Blindboy Boatclub, KNEECAP and Paul Murray nominated for inaugural Sky Arts Awards

Limerick satirist, musician, podcaster and author Blindboy Boatclub, Irish language rap trio KNEECAP and Dublin novelist Paul Murray have each bagged nominations for the inaugural Sky Arts Awards.

The multi-hyphenate Blindboy is in the running for The Blindboy Podcast, which discusses mental health issues, as well as a wider spectrum of topics, be it history, music or socio-politics.

Coming off the back of their debut album and a forthcoming feature film, Irish language rap trip KNEECAP have been nominated for The Times Breakthrough Award in the Popular Music subcategory.

Murray is nominated for his acclaimed 2023 novel The Bee Sting, while fellow Dublin-born writer Claire Kilroy is nominated for her exacting portrait of motherhood, Soldier Sailor. 

Other nominees include Salman Rushdie, SAULT singer Cleo Sol and rock band The Last Dinner Party.  All Of Us Strangers, which stars Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal, and the BBC docuseries Once Upon A Time In Northern Ireland. 

The awards will replace the South Bank Sky Arts Awards and celebrate the "most exciting artists and arts organisations" in the UK and Ireland, covering a range of disciplines, from music and theatre to film and television.

Phil Edgar-Jones, director of Sky Arts, said the new awards would be an "unmissable night".

"This year we’re rallying around the question of why the arts matter, helped by the inimitable Melvyn Bragg, all the artists who appear in our shows, and the expert juries assembled for each awards category," he said. "Following in the footsteps of the South Bank Sky Arts Awards, the Sky Arts Awards will allow us to celebrate and venerate all the arts in one place, and definitively prove the value of the sector.

"With the cohort of superstar nominees below, it’s going to be an unmissable night."