Dublin studio Turnip + Duck lead Irish Animation Awards

Dublin Studio Turnip + Duck led the 2025 Irish Animation Awards with four wins for their series Maddie + Triggs.
The animated series, which follows the adventures of a curious little girl and her doggy best friend, bagged the awards for Best Animated Preschool Series (up to 6 years old), Best Original Song, Best New IP and Best Innovation.
Kilkenny's Cartoon Saloon took home three awards for Best Design and Art Direction, and Best Original Score for the Star Wars: Visions Volume 2 episode Screecher's Reach and Best Storyboarding for Silly Sundays.
Galway's Moetion Films took home two Irish Animation Awards for The Magic Reindeer Saving Santa's Sleigh, including Best Feature Film or Special, while fellow Galway studio Triggerfish Animation also bagged two awards on the night for their animated TV series Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire.
Roscommon's Studio Meala also bagged two awards for the hit TV series Doodle Girl, with one going to young Dublin actress Aisling Walsh who claimed the Best Voice Acting accolade.
Dublin studio Kavaleer Productions was honoured with two gongs for their series Boy Girl Dog Cat Mouse Cheese, winning Best Animated Kids Series (over 6 years old), and scooping the Kids Choice for Best Animated Kids Series (over 6 years old) as voted by the children of Hazelwood Integrated Primary and Nursery in Belfast.
Dublin's Brown Bag Films came out tops in the Best Script for a Feature Film or Special category for Lu and the Bally Bunch, while also winning the Sustainability Champion 2025 Award.
Best Animated Short Film - Ireland went to Retirement Plan directed by John Kelly, with a script co-written by Tara Lawall and John Kelly. The film is voiced by Domhnall Gleeson.
Japanese animator Saki Muramoto took home Best International Animated Short Film fo r A Night at the Rest Area.
Ronan McCabe, CEO of Animation Ireland, said: "It's been a challenging time for the industry since we last got together in 2023 and whilst we remain conscious of the difficulties facing our members, it is important that we celebrate and showcase the work and creativity of our professional Animation, VFX and Gaming communities.
"We only get to do every two years so it's with gratitude that we come together, with our friends and colleagues from this island and beyond, to share and celebrate the best our industry has to offer. Well done to all the nominees and congratulations to the winners."
Desiree Finnegan, Chief Executive of Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland, the primary sponsor of the awards, added: "Screen Ireland is proud to support the 2025 Irish Animation Awards - an important opportunity to highlight the outstanding Irish animation sector and the range of creative vision and talent it represents.
"Our congratulations and best wishes go to all of the nominees this year, whose stunning work continues to connect with audiences worldwide."
The Irish Animation Awards are a biennial event, celebrating more than 2,500 animation professionals who make and create across the island of Ireland.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Irish Examiner

4 days ago

• Irish Examiner

'There's great satisfaction in hearing your own tunes played': Jackie Daly turns 80

Jackie Daly, accordion legend, composer, Gradam Ceoil recipient, and renowned joke-teller, may already have the honour of putting the Lucrative into Sliabh Luachra, if only as one of his vast collection of puns. But as the Kanturk native celebrates his 80th birthday this weekend, now ranked among his proudest achievements is the title of the Man who put the Planxty into the Sliabh Luachra tradition. Steeped in the music of the Cork-Kerry border, whose tunes he first learned from fiddle master Pádraig O'Keeffe's past pupil Jim O'Keeffe, Daly has long made his own mark on the area's tradition as one of the finest purveyors of its polkas and slides, airs, reels, hornpipes, and jigs. In a career playing and recording with Dé Danann, Buttons & Bows, Arcady, and Patrick Street, and with duet partners including Séamus Creagh, Kevin Burke, Máire O'Keeffe, and Matt Cranitch, Daly's broader musical credentials on both accordion and concertina are impeccable. When public performances were curtailed during covid lockdown, his talents as a composer flourished and a trickle of new tunes became a torrent, culminating in the 2022 publication of The Jackie Daly Collection of 227 original works. Between the jigs and the reels are four planxties, reflective of the Irish harp melodies associated with Turlough O'Carolan, described by Daly as 'a little bit classical'. 'They never seemed to be part of the Sliabh Luachra tradition, so in my collection there's four of them and one of them is getting popular now – it's called Planxty Luachra,' he says. Among his musical accomplishments thus far, he adds: 'At the moment the one I'm most proud of is the planxty because it wasn't done before.' Considering the possibility that in another 80 years academics might pontificate on the origins of this Sliabh Luachra 'planxty tradition', he quips: 'I don't know if they will or not. We'll harp on that later. 'But I love the slides and polkas. There's three [self-composed] polkas - The Cat on the Half-Door, Pauline's Panache, and Joe Burke's – that have got popular now and a lot of people are playing them together. There's great satisfaction in hearing your own tunes played.' Beyond his new compositions, Daly has been helping to shape traditional music for decades through his arrangements, ornamentation, and reinterpretations of existing tunes, many becoming so well known that they are now themselves the standards. 'I should bring out another collection,' he says. 'There's lots of tunes that are not in the book because of the fact that I put extra parts to established tunes. They've become popularised as well, so in the future maybe I'll do something about that.' Already mulling the title of such a volume, he tells a tale of how a Sligo-Leitrim version of the tune The Bucks of Oranmore once earned the disapproval of musician John Kelly. 'Connie Connell was playing it in Dublin and John Kelly said to me 'what's that?'. He said 'Jackie, The Bucks should not be interfered with.' So I'm thinking of calling my book 'Jackie Daly and the ones he interfered with'.' All joking aside, in interpretations of tunes Daly respects the tradition and if he adds anything to the tune it's always in context, according to his long-time collaborator, fiddle player Matt Cranitch. 'On the recording that he did with Dé Danann on The Mist Covered Mountain, the set of reels The Cameronian and The Doon - and The Doon is a well-known Sliabh Luachra tune - every single note on that is a workshop in musical integrity,' says Cranitch. 'When an ornament is put in, they have incredible effect and meaning and this kind of thing doesn't happen by accident. It happens from his lifetime of music and the genius of the man himself.' Daly's lifetime in music is a world tour of festivals, concerts, and sessions from America to Japan, from Kanturk to his current home in Miltown Malbay, Co Clare, and of friendships and acquaintances, famous names, and fond memories. In four 'fantastic' years from 1978 with Dé Danann 'we played a lot in America and bluegrass festivals where they'd never heard Irish traditional music before and it went down a bomb,' he recalls. He went on to perform at 'a big festival in Milwaukee, one in Chicago, in Boston, lots of them, and the Catskills I did 13 years on the trot. I've even done a few tours of Japan.' Of all his collaborations, however, Daly acknowledges accordion-fiddle duets are his 'favourite kind of music' as the instruments 'go so well together'. Influential in popularising C#D, rather than B/C accordion tuning, he says: 'I was the first person to start tuning my box 'dry', as they call it; not using an awful lot of tremolo on it, so it fits in better with the fiddle - and some people even find it hard to differentiate between the fiddle and the box with that kind of tuning.' Eavesdropper, his 1981 duet album with Kevin Burke, earned great critical acclaim and his eponymous 1977 album with Séamus Creagh is for many people one of the seminal recordings of Sliabh Luachra music. Though a native of Westmeath and a former showband electric guitarist, he and Daly were both into the same things – 'music and music and music' – and Creagh fell in love with the Sliabh Luachra style. Séamus Creagh and Jackie Daly provided one of the seminal recordings of Sliabh Luachra music. Picture: Domhnall Ó Mairtín Daly, a fitter by trade, had joined the Dutch merchant navy at 18. 'I was also in Denmark in the late '60s and unfortunately I had a bad experience,' he says. 'I met my wife in Denmark when I was doing a training course and we got married but she passed away a year after. And that's when I packed up my work as a fitter and sold my house in Little Island. 'I started busking on the street and shortly after that I met Séamus Creagh and we took off together, which was great.' Regular fixtures together at The Gables and The Phoenix in Cork, Daly also recalls other gigs in far-flung corners. 'Lovely weekends when we'd play in Dingle on Saturday nights and Sundays we'd do Sherkin Island.' Creagh had taken on the job as the local postman on the Co Cork island. Though profoundly affected by the loss of his wife, her death also 'made me see that you should be doing the things that you love - and I loved music since I was a child', says Daly. Still doing what he loves, between gigs with Cranitch in Beara, Kenmare, and Ballydehob, Daly was back in Miltown Malbay last week, where he plays Friday sessions with fiddle player Eileen O'Brien. In Kerry, what Cranitch terms Daly's 'fiddle sensibility' derived from his early O'Keeffe influences, ensures 'when World Fiddle Day happens in Scartaglin every year he has a position of honour among all the fiddle players in the sense that he's considered to be part of that tradition'. This year, that connection was celebrated in Scartaglin with a tribute to Daly in advance of his 80th birthday this Sunday, his tunes taking centre stage with a new generation. 'They had a concert in my honour,' he says. 'All the musicians went up - a lot of them were young people - and played tunes of mine. It was beautiful to sit there and listen to them.' Jackie Daly is joined by Matt Cranitch, Eileen O'Brien, and Paul de Grae at the Gleneagle, Killarney, on June 27; support by Teorainn. See: Jackie Daly is joined by Matt Cranitch (left), Eileen O'Brien, and Paul de Grae at the Gleneagle, Killarney, on June 27 Jackie Daly: Question of Taste Current reading? My Oedipus Complex by Frank O'Connor. I love his writing. He was a very intelligent man and had a beautiful way of expressing himself. I read an awful lot and I go to the library every week. Current hobbies? I do crosswords all the time. I had a brain haemorrhage about 30 years ago and I was told that if you keep your mind busy, that's good. I do Sudoku as well. I had three aneurysms but I think my memory has improved slightly over the years and I still have the names of all the tunes. Current listening? I listen to any music that I consider to be good, but pop music I hate. The Beatles were good. Myself and Alec Finn took Hey Jude and made a hornpipe out of it and Alec got a letter from McCartney saying it was the best version of it that he came across. It's beautiful as a hornpipe – it's so melodic. What's important in your life right now? The news these days is bad. But I love going for walks and I do meditation. I love meeting people, talking to people - and yes, telling jokes.

Irish Times

6 days ago

• Irish Times

New Irish albums reviewed and rated: Van Morrison, 49th & Main, Baba, Liffey Light Orchestra, Kean Kavanagh and A Smyth

Van Morrison: Remembering Now (Virgin/Exile) ★★★★ Van Morrison: Remembering Now Van Morrison 's strike rate of seven albums in the past five years has been perhaps a tad overgenerous. Inevitably, quantity rode roughshod over quality. Yet his 47th studio album is easily his best since the lyrical Avalon Sunset, from 1989. Songs such as (the self-referencing) Haven't Lost My Sense of Wonder, Cutting Corners, Once in a Lifetime Feelings, Stomping Ground ('See where I started from'), the mantra-like title track, and the superb nine-minute closer, Stretching Out, find Morrison in reflective, beautifully autumnal mood. 49th & Main: Happy Tears (Counter/Ninja Tune) ★★★★ 49th & Main: Happy Tears After four years of gigging like there's no tomorrow, racking up more than 100 million streams, and suffering a lengthy bout of illness, the Kilkenny schoolfriends Ben O'Sullivan and Paddy King finally release their debut album. O'Sullivan's period of convalescence has proven beneficial, as the fresher material (Rewind, Hold On, Feels Right) generates more than the usual indie-electronic sparks. Throughout, there are nods to identity (the folksiness of Ardbeg, the Irish-language manifesto of Invictus), tenderness (Glenmalure Blue) and sleek techno push and pull (Distractions, Come Home, Mr Rain). Baba: Truth (Self-Released/Baba) ★★★ Baba: Truth 'To breathe, I had to let myself drown,' Siobhán Lynch sings on the title track of her seriously soulful debut album. She tells some deeply sad stories through the lyrics of Truth's nine songs – but also know that life goes on despite the turmoil. Stylistically, this is depth-charged soul/pop delivered by a singer whose nuanced style references Adele and, in particular, Duffy but whose voice is very much her own. Liffey Light Orchestra: Jigs and Other Stories (Legal) ★★★ Liffey Light Orchestra: Jigs and Other Stories Anyone with a hankering for 1970s prog rock should lend an ear to the latest album from Liffey Light Orchestra, Paul Egan's infrequent ensemble group. Jigs and Other Stories nods to the intricacies of Mike Oldfield, Rick Wakeman and Focus, among others, but also waves to Pentangle (Margarita Time), Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin (Jig for Micheál) and Michael Quatro (Grande Duchesse). Noted Irish musicians (including David Agnew, Michael Buckley, Anto Drennan and Philip Begley) feature throughout, but at the centre of it all is Egan's skill at holding it all together with musical style and wit. READ MORE Kean Kavanagh: The County Star (Heaven-Sent) ★★★ Kean Kavanagh: The County Star Kean Kavanagh has undertaken a notable stylistic shift with his new album. Swerving from hip-hop beats to punchy Americana with a side order of Irish folk is something few people would have expected, but Kavanagh is smart about it. As with Kojaque, his Soft Boy Records cofounder, an identity switch drives the song narratives, with Kavanagh (who was born in Houston, Texas) adopting the character of a cowboy and filtering that through layered songs centred on his hometown of Portlaoise. A Smyth: Hello Goliath (Lover Records) ★★★★ Hello Goliath: A Smyth Life, says Aaron Smyth, is all about balance. Which is probably why it has taken him four years to follow up his sterling 2021 solo debut album, Last Animals . Hello Goliath looks into the face of what can seem insurmountable – making time for what you want to do as well as what you have to do – but manages to resolve the challenge. Smyth's songs are a superior blend of familiar styles, taking constituent parts of psych-pop, country-rock and Americana to create memorable, textured work.

The Irish Sun

15-06-2025

• The Irish Sun

Love Island hunk reveals link to ‘cheeky' new girl Helena Ford and tips her to be a hit in the villa

LOVE Island beauty Helena Ford has wasted no time making her mark on the new series. Just days into the show she 4 Helena Ford has been making moves in the Love Island villa Credit: Eroteme 4 Munveer Jabbal, pictured with girlfriend Maddie, said he used to know Maddie and described her as 'cheeky' Credit: Munveer Jabbal The early visit to the snug room certainly proved air hostess, 29, certainly isn't scared of going for what she wants. And a Love Island 2024 hunk has tipped her to go far in the series, claiming she ticks all the boxes that producers look for. Speaking exclusively to "It's been a few years since I've seen Helena, so I don't know what she's like now, but I think she suits it. READ MORE ON LOVE ISLAND "She'll do all right. They obviously look for certain type of people that are quite outgoing, a little bit cheeky. And I think Helena fits that description, so I think she'll be more than okay." The show's boss, Mike Spencer, was certainly impressed by Helena after meeting her on a flight a few years ago. He called her "really, really fun". Meanwhile, Munveer, who found himself in a friend couple with Patsy Field last year, is in a very happy place a year after his villa experience. Most read in Love Island He went public with stunning girlfriend Maddie seven months after being dumped rom the show. Now, the 31-year-old Surrey lad has spoken about their relationship for the first time in an exclusive interview with The Sun. Axed Love Island star Munveer vents 'frustration' after being sent home amid claims he was 'edited out' by producers "I did go on a few dates post Love Island," said Munveer. "I quickly realised that these aren't the type of girls that I want to be with long term. I eventually met my current girlfriend. "I found a lot of good qualities. We shared the same values and morals and that kind of stuff. Comes from good stock, good family. It just felt right. "Even though I wasn't expecting to jump into something, that connection felt genuine when I compare it to the other initial dates that I went on." Like many modern day love stories, Instagram . She sent him a request and Munveer wasted no time sliding into her DMs. Sparks quickly flew but both parties approached the hard launch with caution. It wasn't until December that the private pair went Instagram official, and the joint posts since have been few and far between. Slowing things down went against Munveer's natural instincts. He admits: "To be honest with you, I fall in love so quickly. "I've always been like that. When I'm set on someone, I'm like 100 miles per hour. I think that's my kryptonite, my downfall." Unlike many villa romances, Munveer and Maddie aren't rushing to move in together even though they already spend plenty of time with one another. "We definitely talk about those things," says Munveer. "It's probably a bit too soon. There's been where she comes and doesn't leave for two or three weeks. The flat is literally upside down, which is always fun. "But I think long-term, you look at your potential partner and you want those things. To be able to live together, buy a house together, all the rest of it. I wouldn't go into something lightly without knowing these things." 4 Harry and Helena snuck off to the Hideaway after just three days on the show Credit: Shutterstock Editorial 4 The couple went official in December and are still smitten Credit: Munveer Jabbal