On the Town: They know how to grow them in the Cavan/Longford region. The winner of the RTÉ PJ O'Connor Radio Drama Awards 2005, John McManus, is from Ballyconnell, Co Cavan, while the runner-up, Irish Times journalist Belinda McKeon, is from Cloonany in neighbouring Co Longford.
"It makes you wonder if there's something in the soil up there," said one of the judges, Bairbre Ní Chaoimh, artistic director of Calypso Theatre Company, at the awards ceremony in Dublin this week.
Ní Chaoimh, presenting McManus with his award, described his play, No Hate Going to Loss, as "a comic tour de force". When her fellow judge, writer and playwright Sebastian Barry, read McKeon's play, Word of Mouth, he was "immediately struck by its talent".
Almost 400 plays were entered in the competition, which was established 23 years ago to honour the memory of the late PJ OConnor, head of drama at RTÉ Radio 1.
Pádraig Denihan, from Santry, Dublin 9, won third prize for his play, Mus Musculus, which was, according to one of the three judges, actor Mick Lally, "beautifully daft and interesting with nice moments of tenderness".
The winner of a new category for 15-minute plays went to AM Gillespie, of Nutley Road in Dublin 4.
"Radio is a magic medium," said Lorelei Harris, editor of arts, features and drama at RTÉ Radio 1, when she spoke at the event. "It gives us the possibility of dancing with ideas and sound."
The drama producer, actor and architect of the prize-giving event, Daniel Reardon, who retires from the RTÉ drama department after 31 years this year, welcomed guests, including actors Stephen Rea and Niall Toibin and writer Maeve Binchy, to the ceremony in Studio One of the RTÉ Radio Centre.