Irish musicians triumph at IFTAs

Saturday night's Irish Film and Television Awards honoured the successes of the Irish movie industry over the last year, awarding prizes to Hunger – which won 6 gongs, including best film – director Lance Daly for Kisses, and screenwriter Martin McDonagh for In Bruges.

But they also recognised the work of Northern musician David Holmes, who composed the score for Steve McQueen's Bobby Sands story, Hunger (and was also nominated for his work on Cherrybomb). Speaking to Hot Press last year, Holmes explained the difficult process of setting the film to music:

“When I got the script, I was totally blown away by it. It was fucking amazing. I just saw so many things – not even about the music, just how he wanted sound to be used. But when I read it, I thought it doesn’t actually need any music. I told the producer this and he said, “We should meet up because that’s exactly how Steve feels.” He came round here. I asked him what his thoughts were about the music and he said 'I want it to be really emotional but I want it to be totally unmusical'. And I was like, 'oh yeah, one of those.'

"Then I remembered I had a track that didn’t make it onto my album called ‘Any City With A Dirty History’ which had a hurdy gurdy on it. I stuck it on, played it, and he said, 'That’s exactly it'. It was one of those things that if I hadn’t got it instantly, I’d have been tearing my hair out for weeks. Brilliant direction, but how do you go about doing that? He was completely right – I mean Bobby Sands is about to die – how fucking shit if you bring in a huge string section."

Another surprise victory for the Irish music industry came when actress/musician Maria Doyle Kennedy won the IFTA for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her part in The Tudors.

The Tudors also won another 5 awards, including Best Drama Series. Other big TV winners include Des Bishop's In The Name of The Fada, and former Hot Press-er Graham Linehan, for The I.T. Crowd.