Ireland At the Oscars

With Irish films racking up a record 14 nominations at the 95th Academy Awards, Cinema Paradiso rifles through the history books to tell the story of Ireland at the Oscars.

Taking place just four days before St Patrick's Day, the Oscar ceremony at Hollywood's Dolby Theatre on 13 March 2023 affords a grand opportunity for Ireland's film-making talent to paint the town green. The country has had its moments in the Tinseltown spotlight before. But there's something particularly special about landing a record 14 nominations across 11 categories.

Setting the tone is Martin McDonagh's The Banshees of Inisherin, whose tally of nine nominations surpasses the sevenfold totals amassed by Jim Sheridan's In the Name of the Father (1993) and Kenneth Branagh's Belfast (2021). London-born dual citizen McDonagh is on for a potential hat-trick, as the film competes for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. Hailing from Dublin, Colin Farrell faces some stiff competition in the Best Actor category, while co-stars and fellow Dubliners Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan will go up against each other for Best Supporting Actor.

Born in Thurles, North Tipperary, Kerry Condon is one of five first-timers in the Best Supporting Actress category, although Angela Bassett does have a Best Actress nomination to her credit for her performance as Tina Turner in Brian Gibson's What's Love Got to Do With It (1993). Completing the Banshees roll of honour are New Yorker Carter Burwell for Best Original Score and Dane Mikkel E.G. Nielsen, who will go up for Best Editor against Dublin-born Jonathan Redmond for Baz Luhrmann's Elvis.

A native of Maynooth in County Kildare, Paul Mescal will join Farrell in the Best Actor stakes for his work as a stressed single father in Charlotte Wells's Aftersun. Rinn Gaeltacht in County Waterford provides the 1981 setting for Colm Bairéad's An Cailín Ciúin/The Quiet Girl, which made history as the first Irish-language film to be nominated for an Academy Award when it was shortlisted for Best International Feature.

Adapted from a novel by Claire Keegan, this account of a nine year-old girl's rite of passage was made for €1.2 million. By contrast, James Cameron had what has been estimated between $350-460 million to spend on Avatar: The Way of Water, which is currently presumed to be the second-most expensive film of all time behind J.J. Abrams's Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). A good proportion of the sum went on the visual effects that have earned nominations for Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, Daniel Barrett, and Richard Baneham, who was born in Dublin's largest satellite town, Tallaght.

You have to go north of the border to find the origins of An Irish Goodbye, the BAFTA winner that is up for Best Live-Action Short. Although Tom Berkeley is from Gloucester, co-director Ross White was born and bred in Belfast and their bittersweet story about two brothers trying to cope with the loss of their mother was filmed on a farm in Templepatrick in County Antrim. This is the 14th time an Irish film has been nominated in this category and it's about time some enterprising label gathered them together for a DVD release.

Best Picture

According to the official record, Ireland has been involved with 97 Oscar nominations and 18 wins. However, there are a few unofficial connections that are worth noting. In the Best Picture category, for example, Peter Blood, the physician-turned-pirate played by Errol Flynn in Michael Curtiz's swashbuckling adaptation of Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood (1935) was Irish. The same year, Victor McLaglen won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Gypo Nolan, the disgraced Republican who rats on his former confrères in John Ford's take on Liam O'Flaherty's The Informer, which also earned the Best Adapted Screenplay award for Dudley Nichols.

Norman Taurog's Boys Town (1938) isn't currently available on disc. But Father Flanagan, the priest who brought Spencer Tracy the Oscar for Best Actor, came from County Roscommon. Played by Thomas Mitchell, Driscoll, the leader of the crew aboard SS Glencairn in John Ford's The Long Voyage Home (1940), was also an Irisman. As, of course, was boxer Sean Thornton, who leaves Pittsburgh to buy the old family farm in Inisfree in Ford's The Quiet Man (1952). Bringing the director his record fourth Oscar, this rollicking comedy also earned Winton C. Hoch the award for Best Colour Cinematography for his views of the countryside around the village of Cong in County Mayo and Thoor Ballylee in County Galway.

As we saw in Cinema Paradiso's Instant Expert's Guide to Stanley Kubrick, much of his adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's Barry Lyndon was filmed in Ireland. Ken Adam and Roy Walker's art direction, John Alcott's cinematography, and Milena Canonero and Ulla-Britt Söderlund's costumes all prevailed. But Kubrick missed out on Best Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay, as Miloš Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (both 1975) conquered all.

The next Irish involvement in the Best Picture category registers on the official tally. Produced by Noel Pearson, Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot (1989) tells the story of how Christy Brown battled cerebral palsy in the Crumlin part of Dublin to become a celebrated writer and artist. Daniel Day-Lewis won Best Actor, while Brenda Fricker took the award for Best Supporting Actress as his mother, Bridget. Despite subsequent questioning of an able-bodied actor playing Brown, several Academy members confided in a 2015 Hollywood Reporter poll that they would now vote for My Left Foot over Bruce Beresford's winning film, Driving Miss Daisy.

Four years later, Sheridan and Day-Lewis would be back in the Best Picture frame for In the Name of the Father (1993), which revisited the case of the Guildford Four, who were accused of carrying out an IRA bombing. Among its six other nominations were Best Actor and Supporting Actor nods for Day-Lewis and Pete Postlethwaite as Gerry and Giuseppe Condon and Best Supporting Actress recognition for Emma Thompson, as lawyer Gareth Peirce, on the night she was also up for Best Actress for her performance as Miss Kenton in James Ivory's The Remains of the Day.

Although very much a paean to Scottish independence, the battle scenes in Mel Gibson's Braveheart (1995) were predominantly filmed in Ireland. Indeed, members of the Irish Army Reserve served at the Curragh in County Kildare, while Trim Castle and Bective Abbey in Meath stood in during scenes set in London and York. Ironically, the Best Picture winner's success led to a boom in Scottish tourism.

As fans of James Cameron's Titanic (1997) will know, the doomed liner was built in Belfast. This wasn't the first time that the 1912 sinking had featured in a Best Picture winner, however, as two characters in Frank Lloyd's adaptation of Noël Coward's Cavalcade (1933) perish in the disaster. Martin Scorsese has also landed two Best Picture nominations from his excursions into the New Yor Irish underworld. Liam Neeson's 'Priest' Vallon led the immigrant Dead Rabbits in the Five Points slum in Gangs of New York (2002), while Robert De Niro took the role of hitman Frank Sheeran in The Irishman (2019), which made use of a de-ageing camera nicknamed 'the three-headed monster'.

Having previously collaborated with Neil Jordan on three Irish stories, The Miracle (1991), Michael Collins (1995), and The Butcher Boy (1997), Redmond Morris (who is 4th Baron Killanin) earned a Best Picture nomination alongside co-producers Anthony Minghella, Sydney Pollack, and Donna Gigliotti for Stephen Daldry's adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's The Reader (2008), which earned Kate Winslet the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance as Auschwitz guard Hanna Schmitz.

Judi Dench was nominated for her work as the title character in Stephen Frears's Philomena (2013), which follows the true story of an Irishwoman's bid to trace the baby that was taken away from her at the convent laundry at Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea in the early 1950s. Brie Larsen won the Oscar for Best Actress as Dublin-born Ed Guiney took his first step to becoming the first Irish producer to be nominated for Best Picture twice. He followed a citation for Lenny Abrahamson's Room (2015), in which Larsen plays a kidnap victim, with a win for Yorgos Lanthimos's The Favourite (2018), which also brought Olivia Colman the Best Actress prize for her poignant portrayal of Queen Anne.

The previous year, Martin McDonagh had secured his first Best Picture nomination for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), which also contained a Best Actress-winning turn by Frances McDormand. He now has four more nominated performances to his credit in The Banshees of Inisherin. Kenneth Branagh also added a couple, courtesy of Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds, for Belfast (2021), which saw him earn three nominations, for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Director, which is our next port of call.

Best Director

In 1910, Kalem made screen history by becoming the first company to make a film on location outside the United States. Canadian director Sidney Olcott filmed The Lad From Old Ireland in Cork and Killarney and enjoyed the experience so much that he extended his trip to team with pioneering woman film-maker Gene Gauntier on The Irish Honeymoon (1911), which included scenes shot in Dublin and at Blarney Castle.

The year this was released, Dubliner Rex Ingram sailed for New York. Dropping his real surname (which just happened to be Hitchcock), he forged a successful partnership at MGM with screenwriter June Mathis on a series of films with Rudolph Valentino that included The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921). In 1923, he opened his own studio in Nice to work with wife Alice Terry on features like Mare Nostrum (1926) that prompted Erich von Stroheim to declare Ingram the greatest director in the world.

Yet, his powers started to wane just as the Academy Awards were inaugurated and, thus, Herbert Brenon became the first Irishman to be nominated for Best Director. Hailing from Kingstown (which had been renamed Dún Laoghaire in 1921), Brenon had been raised in London before emigrating to the US in 1896. He was ranked among the finest directors in Hollywood's first two decades and was rewarded with a nomination for Sorrell and Son (1927) at the first Academy Awards. Long thought lost, this adaptation of Warwick Deeping's novel was rediscovered in the early 2000s, but has yet to be made available on disc.

Ireland would have to wait six decades for its next Best Director nomination, although John Ford made so much of his Irish roots that it's tempting to claim him. Both parents had been born in the old country and Ford used to claim his real name was Seán Aloysius Ó Fearna, when it was actually John Martin Feeney. He won four Oscars for Best Director, with The Informer and The Quiet Man being joined on the roster by The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and How Green Was My Valley (1941), which made him the category's first consecutive winner. This feat has only been matched since by Joseph L. Mankiewicz for A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950) and Alejandro González ñárritu for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) and The Revenant (2015).

The only picture for which Ford failed to convert a nomination was Stagecoach, when he was pipped by Victor Fleming's Gone With the Wind (both 1939). Fifty years later, Kenneth Branagh received the first of his two nominations for Henry V (1989). By directing himself to a Best Actor nod, he joined a double-up pantheon that also includes Orson Welles ( Citizen Kane, 1941), Laurence Olivier ( Hamlet, 1948), Woody Allen ( Annie Hall, 1977), Warren Beatty ( Heaven Can Wait 1978 & Reds, 1981), Kevin Costner ( Dances With Wolves, 1990), Clint Eastwood ( Unforgiven, 1992 & Million Dollar Baby, 2004), and Roberto Benigni ( Life Is Beautiful, 1998).

Olivier and Benigni are the only winners from this cabal, but Branagh does have an Oscar thanks to his screenplay for Belfast. He earned his second Best Director citation for this semi-autobiographical saga, which puts him level with Dubliner Jim Sheridan for My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father. Sligoman Neil Jordan also earned his nomination for a story about the Troubles, with The Crying Game (1992) bringing home the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

A native of the Dublin suburb of Rathfarnam, Lenny Abrahamson had solely told Irish stories in Adam & Paul (2004), Garage (2007), What Richard Did (2012), and Frank (2014). But he drew a Best Director nomination for Room, which is set in Akron, Ohio and centres on the captivity of a mother and her young son. And isolation is also the theme of The Banshees of Inisherin, which has brought Martin McDonagh his first recognition in this category. He has, however, tasted success elsewhere, as we shall see.

Shorts and So Forth

One has to wonder why so many Irish titles are nominated in the Academy's three shorts categories and why so few of their makers go on to make names for themselves with features. The obvious exception is Martin McDonagh, who won the Oscar for Best Live-Action Short with Shooters (2005), a darkly hilarious account of an eventful train journey involving widower Brendan Gleeson and runaway Rúaidhri Conroy. Available to rent from Cinema Paradiso, this was the island's first win in the category after Louis Marcus's Conquest of Light (1975), Kenneth Branagh and David Parfitt's Swan Song (1992), Tim Loane, Pearse Moore, and Dave Duggan's Dance Lexie Dance (1997), and Gary McKendry's Everything in This Country Must (2004) had been nominated. Steph Green and Tamara Anghie's New Boy (2008), spouses James Flynn and Juanita Wilson's The Door (2009), Michael Creagh's The Crush (2010), and Peter McDonald and Eimear O'Kane's Pentecost were next nominated before Ulster father and daughter, Terry and Oorlagh George triumphed with The Shore (both 2011), which starred Ciarán Hinds and Conleth Hill in a reunion story that was filmed entirely at the George cottage at Coney Island in County Down.

Dubliner Benjamin Cleary also came home with a statuette for Stutterer (2015), with subsequent contenders including Ronan Blaney and Michael Lennox's Boogaloo and Graham (2014), Vincent Lambe and Darren Mahon's Detainment (2018), and Ross White Tom Berkeley's An Irish Goodbye . There has only been one victory in the Best Documentary Short category, with dual citizen Corinne Marrinan's A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin (2005) succeeding where Tom Hayes and Jim O'Connor's Cradle of Genius (1961), Patrick Carey's Yeats Country (1965), Patrick and Vivien Carey's Oisin (1970), and Louis Marcus's Irish-language Páistí ag obair (aka Children At Work, 1973) had fallen just short.

The sole win in the Best Animated Short category came with the first Irish nomination, for Tyron Montgomery and Thomas Stellmach's Quest (1996). Seamus Byrne and Ruairí Robinson's Fifty Percent Grey, Cathal Gaffney and Darragh O'Connell's Give Up Yer Aul Sins (both 2001), Darragh O'Connell and Nicky Phelan's Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty (2009), Fodhla Cronin O'Reilly and Timothy Reckart's Head Over Heels (2012), and Louise Bagnall and Nuria González Blanco's Late Afternoon (2018) have all since come close.

The island has yet to prevail in Best Animated Feature. But it has a proud record, as Tomm Moore from Newry in Northern Ireland has secured nominations for his Cartoon Saloon company with all three parts of his 'Irish Folklore' trilogy. Cinema Paradiso users can lose themselves in the compelling narratives and stunning visuals of The Secret of Kells (2009), Song of the Sea (2014), and Wolfwalkers (2021). Nora Twomey's The Breadwinner (2017) is also available to rent and charts the experiences of a young girl growing up under the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Raised bi-lingually in Dublin, Colm Bairéad breaks new ground with An Cailín Ciúin (aka The Quiet Girl), which is the first Irish-language film to be nominated for Best International Feature. Adapted from Claire Keegan's novella, Foster, it follows nine year-old Cáit (Carrie Crowley) on a visit to some distant relatives in Rinn Gaeltacht in County Galway during the summer of 1981. Quickly becoming the highest-grossing Irish-language film of all time, it finds itself up against Edward Berger's All Quiet on the Western Front, Jerzy Skolimowki's EO, Lukas Dhont's Close, and Santiago Mitre's Argentina, 1985 at the 95th Academy Awards.

Acting Awards

William Joseph Shields not only earned Ireland's first Academy Award for acting, but he also made a unique piece of screen history in the process. Taking the name Barry Fitzgerald to distinguish him from actor brother Arthur Shields, the Dubliner is the only person to have been nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for the same performance in a single picture. He lost out in the former category to co-star Bing Crosby. But Fitzgerald took the latter for his rascally turn as Father Fitzgibbon in Leo McCarey's Going My Way (1944). This just also happened to be the first time (at the 17th Oscars) that one film had claimed both actor awards.

Born in Dublin, but raised in India and Devon, Richard Todd earned his nomination for playing Scottish corporal Lachlan MacLachlan alongside Ronald Reagan and Patricia Neal in Vincent Sherman's Burmese field hospital drama, The Hasty Heart (1949). The desert island setting was more exotic, as Wexford native Dan O'Herlihy was recognised for his eponymous turn in Luis Buñuel's adaptation of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1954).

Almost a decade elapsed before Limerick's Richard Harris snagged a nomination for his bullish display as Wakefield rugby league star Frank Machin in Lindsay Anderson's take on David Storey's kitchen sink novel, This Sporting Life (1963). Over a quarter of a century would pass, however, before Kenneth Branagh and Daniel Day-Lewis went head to head for Henry V and My Left Foot. The latter took the statuette, of course, and followed up his success with nods for In the Name of the Father and Gangs of New York before landing the prize for his work as Daniel Plainview in Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood (2007) and as Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln (2012).

Day-Lewis seemingly retired after being cited for his performance as Reynolds Woodcock in Anderson's 1950s haut couture saga, Phantom Thread (2017). But, while he holds the record for the most Best Actor victories, other Irishmen have been catching the eye. Richard Harris, for example, drew a second nomination for his potent portrayal of crusty farmer Bull McCabe in Jim Sheridan's The Field (1990), while Stephen Rea was unlucky to miss out for his display as sexually conflicted IRA terrorist, Fergus, in The Crying Game.

Liam Neeson also fell just short for his thoughtful reading of the role of German industrialist Oskar Schindler in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993), while dual German-Irish citizen Michael Fassbender lost out for another biopic, Danny Boyle's Steve Jobs (2015). It only remains to be seen now whether either Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin) or Paul Mescal (Aftersun) can overcome the competition posed by Austin Butler ( Elvis ), Brendan Fraser (The Whale) and Bill Nighy ( Living ).

Considering the calibre of Irish screen actresses over the years, it's surprising that they have not accumulated more Oscar nominations. Despite Greer Garson claiming to have been born on her grandfather's estate at Drumalure in County Down, she actually came from Manor Park in London. So, we can't count her nominations for Sam Wood's Goodbye, Mr Chips (1939), Mervyn LeRoy's Blossoms in the Dust (1940) and Madame Curie (1943), Tay Garnett's Mrs Parkingon (1944) and The Valley of Decision (1945), and Vincent J. Donohoe's Sunrise At Campobello (1960). But we have to mention that she holds the record for the longest acceptance speech after winning for the sterling performance as an embattled wartime housewife in William Wyler's Mrs Miniver (1942).

We also need to note that indomitable Dubliner Maureen O'Hara (who frequently gave John Wayne as good as she got in John Ford films like The Quiet Man) received an Honorary Academy Award in 2014. The inscription commended the 'Queen of Technicolor' for 'inspiring performances that glowed with passion, warmth, and strength'. Type her name into the Cinema Paradiso searchline and get ordering. You can't go wrong with any of the 30 titles you'll find there.

A clutch of non-native actresses have been nominated for playing Irish characters, such as Deborah Kerr's novice nun in John Huston's Heaven Knows, Mr Allison (1957), Sarah Miles's Rosy Ryan in David Lean's Ryan's Daughter (1970), Samantha Morton's illegal Hell's Kitchen resident in Jim Sheridan's In America (2003), Glenn Close's 19th-century Dublin butler in Rodrigo Garcia's Albert Nobbs (2011), and Judi Dench as Philomena Lee in Philomena (2013).

All of which means that 21 year-old Saoirse Ronan became Ireland's first Best Actress nominee for her work as Eilis Lacey in John Crowley's adaptation of Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn (2015). This is apt, as Ronan was born to Irish parents in New York before being raised in Ardattin in County Carlow. She trebled her tally for her display as Christine McPherson and Jo March in Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird (2017) and Little Women (2019). As she also has a Best Supporting certificate (at the age of 13) for playing Briony in Joe Wright's adaptation of Ian McEwan's Atonement (2007), Ronan is currently the second-youngest person to score four Academy Award nominations in both acting categories behind Jennifer Lawrence.

The only other Best Actress contender is Ruth Negga, who was born to an Irish mother in Addis Ababa. When her Ethiopian father died, she relocated to Limerick, where she lived until she went to secondary school in London. She was nominated for playing Mildred in Loving (2016), Jeff Nichols's study of interracial marriage in 1960s Virginia, and, thus, became the first Black Irish actress to be nominated for an Oscar.

Seven Irish women have competed for the Best Supporting Actress award. The first, Geraldine Fitzgerald, was born in Greystones, County Wicklow and hoped to become an artist until her actress aunt, Shelah Richards, coaxed her into venturing on to the stage at Dublin's Gate Theatre. Shortly after arriving in Hollywood, she was nominated for playing Isabella Linton in William Wyler's adaptation of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1939).

Born in Dublin 15 years before the first Lumière film show, Sara Allgood cut her teeth at the Abbey Theatre before making her screen debut in Australia in 1918. Hitchcock fans will recognise her from Blackmail (1929), Juno and the Paycock (1930), and Sabotage (1936). But her nomination came for her work as Beth Morgan in John Ford's Best Picture-winning interpretation of Richard Llwellyn's How Green Was My Valley. Up against her was Patricia Collinge, a Dubliner who had emigrated with her mother in 1907. Sadly, it's not currently possible to see her performance as Birdie Bagtry-Hubbard in William Wyler's The Little Foxes (both 1941).

Cinema Paradiso users can appreciate Brenda Fricker's display in My Left Foot, which brought Ireland its only win in the category to date. Killarney's Jessie Buckley first came to people's attention in the BBC talent show, I'd Do Anything (2008), since when she has flourished prior to being nominated as Leda Caruso in Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Lost Daughter (2021). Let's hope Kerry Condon can go one better after excelling as Siobhán Súilleabháin in The Banshees of Inisherin, although she faces some stiff competition.

The same is true for co-stars Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan, who play Colm Doherty and Dominic Kearney respectively. Best Supporting Actor is a sparsely populated category where Ireland is concerned, and then, Michael Fassbinder was born in Heidelberg. He was raised in Killarney, however, and impressed as Louisiana plantation owner Edwin Epps in Steve McQueen's Best Picture winner, 12 Years a Slave (2012).

Kenneth Branagh also played an historical character, as he directed himself to a nomination as Laurence Olivier in Simon Curtis's My Week With Marilyn (2011), which chronicles the filming of The Prince and the Showgirl (1957). He also called the shots on Belfast, which saw Ciarán Hinds and Judi Dench nominated as the doting grandparents of Buddy (Jude Hill), with the latter being recognised for her second Irish character, even though she was born in the York district of Hemley.

Writers and the Rest

There's a familiar took to the names in the Best Original Screenplay ranks. Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) and Kenneth Branagh (Belfast) each won the Oscar. Martin McDonagh will be hoping it's third time lucky after he was nominated for In Bruges (2008) and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), with his nod for The Banshees of Inisherin putting him clear of Jim Sheridan and Terry George. The former was listed along with daughters Kirsten and Naomi for In America, while George shared the citation with Keir Pearson for Hotel Rwanda (2004), which earned Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress nominations for Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo as hotelier Paul Rusesabagina and his wife, Tatiana.

We've also come across several of the Best Adapted Screenplay titles, notably Shane Connaughton and Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot, Terry George and Jim Sheridan's In the Name of the Father, and Emma Donoghue's Room. Kenneth Branagh crops up again for his reworking of William Shakespeare's Hamlet (1996). But we also get to namecheck Bill Naughton, the playwright from Ballyhaunis, County Mayo who grew up in Bolton and who adapted his own stage hit, Alfie, for director-producer Lewis Gilbert and star Michael Caine, who both received Oscar nominations.

Our last adaptee might be getting company this year, if Kazuo Ishigura wins for Living, which he adapted from Akira Kurosawa's classic, Ikiru (1952). Bob Dylan also has a Nobel Prize and an Oscar after 'Things Have Changed' from Curtis Hanson's Wonder Boys (2000) won Best Original Song. The first to double up, however, was George Bernard Shaw, the playwright from the Portobello suburb of Dublin who teamed with Ian Dalrymple, Cecil Arthur Lewis, and W. P. Lipscomb to bring his stage success, Pygmalion, to the screen for Anthony Asquith in 1938.

Twenty-six years later, the same story of a linguistics professor who teaches elocution to a London flower girl would earn Alan Jay Lerner a nomination in the same category, after George Cukor brought his musical, My Fair Lady (1964), to the big screen. Sticking with music, Ireland has accrued a number of Best Song nominations. Enya, who comes from Gweedore in County Donegal, teamed with Nicky and Roma Ryan to pen 'May It Be' for Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). The members of U2 were collectively nominated for 'The Hands That Built America' for Gangs of New York and 'Ordinary Love' for Justin Chadwick's Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013). Ulsterman Van Morrison was also recognised for 'Down to Joy' from Belfast. But the island's sole winners in this category are Ballymun's Glen Hansard and Czech actress-singer, Markéta Irglová, for the delightful 'Falling Slowly', which is one of several memorable tunes in John Carney's Once (2007). Treat yourself, you won't regret it.

This brings us to the craft awards, those vital contributions by expert technicians who rarely make the headlines. Take the mixing of Peter J. Devlin, a Belfast native who began as an audio trainee at BBC Northern Ireland before going on to amass five Oscar nominations for Best Sound. Just think how different Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor (2001), Transformers (2007), and Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) would be without the contribution of Devlin and his cohorts. The same goes for J.J. Abrams's Star Trek (2009) and Ryan Coogler's Black Panther (2018).

Irish set decorator Josie MacAvin also had a proud record, following nominations for Tony Richardson's Best Picture winner, Tom Jones (1963) and Martin Ritt's The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1965) with a win for Sydney Pollack's Out of Africa (1985), which also claimed Best Picture. She couldn't compare with Dublin-born Cedric Gibbons, however, whose contract at MGM gave him masses of production design credits, even when he did little more than supervise the work of others. Nevertheless, he racked up a record 39 nominations and 11 Oscars.

His successes were for Charles Brabin's The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929), Ernst Lubitsch's The Merry Widow (1934), Robert Z. Leonard's Pride and Prejudice (1940), Mervyn LeRoy's Blossoms in the Dust (1941), George Cukor's Gaslight (1944) and Little Women (1949), Clarence Brown's The Yearling (1946), Vincente Minnelli's An American in Paris (1951) and The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Joseph L. Mankiewicz's

Julius Caesar (1953), and Robert Wise's Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956).

Dublin-based Consolata Boyle's time has yet to come. But she already has three nominations for Best Costume Design for Stephen Frears's The Queen (2006), Florence Foster Jenkins (2016), and Victoria & Abdul (2017). Armagh cinematographer Seamus McGarvey has also been unlucky to miss out for both Joe Wright's Atonement (2007) and Anna Karenina (2012). And Dubliner Robbie Ryan will also almost certainly add to his single nomination for The Favourite.

We have already noted that Jonathan Redmond is Ireland's first Best Film Editing nominee for Elvis. But Kildare make-up artist Michèle Burke makes a habit of being nominated. In addition to shared nods for Michael Chapman's The Clan of the Cave Bear (1986), Jean-Paul Rappeneau's Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), Jay Roach's Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), and Tarsem Singh's The Cell (2000), she also won the Oscar for Best Make-up and Hairstyling for Jean-Jacques Annaud's Quest For Fire (1981) and Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). She remains busy and now has competition from compatriot Lynn Johnston, who was nominated for helping transform Glenn Close into a man in Albert Nobbs.

Last, but by no means least, visual effects animator Richard Baneham has an excellent chance of adding to the Oscar he won for James Cameron's Avatar (2009) with the same director's Avatar: The Way of Water. If the hints that he and Joe Letteri dropped at the BAFTAs are anything to go by, they may well be in line for a hat-trick when the third episode is released in 2024.