This year’s Zebbie Awards saw the Writers Guild of Ireland continue the annual tradition of distributing awards for the best Irish writing of the previous year in the five categories of feature film, television, radio, theatre and short film.
The awards took place on Thursday May 15 in the Sugar Club, and saw Irish writers for stage, screen and radio turn out to support one another and celebrate Irish writing in general. The feature film category saw Ailbhe Keogan and Steph Green’s script for ‘Run and Jump’ edge out competition from Brendan Muldowney’s ‘Love Eterna’ and Donal Foreman’s ‘Out of Here’ to take the prize, while Ted Gannon picked up Best TV script over ‘Love/Hate, ‘Republic of Telly’ and ‘Callan Kicks the Year’ for his episode of TV3 drama ‘Deception’.
In radio, Cavan writer Philip Doherty picked up the award for his work on ‘A Golden Triangle’, while Mikel Murfi’s ‘The Man in the Woman’s Shoes’ won the theatre award. Antoin Beag O’Colla won Best Short Film Script for his Irish language short ‘Rúbaí’, which tells the story of a young girl who creates a scandal when she refuses to take Holy Communion, claiming she is an atheist.
The Zebbie Awards were founded in 2007 in order to highlight the best in Irish writing for stage, screen and radio. The awards, termed on behalf of OZ "Zebby" Whitehead, a stage and film character actor who has used his own personal funds to sponsor new writing for thirty years, were presented by Senator David Norris. Also among the nominees on the evening were Donal O’ Kelly and Kevin Barry for radio, Feidlim Cannon, Tom O’ Sullivan and Eoin Duffy for short film, and Dylan Coburn Gray and David Ireland for theatre.
