIRPKSYGUHJXIIWU.PNG\")
Mike Tyson on Cliftonville Road in north Belfast where he was visiting his friend Kevin McKinney. Photograph: Stax Coffee Shop Iron Mike in the wee North \u2013 fancy that<\/p>\n![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/6SI62P5T7KOXMX2BICFOFVJ7GA.jpg\")
Michael Dell, chairman and chief executive officer of Dell, with his wife Susan and US president Donald Trump at the White House. Photograph: Yuri Gripas\/CNP\/Bloomberg Dell boys and girls<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/NJIIAPIYXVIWLKAKED7FDOASFM.jpg\")
A replica of a Viking-age shield is mounted on a wall at a National Museum of Ireland exhibition. Photograph: Kate Geraghty Burnishing Norsemen\u2019s credentials<\/p>\n