A few of Denis O'Brien's Irish alumni in the Caribbean appear to be striking out on their own. Richie Kelly once worked for the O'Brien- backed Saon group before the billionaire and his co-investors offloaded it, and ran the Caribbeanjobs. com recruitment site. He has just launched a new pan-Caribbean news site and smartphone app called Loop News.

Kelly, who began his career as an ad executive with The Irish Times , owns a Jamaican-registered company called Trend Media, which in turn owns Loop. The service distributes local and international news and is available in Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and Curaçao, home of that evil blue liqueur. High-profile Jamaican journalist Al Edwards, who has written plenty about O'Brien and his Digicel mobile company over the years, is fronting the ambitious news service, which plans to "change the media landscape".

Digicel also recently made Loop its “app of the week”. Some of the telco’s former staff are also among the senior heads at Trend Media. Abi O’hUiginn, a young ex-Digicel marketer, is the head of new business development.

I’d say the locals have some craic trying to pronounce her name in downtown Kingston.