It’s been five years since the ‘Golfgate’ scandal shocked and horrified a nation. 

It was August 2020, five months since Leo Varadkar had ordered the country into lockdown as the deadly COVID-19 virus rampaged across the world. 

By that summer, Ireland was out of lockdown but there were still an eye-watering number of rules governing what people could do. 

On Newstalk Daily, Irish Examiner Acting Political Editor Paul Hosford recalled that it was still a “very strange time” and that “you could feel public buy in waning”. 

The rules were changing all the time and people were increasingly frustrated about what they could and couldn’t do. 

“All we were getting when you were at the NPHET briefings were Twitter DMs or Twitter messages,” he recalled. 

“‘Can you ask about weddings? My wedding’s booked next week.’

“You had to go back to these people and say, ‘Tony Holohan says your 25 person wedding now has to be six.’

“I know people who got married and had the six.” 

People walking in front of social distancing two meter sign in Stephens Green in Dublin. Picture by: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie

For A Few Scoops podcast host Aoife Moore, who was then a journalist with the Irish Examiner, the day started normally enough. 

She was due to attend a press conference with Minister Josepha Madigan on the provision of air filters into special needs schools. 

“I went to the press conference, nothing exciting happened,” she explained. 

“I went into Starbucks in Dundrum and I had finished writing up the Josepha copy and then the email came into me and Paul. 

“This email from this person who said, ‘This is not my video, I was sent this by a friend of mine. You should check this out.’” 

It was a very blurry video of a seating plan for the Oireachtas Golf Society. 

Given the strict rules governing public events, Ms Moore knew it was something of public interest. 

“The first table I remember so clearly had Dara Calleary, who was the new Minister for Agriculture,” she said. 

“Me and Paul rang each other and were like, ‘This is mad.’

“So, I phoned the hotel, real breezy, real casual, ‘Hiya, how’s it going. Just checking did the Oireachtas Golf Society event go ahead last night?’

“This poor girl, she only sounded about 20 or 21, said, ‘Yeah, I wasn’t working but there was about 81 people there but it went ahead, no issue.’” 

Dara Calleary arriving in Dublin Castle for a Cabinet meeting in 2020. Picture by: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

The pair of journalists divided up the names and began phoning each of them in turn, asking them to confirm their attendance at the event. 

The first person Ms Moore reached out to was Mayo TD Dara Calleary. 

As a Cabinet Minister, the Fianna Fáiler had a key role in drawing up the onerous regulations the Government had imposed upon the people of Ireland. 

“I phoned him and said, ‘Dara, did you go to the Oireachtas Golf Society event in Clifden last night?’” Ms Moore recalled. 

“He immediately said, ‘Yeah’ and, ‘You know when I was sitting there, I thought to myself this isn’t right.’ 

“He said, ‘Will you give me an hour to get a statement together.’” 

Leinster House. Picture by: Alamy.com.

Eventually, Ms Moore was tipped off by an advisor that they had recieved a phone call from another journalist about the same issue. 

It meant the Examiner had to hurry up and publish as soon as possible, or risk getting scooped by a rival outlet. 

“We were trying to hold it for the front page of the paper the next day,” she said. 

At the heart of the story was the question of COVID restrictions - which, if any, had been broken? 

Such was the complexity of the rules at the time, people had their own interpretations. 

“I was on the phone to the manager of the hotel,” Ms Moore recalled. 

“We both thought we were right but we both had completely different views on what the rules were.

“They were very keen that they had followed all the advice to the letter and, ‘Sure, wasn’t the Minister there? Wasn’t the Attorney General there? So, it must be right.’” 

The story went live on the Examiner’s website at 7.01 that evening.

“At quarter past seven, I had to leave the gym because my phone was just hopping,” Ms Moore said.  

“I was like I’m not getting anything done, I’m going home.” 

It was a story that shocked and enraged the nation in equal measure, dominating headlines for weeks to come.

In Newstalk Daily’s second episode on the scandal, the political fallout of the scandal will be examined.

Main image: Phil Hogan answering questions about his attendance at an Oireachtas Golf Club dinner. Picture by: RTÉ/Rollingnews.ie.