The Special Tribute Award was made to Patrick Mason, formerly artistic director of the Abbey Theatre, who said his first reaction on hearing the news was "I'm too young to die". He then felt that "obviously there was some deep irony involved" in him getting such an award from The Irish Times. "Maybe I'll find out tomorrow morning," he said.
His relationship with The Irish Times went back "a long, long way", he said. He recalled the then Medical Correspondent of the newspaper writing that his direction of a play had been "brilliant, perhaps too brilliant". That, he felt, was like a doctor saying "the patient is healthy, but we'll soon deal with that". He recalled another journalist at the newspaper had said of his production of The Well of the Saints, acclaimed at the Edinburgh Festival some years ago, that "foreigners are perhaps not the best judges of Irish theatre".
But he had no problem accepting the award from his friends at the ESB. He recalled with "gratitude and admiration" how they had so rapidly reconnected his supply when it had been disrupted by storms in Wicklow two years ago. "There's nothing obviously ironic in this award coming from that quarter," he said.
The criticism he had heeded in his 27 years in Ireland was that of the practitioners with whom he worked. Their criticism was "unsparing but inspired by love of theatre". The award was presented by playwright Tom Kilroy.
