Who is Ireland’s Funniest Living Person?
Could it be Dara O'Briain or Tommy Tiernan, Ardal O'Hanlon or Colin Murphy? What about Des Bishop, Deirdre O'Kane, Pauline McLynn or Podge and Rodge? Could Barry Murphy, Ed Byrne, Brendan Grace, Sean Hughes or PJ Gallagher claim the honour? Or will it be someone else entirely?
That’s the choice facing the nation’s comedy fans with the launch today (Monday May 22nd) of the Funniest Living Irish Person Award, as part of the annual People of the Year Awards sponsored by ESB and organised by Rehab.
Naked Camera star, ‘Jake Stevens’ aka comedian PJ Gallagher and actress Orla O’Rourke from RTE’s The Clinic, were on hand to launch the special one off honour, which follows last year’s award to Terry Wogan as Ireland’s Greatest Living Entertainer.
A top class adjudication panel have agreed to select the winner from the 15 most popular nominees, as voted for by the public. Votes can be cast either by logging on to www.peopleoftheyear.com/funniest, or by texting ‘REHAB’ followed by the nominee’s name to 53503. Text votes cost 30 cent including VAT. Mobile operator charges apply. Closing date for all nominations is the Monday, July 17th.
Said Rehab Head of Communications, Chris Macey: “Irish people are known the world over for their sense of humour and for such a small country we have an incredible array of comic talent. So we thought why not honour the funniest of them all as part of the annual People of the Year Awards? Of course everyone will have a different idea of who the winner should be, so the award is bound to provide a great source of public debate, and maybe even a little controversy.”
Meanwhile, nominations can also be made on-line at www.peopleoftheyear.com for the other award categories which include the Irish Person of the Year, the Young Irish Person of the Year and the International Person of the Year, along with four winners from areas including community service, arts and culture, peace and reconciliation, business, science & technology, sport and medicine. Nomination papers can be obtained by contacting Rehab at 01-205 7291.
The Awards ceremony, including the presentation to the Funniest Living Irish Person, will take place in Dublin’s City West Hotel on Saturday 9th September 2006, and will be televised live by RTE.
Past People of the Year include Terry Wogan, Mo Mowlam, Brian Keenan, Veronica Guerin, Sir Bob Geldof, Senator Mitchell and Maeve Binchy.
