Actors, musicians, writers, business leaders, sportspeople ... they are young, they are talented, they have a bright year ahead.
CAROL MCGONNELL, CLARINETTIST
The career of the 29-year-old New York-based clarinettist Carol McGonnell is blossoming. Ara Guzelimian, senior director at Carnegie Hall, describes her as "a terrifically imaginative and flexible player," and says "She's already making a significant contribution to musical life in New York." Last summer saw McGonnell's first stint at the Marlboro Festival in Vermont, which brings together the wisdom of age (people such as Mitsuko Uchida, Richard Goode, members of the Juilliard Quartet and the Beaux Arts Trio) and the enthusiasm of youth in chamber music. She has just recorded music by Tristan Murail for the Aeon label with the Argento New Music Project. Her next Irish appearances are at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in June, and in concerts with violinist Catherine Leonard and pianist Finghin Collins in September. Michael Dervan
THE CHALETS, ROCK BAND
You'll read of several other Irish rock bands that are going to take 2005 by the scruff of the neck, but before you place your bets, it behoves The Irish Times to recommend The Chalets. A Dublin-based five piece (Enda Loughman, Paula Cullen, Dylan Roche, Caoimhe Derwin and Chris Judge), The Chalets fuse quirky punk/New Wave with 1950s retro and the kind of indecent pop music one would have thought went out with the arrival of the horrifically bland boyband/Pop Idol phenomenon. Currently putting the finishing touches to their début album, scheduled for release early 2005, The Chalets are set to visit Europe, America - for dates in New York and at the acclaimed SXSW music industry festival in Austin, Texas - and Japan. All in all, not bad going for former students with a wilfully eccentric DIY-style approach. Tony Clayton-Lea
MARK O'HALLORAN, ACTOR
The word is that Mark O'Halloran, Ennis-born actor and screenwriter of this year's cult hit Adam and Paul, is to receive the highly prestigious Mini Bear award for acting at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival in February. He's working on a second screenplay, to be directed by Adam and Paul director Lenny Abrahamson, and an adaptation of a short story by the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, First Love, for RTÉ. O'Halloran's writing is sharp, his humour merciless and his compassion surprising; his original touch is exactly what needs to be encouraged on Irish screens right now. Not only that, but after his superb turn as a turn-of-the-century thespian in the Corn Exchange production of Dublin by Lamplight in November, the 33-year-old looks more than capable of balancing his film career with his well-established presence on the stage. Belinda McKeon
ORLA BARRY, BROADCASTER
Like female comedians, there are few female radio presenters. Orla Barry is the forthright, funny woman who has been single-handedly at the helm of her own morning radio show - a magazine show with brains and a good helping of humour and human interest - since last September, having presented in partnership with Declan Carty for a year-and-a-half before that. But, she says, don't take her for a woman's hour. "Literally the only woman's thing about it is that I'm a woman behind the mic. And obviously that's going to change it a bit, you're going to get a different response because you're a female, but it isn't like dealing with the menopause and cooking." Before Newstalk, Barry spent four years presenting her own lunchtime chat show on Radio Kerry. There are long hours and small teams at Newstalk 106. "We've been given a blank sheet to try new things - it would be easier in some ways if you weren't given the freedom: you could just stick to the safe stuff, but it's brilliant, it's a great challenge." Nicoline Greer
RUTH NEGGA, ACTRESS
The buzz around Ruth Negga is now so deafening that she must be tempted to put a pillow over her head and wait for it to go away. Ever since she appeared in the title role of The Corn Exchange's 2002 production of Lolita, the young actor, child of an Ethiopian father and a nurse from Limerick, has seen her career pick up formidable momentum. Stella Feehily's Duck secured her a nomination for an Olivier Award. Then she went on to shine as Antigone in the Abbey's The Burial at Thebes. Next up is Neil Jordan's film of Pat McCabe's Breakfast on Pluto. A new star for a new Ireland. Donald Clarke
STUART CAROLAN, WRITER
The past two years have been productive for 33-year-old Stuart Carolan. After spending five years as a producer on The Last Word, as well as doing a lot of the comedy for it, he decided one day to pack it in. He handed in his notice on a Tuesday and was gone by Friday. The following week, he wrote a play. Though the dark and intense Defender of the Faith was written quickly, it didn't appear in the Peacock for a year-and-a-half. In the meantime he and Eamon Dunphy got a deal with TV3 to do the ill-fated Dunphy Show. Undeterred by its demise, Carolan launched himself into a six-week run of Defender of the Faith, and he has just finished the first draft of a novel. Next on his agenda is the screenplay for Defender, and he has also been commissioned to write two new plays: one for the Abbey and one for the Galway Arts Festival. Then, there's the script for the TV drama he has just started work on . Nicoline Greer
ALLEN LEECH, ACTOR
Few juvenile actors get kissed by a movie star on their first gig, but the teenaged Allen Leech had just such an experience when he appeared opposite Frances McDormand in The Gate's 1998 production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Six years later, following a spell studying drama in Trinity College, the witty Dubliner, now 23, is everywhere. If you didn't catch him in the films Cowboys & Angels or Man About Dog you will surely have spotted him in the rogering-in-Louth TV series Love is the Drug. He is currently juggling movie offers from the four corners. "If I could just find something that got me a free holiday that would be great," he says. Donald Clarke
NICK LAIRD, WRITER
Laird's first collection of poetry, To A Fault, will be published this month by Faber & Faber, and in April, Fourth Estate will publish his first novel, Utterly Monkey. A lawyer from Cookstown, Co Tyrone, Laird recently married best-selling novelist Zadie Smith; they met as young students at Cambridge. "I think poets tend to sit by the window while novelists choose the aisle. Novels are social, inclusive, open forms. Poetry has to be a bit more restrictive about the baggage allowance. I'm now in the middle of the second novel and the second poetry collection, and am re-learning that one, you can't write the two things in the same day, and often not in the same week, and two, you can write poetry when you're slightly intoxicated, but for heaven's sake leave the novel alone." Patsey Murphy
GER GILROY, RADIO PRESENTER
Before he began presenting an award-winning sports show on Newstalk 106, Ger Gilroy was dropped from another radio station for "not having a good voice for radio". He has built the Newstalk sports department up from scratch, and estimates that he has presented 16,000 hours of live radio, doing the nightly three-hour show, Off The Ball. Listenership figures have been steadily increasing and the third hour - Ken Early's Newsround slot - has become cult listening for football fans. The Kildare hurler puts the show's success down to balancing good sports journalism with not taking themselves too seriously. "My favourite part is the texts that we get from listeners, they're hilarious. People are really creative. And it means that listeners own the programme." He modestly says his Phonographic Performance Ireland Award for Sports Broadcaster of the Year doesn't reflect that radio broadcasting is a team effort. His ambition for 2005 is to have the best radio sports department in Dublin. Some people think he's already there. Nicoline Greer
MARK REDMOND, CARDIAC SURGEON
Redmond, a 1987 graduate of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, returned to Ireland from the United States five years ago to work at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children and the Mater Hospital in Dublin. One of the country's leading cardiac surgeons, he operates on both tiny babies and adults. He is a world leader in aortic procedures. He returns every year to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, to operate on a dozen Irish children at a time because of the ongoing shortage of ICU staff here. The Beacon Clinic and Hospital, a 180-bed facility in Sandyford, Co Dublin, is his brainchild. He plans to take the Beacon concept countrywide, as well as increasing the range of paediatric surgery available in the Republic. Muiris Houston
PHILIP LANE, ECONOMIST
Are we Irish, are we European or are we global citizens? As we struggle with our new identity, Prof Philip Lane, director of the Institute for International Integration Studies in Trinity College, is charged with research into globalisation, human rights, development and aid, addressing issues such as reconciling our trade and agricultural policies with developing countries. A recipient of the OBCE "Most Outstanding Young Monetary Economist in the Eurozone," Lane has spent time working at Columbia and Harvard universities. This year, he is taking time off supervising PhD students to research a subject close to our hearts: why are we so rich and why are we so expensive? "We're looking at globalisation. We're not saying we're for or against. We just want to know what's going on." Nicoline Greer
LISA LAMBE, DIVA
One morning following last year's Dublin Theatre Festival, Lisa Lambe was urged to read The Irish Times. There she was hailed as "a bona-fide Dublin diva in the making, around whom a new tradition of Irish musicals could be built". She laughs. "God," she says, "it was really nice". The right person in the right place at the right time, Lambe has the acting talent and pipes necessary to caoin in The Shaughraun, then reprise her diva-making role in Rough Magic's Improbable Frequency in March (both at The Abbey), before performing in Shay Healy's new play, The Wild Men, at The Gaiety in June. "There's music in it," the 24-year-old assures us. Peter Crawley
AILISH TYNAN, SOPRANO
Mullingar-born soprano Ailish Tynan (28) is a member of the Vilar Young Artist Programme at London's Royal Opera House and a BBC New Generation Artist. She was Euridice in Opera Ireland's Orfeo ed Euridice, and stole the show at the Music Network's concert in October. Basking in the "amazing opportunities" presented by the BBC scheme, she says: "This year I've learned about 200 songs, plus six or seven operas." She makes her début with Welsh National Opera next October as Valencienne in The Merry Widow, and she's booked for Figaro with WNO in February 2006. She's looking forward to her US début with Seattle Opera in January 2007. Michael Dervan
ANTHONY STOKES, FOOTBALLER
The former Kilnamanagh, Cherry Orchard and Shelbourne player turned down the chance to join Manchester United last year, opting for Arsenal, whose academy director, Liam Brady, made the same move 32 years before. Like Brady, Stokes had to overcome bouts of homesickness before being able to settle down at the London club. When he did, Arsenal realised they had a natural-born goalscorer on their hands. By the end of his first season Stokes, then only 15, had appeared for the reserves, playing alongside senior international players, and had trained with the first team. And all the while he was scoring goals for the Republic of Ireland youth teams, where he has so far been capped at under-15, 16 and 17 level. Still just 16, he has developed at a similar pace this season. Mary Hannigan
CATHY GANNON, JOCKEY
Cathy Gannon's brothers, you have to assume, had no idea what they were starting. Just over 10 years ago they first allowed her get up on a horse in Donaghmede. Once she got her own, she says "It was all I wanted to do, I just loved it, I was always out in the fields. I'd no interest in school." Gannon, 23, has become the first woman to be crowned Irish champion apprentice jockey, with 33 winners to her name, a year after narrowly losing out in the race to Pat Cosgrave. Gannon enrolled as a teenager at the Race Riding Academy in Kildare, and from there moved to trainer John Oxx's base in the Curragh. Her ambition now is to turn professional - she currently has 82 winners and needs 13 more. "After that, you just hope you keep getting the rides and, some day, you hope to be riding in the classics, up against the bigger boys." Mary Hannigan
PHILIP NOLAN, ACADEMIC
Philip Nolan, UCD's registrar and deputy president, is typical of the new wave of academics now occupying senior posts in our universities. In his late 30s, Nolan was one of those chosen by new president, Hugh Brady, to take a leading management role in a more modern UCD. Nolan graduated from UCD in Science and Medicine. He practised medicine briefly, returning to UCD to conduct research on breathing and heart function during sleep, for which he was awarded a PhD in 2003. A distinguished teacher of both medicine and science, he won a President's Teaching Award in 2002. Appointed director of UCD's Conway Research Institute in 2003, he left that post to become registrar in July. Nolan is in charge of "all things academic", including the introduction of forthcoming changes in the teaching curriculum. These days, he is also centrally involved in the push for structural change at UCD. Sean Flynn
JEFF MARTIN, VAGUELY-DEFINED MUSICIAN TYPE
The last thing a decent singer-songwriter such as Jeff Martin wants to be saddled with is that awful term, singer-songwriter. "It always evokes the self-indulgent chord-strumming minstrel," sighs the 27-year-old Dubliner. "But at the end of the day the music will stand up for itself. People can call it whatever they want." Late last year Martin's accomplished, risk-taking and largely instrumental second album, Spoons, better defined him as an adept composer-musician. With the new single, Balancing Act, set for February, a forthcoming remix of Spoons facilitated by various artists, and an album from his separate electronica-oriented band, Halfset, he promises that "any singer-songwriter beliefs will be blown out of the water". Peter Crawley
TROY MAGUIRE The hard-to-pronounce L'Gueuleton, recently opened in Fade Street, is one of the best things to happen Dublin in ages. Troy Maguire, at the helm in the kitchen, is the man who has managed to combine excellence with affordability in response to changing trends. Not least of these is our escape from the tyranny of the three-course meal and our embrace of one good dish and a glass of wine. He has been with Eden and the late-lamented Commons but is doing his own thing at L'Gueuleton now that Dublin is ready for the straightforwardness. A few years back it wouldn't have worked. So, what's he looking forward to? "We're expanding in the New Year," he says, "so we won't have to turn all those unfortunate people away ..." Tom Doorley
DIANE COPPERWHITE, ARTIST
Born in Patrickswell, Co Limerick, Copperfield went to the Limerick College of Art and the National College of Art and Design, graduating in the mid-1990s. Her graduate show attracted a great deal of attention and since then she's had solo shows at the Temple Bar Gallery, the Rubicon and in Scandinavia. She is one of a group of painters, including Paul Nugent and Paul Doran, who are exceptionally literate in terms of contemporary art. "It's better if they're ugly earlier on," she says matter-of-factly of her own pictures. "Then you're working towards something." Copperwhite began with architectonic compositions, then moved on to a more abstract idiom. Her most recent paintings, however, are figurative, though perhaps not in the obvious sense of the term. She'll be showing in January at the Kevin Kavanagh Gallery. Aidan Dunne
OLIVIA HEGARTY, DESIGNER
Fashion-conscious Irish men should keep an eye on Olivia Hegarty; the young Dublin-born designer is determined to plug the gap in the market which currently forces them to choose between Adidas and Armani, with no sharply-designed but reasonably-priced middle way. Hegarty, who cites Comme des Garçons and Hedi Slimane among her influences, won the 2004 Nokia Young Designer of the Year award. A graduate of TCD, Bray College of Fashion and the Grafton Academy, she has, at 24, already served apprenticeships with Antonia Campbell-Hughes and Louis Copeland, and is working with Irish designer Pauric Sweeney in London. "With the metrosexual thing in Britain, ordinary men are putting more time and consideration into the way they dress," says Hegarty. "And this is going to filter all through the market." When it does, she'll be there with the goods. Belinda McKeon
ANNIE TIERNEY, ROCK SINGER
Tierney is a member of The Radio, one of Ireland's too-few rock band contenders for 2005, but in case you're thinking she's one of the many veterans of the Irish music scene who has given herself a facelift, you should know that Tierney is still in her early 20s and has no such need of cosmetic updating. Formerly of The Chicks, which she formed with school friends from Loreto College in St Stephen's Green, she views The Radio as a logical step forward. A début album, Kindness, was released in the summer of 2004. In her final year at TCD (where she's studying Theology), Tierney thinks 2005 is the time to branch out. "I would like to do some travel with The Radio in 2005, to get the album heard abroad," she says. "The Radio was essentially formed in the studio, so creating the right live atmosphere will be a priority." Tony Clayton-Lea
DAVID DRUMM, BANKER
David Drumm takes over as chief executive of one of the Republic's most successful banks in January. From Skerries, the 37-year-old's elevation to chief executive of Anglo Irish Bank came as a surprise, and makes him the youngest head of an Irish financial institution. His predecessor, Sean Fitzpatrick, was 38 when he got the top job 22 years ago, and will be a hard act to follow. This year the bank's profits swelled by 45 per cent to €504.1 million and Drumm has pledged there will be "more of the same" in the future. "We will double profits over the next five years," he says. Siobhan Creaton