Sunday, March 04, 2007

Irish Blog Awards - Oscar Night.

Well in spite of a nasty bacterial infection of cellulitis in my leg and doped with heavy antibiotics I ventured along to the Irish Blog Awards on Saturday night.

I do think that the most interesting winners of the night were those two great sisters Kirstie and Aisling of beaut.ie They were terrific to talk to and the idea of their webiste is excellent. I believe they are making money from it and things can only get better from the two awards they have now picked up. Aisling has the challenge of MS to contend with and is so cheerful, outgoing and optimistic. I wish them both every success.

The very warm Sinead Gleeson was also great to meet and talk to again and she so deserves the Best Arts and Culture award for her hard work on the Sigla Blog

I also got to talk to Red Mum - who is a great writer and photographer and did well with her Best Personal Blog award. Her nice northern accent makes me feel at home as all my maternal relations are also from Northern Ireland.

It was also good to chat briefly to the previously mysterious Twenty Major. For the last few years I couldn't get the image out of my mind of him looking like the weird Ho-Chi-Minh type guy at top of his website. He's quite Irish looking in reality as we all now know and did well again this year in the awards.

Also with the help of old blogging pal that girl I tracked down Omaniblog whom I'd been most anxious to meet and we had a great long chat.

Finally I settled down for awhile for a good chat with gingerpixel (Claire Wilson) and her husband Matt and some of their family. They are really nice people. I think Claire will sooner or later get an award for her great photography and her work has really motivated me to get back to this hobby which I've always enjoyed since my teens.

I'd been hoping to get a word with one of my favourite and most inspiring writers Sarah Carey but she was gone before I'd a chance. It's unbelievable that she has yet to win a blog award.

Well done to all the winners and to Damien again for his tireless work. More details of all this years winners are here.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was great to catch up with you at the awards - what a great night it was eh? Glad you and Omani had a good long chat as well.

Anonymous said...

John, lovely to meet you again. Sorry I disappeared into the ether, I was feeling a bit tired and wonky by 10pm so had to head for the hills. Hope you found omani. :)

Anonymous said...

money, eh? Excellent, except no one told us!!

who do I apply to for my dosh??

John of Dublin said...

Hi that girl, yes great to see you also and thanks for the help in tracking down Omani, we had a good long chat.

Sinead, I enjoyed meeting you again and well done again on a well deserved award.

Kirstie - lol! I must admit I got that notion very secondhand from Sarah Carey's website...

http://www.sarahcarey.ie/2007/03/04/blogging-blog-awards-etc/

But honestly your site has huge potential to make money from advertising. And now is the time to strike with all the fresh publicity.

Paul O'Mahony (Cork) said...

I guess I shouldn't be surprised to read you say that you got a big buzz from Buet.ie.
All I had to do was look into my own heart, and see who gave me a buzz, and I would know how the plain people of John of Dublin were feeling...Me too...
What fabulous ladies... they added such colour to the proceedings.
I'm sure to put them on my reading list.
I only mention them because they were a complete revelation to me. Never heard of them before.