’Love/Hate’ writer Stuart Carolan picked up the Best Television Script award for a second year in a row at the annual ZeBBie Awards last Thursday. The awards celebrate the best in Irish scriptwriting, and are run by the Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild.
IFTA Award-winner Carolan won the award for episode six of season two of the gangland drama, which is currently filming season three in Dublin.
‘Garage’ and ‘Adam and Paul’ screenwriter Mark O’Halloran won Best Theatre Script for his play ‘Trade’, and IFTA Award-winner Juanita Wilson picked up the Best Feature Film Script Award for ‘As If I Am Not There’.
Celebrated Irish novelist Roddy Doyle and business partner Seán Love picked up the most prestigious prize on the night, the Honorary Services to Writers Award. Senator David Norris was on hand to present Love with the award for the work both he and Doyle carry out through Fighting Words, a creative centre aimed at promoting the art of writing to children and teenagers.
Speaking of David Norris’s hosting abilities, Seán Love said the senator was “in good form, being his usual funny self”.
Doyle, perhaps most famous for penning ‘The Barrytown Trilogy’ books which were adapted for films ‘The Commitments, ‘The Snapper’ and ‘The Van’, and Love, former director of Amnesty Ireland, set up Fighting Words in 2009, after being inspired by Pulitzer Prize-winner Dave Eggers' 826 Valencia in San Francisco.
Fighting Words’ basic principles are providing free creative writing and the related arts workshops for young people in Ireland. Since its establishment three years ago, the centre has welcomed more than 30,000 young people through its doors for workshops in creative writing of all genres, filmmaking, radio dramas, graphic novels and scriptwriting.
The literacy project is completely privately-funded by Doyle, Love and other philanthropists. The centre in Behan Square in Dublin has over 400 volunteers who mentor and tutor the children.
Five scriptwriters in total were rewarded for their contributions to the Irish film industry at the ZeBBie Awards. They awards were held at the Sugar Club in Dublin, and are named after New York-born actor and scriptwriter O.Z. Whitehead, nicknamed Zebby, who lived most of his life in Dublin.
The full list of winners are:
Best Television Script
Stuart Carolan
‘Love/Hate’ Episode 6
Best Radio Script
Joe O’Byrne
‘The Blue Hyacinth’
Best Theatre Script
Mark O’Halloran
‘Trade’
Best Feature Film Script
Juanita Wilson
’As If I Am Not There’
Best Short Film Script
Claire Dix
’Downpour’
Honorary Services to Writers Award
Fighting Words
