Averil Power v Fianna Fáil
Senator Averil Power’s shock resignation from Fianna Fáil in May came as a blow to the party and the standing of its leader, Micheál Martin.
Stepping down just after the party’s first by-election victory in 19 years, Power accused her colleagues of taking a “cowardly” approach to the same-sex marriage referendum and ignoring proposals to increase female representation.
Martin came out swinging soon after, claiming Power had tried to “suspend the internal democratic process of the party” to ensure she would be Fianna Fáil’s only general election candidate in Dublin Bay North.
Web Summit v Department of the Taoiseach
One of the year’s more colourful rows kicked off when Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave published email correspondence between the company and senior officials in the Department of the Taoiseach, showing their strained relations in the weeks before it was confirmed the event would be moving to Lisbon in 2016.
Cosgrave claimed that the department, having asked event organisers to submit a wish list for the event, failed to deliver on requests including controls on hotel rates and garda escorts for VIP guests.
Enda Kenny later hit back against criticism of his handling of the controversy, saying the Web Summit was leaving Dublin for commercial reasons.
Taylor Swift v Nicki Minaj
Taylor Swift sparked a much-discussed debate on race and feminism back in July when she took issue with a Nicki Minaj tweet about the MTV VMAs.
Minaj had complained that none of her videos had been nominated in the video of the year category, tweeting: “If your video celebrates women with very slim bodies, you will be nominated for vid of the year.”
Thinking she was referring to her own nomination, Swift responded: “I’ve done nothing but love and support you. It’s unlike you to pit women against each other. Maybe one of the men took your slot.”
Minaj rebutted that she had only been asking for the singer’s support, pointing out that black women’s contributions to pop culture are “rarely rewarded”.
Donald Trump v Jeb Bush
The highly-charged fight between these two US presidential candidates has saturated media coverage of the race.
Not one to hold back from criticism, Trump for weeks criticised his rival for being “low energy” and weak. Then, he suggested that George W Bush, Jeb’s brother, was partially to blame for the 9/11 attacks.
Jeb, for his part, has branded his rival “pathetic” and “unhinged”, but his months-long criticism has failed to shift the balance of a contest still dominated by the billionaire businessman, who remains the clear favourite for the Republican nomination.
Ellen Pao v Reddit users
Ellen Pao stepped down from her role as interim chief executive of Reddit in July following controversy over the firing of one of the company’s employees.
Her relationship with Reddit users first deteriorated when the site launched a new anti-harassment policy in May, which led to a number of sections being taken down.
Fractious relations came to a head with the unexplained firing of Victoria Taylor, the popular coordinator of Reddit’s Ask Me Anything forums.
Taylor’s ousting led to over 210,000 people signing a petition calling on Pao to step down.
Drake v Meek Mill
It all started with a tweet from rapper Meek Mill: “Stop comparing Drake to me too…. He don’t write his own raps!”
His rival responded to the accusation days later with a strong-worded track suggesting Mill was a “charity case”.
A second diss rap responding to the claims was later nominated for a Grammy award.
Drake only directly addressed Mill’s charge two months later, however, when he defended his referencing of other raps as a “collaborative process”.
Zayn Malik v One Direction
And finally, the big one: One Direction and Zayn Malik, who sent shockwaves through the teen pop world when he quit the band in March.
Two months later, he and Louis Tomlinson became embroiled in an online spat when his former bandmate tweeted him: “Remember when you were 12 and you used to think those Mac filters for your pictures were cool haha! Some people still do HA!”
Malik replied: “Remember when you had a life..?” Ouch.
There was even more controversy in November when Malik hit out at One Direction’s “generic” music, complaining that he had no creative independence in the group.
This one is likely to rumble on for another while.
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