Girls, when I tell you I had the time of my life at the weekend watching the BAFTA’s! I love a good awards show, I adore having a nosey at the dresses (shoutout to miss girl Kate Middleton rewearing her previous dress, we love to see it!), and it was made all the better by the sheer amount of big Irish heads at the show. Get ready to fangirl with me!
As a quick little recap, here’s some of the Irish nominations and their wins:
Martin Mc Donagh – Best Original Screenplay (Banshees of Inisherin)
Kerry Condon – Best Supporting Actress (Banshees)
Barry Keoghan – Best Supporting Actor (Banshees)
Banshees of Inisherin – Best British Film
Some films and actors that were nominated but missed out on an award:
An Cailín Ciúin nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film not in the English Language but missed out
Paul Mescal nominated for Best Actor
Now that these are fresh in your head, I’d like to have my fangirl moment. CAN YOU BELIEVE WE HAD SO MANY IRISH PRESENT AT THE BAFTA’S?? AND SOME OF THEM WON??
Like, seriously. What a win for Ireland. As such a small wee country, seeing our own at an awards night so huge is absolutely amazing. The BAFTA’s are a place that really cool people hang out – aka Emma Thompson. To have Irish people in attendance is just spectacular, really. It’s a huge motivator for us Irish to know that we can get recognition for our hard work, just like Barry and Kerry.
On the subject of Barry Keoghan, can we just say a massive congratulations to him? I’m sure you heard when all those nominations came out but my man’s been in more foster homes than Tracey Beaker, so I don’t think anyone deserves it more than he.
For young people from a disadvantaged area it is important to see things like this happening, to realise that getting awards like these are possible. In his acceptance speech, Keoghan thanked Ireland, saying he ‘should have planned this, really’. The Irishman also thanked his co-stars and the dedicated his award to children in the area he grew up in, in Summerhill.
The other point I’d like to address (& one you’ll have seen coming if you regularly read my work) is how ecstatic I was to see An Cailín Ciúin nominated for awards. I CANNOT BELIEVE IT. WE HAVE AN IRISH LANGUAGE FILM NOMINATED FOR A BAFTA! AND AN OSCAR! All British oppressor jokes aside, I have never been happier for Ireland. Besides the fact the movie is an absolute work of art, having a bilingual movie in our native tongue nominated for a highly regarded award is such an honour.
Giving space to movies and nominating them for awards like this means so much to people like me who campaign for the upheaval of the attitude to Irish. It shows us that someone out there respects it as a language, that maybe it’s not a dying language like y’all thought.
On the note of a dying language, let’s discuss my man Paul Mescal. Now, he might not have won an award, but he certainly won in my eyes. My man was interviewed on the red carpet (looking quite dáthiúl, might I add), and lo and behold he whips out the cúpla focail! TG4 should be praised from on high, for the service they’ve done to this country.
Now, as Paul explained a minute or so into the interview, he had gone to an Irish-led primary school, and he diligently used what he had of it to give a stunning wee agallamh (that’s interview as Gaeilge) to TG4’s own Caitlin Nic Aoidh. Now that was the sexiest thing my man Paul could have done.
By using what few words he had of Irish and patching together sentences with English where he struggled, he showed the entire nation that there is no need whatsoever to be fluent in Irish to speak it. Far too often we look at Irish and think the only option to speak it is to be líofa (fluent), but even one word in a sentence will do.
As Hugh Carr said in a recent article posted to JOE.ie, ‘It’s time to admit Irish is cool again’ – I always thought it was cool but you get the drift. Bí ag labhairt í xx