Daryl Kerrigan
Designer
This Irish designer is about to make it big on the international stage. Already she has swept all before her in New York. If you pop in to Barney's in the Big Apple you may well find her range has sold out.
Earlier this year the Council of Fashion Designers in America presented Kerrigan with the Perry Ellis Award for Young Designer of the Year. Daryl K is one of the coolest labels to sport in New York. Daryl, from Rathfarnham in Dublin, began designing and selling under her own name in 1991, after working first as a waitress and in the movie business. Her signature piece is the bootleg hipster pants which the designer says she was the first to produce.
Since then, the range of outlets carrying the label has expanded rapidly. She now has two shops in Manhattan. Earlier in the year she signed a deal with a Japanese company which will manufacture watches, jewellery, bags, belts and glasses under her label.
The down side is that you will have to travel if you are hoping to buy Daryl K. Rather incredibly, the label is not stocked by any Irish stores.
Enda Walsh
Playwright
This adopted Corkonian certainly has talent. Flicking through the press cuttings for his roller coaster ride of a play, Disco Pigs, it's a case of one critic outdoing the other with superlatives.
Walsh (30) is artistic director of Corcadorca theatre company, and has written three plays for it - the best known is Disco Pigs. He is currently writing the third draft of the screenplay, which has been commissioned by Temple Films.
The production has won a number of truly impressive awards - the Stewart Parker Award, the George Devine Award and a Glasgow Herald Critics' Award at the Edinburgh Festival.
Walsh, originally from Dublin, was invited to Cork to become involved in a children's production a few years ago. He fell in love and decided to stay. He proceeded to fall out of love, but five years later is still based in the capital. He has a keen sense of humour and remains modest about his success.
The exhausted cast is taking a break at the moment but in the new year is heading off on a world tour. Such is the demand it could play for 52 weeks next year. But Walsh and producer Pat Kiernan, having worked so hard in 1997, have decided "to go to the places where it would be nice to holiday".
As with Riverdance, a second production is due to start shortly in Britain. Watch out for a production of Disco Pigs coming to a theatre near you!
Susan Smith
Athlete
Susan Smith is set to sprint into the super league in the new millennium. This Irish athlete came to public prominence at the Atlanta Olympics where she got to the semi-final of the 400 m hurdle, at 54.93 - seven seconds faster than any Irish woman who had run it prior to that. It was her sixth Irish record in an eight-month period.
She left the Olympic stadium generating the sort of confidence that left people thinking she was an athlete we would be seeing much more of in the future. The Co Waterford woman is a realistic contender for a medal at Sydney in 2000.
Smith (26) wants to win medals and is not shy about saying so publicly. Unafraid to stick her neck on the line, it looks as though she has the talent to back it up. She wants to be one of the best 400 m hurdlers in the world. From being an average hurdler last year to running 54.93, and narrowly missing out on the finals in Atlanta, she has moved into the top ranks.
Hopefully Smith, who got married this year, will not have to wait until 2000 to win medals. Next year's European Championships, she believes, are well within her reach. She is a recipient of one of the elite athletic grants handed out by the Irish Sports Council.
A deal with TNT, which also assisted Michelle Smith, has been struck for this track athlete, a move that will allow her to train as diligently as her competitors.
Helen O'Rahilly
BBC series editor
At 32, she has become the youngest ever female series editor in the BBC. O'Rahilly is in charge of the Beeb's consumer affairs programme Watch- dog, on which she has worked since 1991.
O'Rahilly, from Glasnevin in Dublin, is an unusual phenomenon at the BBC where the pinstripe Armani types are usually the ones to ascend the career ladder.
A communications graduate from DCU, she is just one of the movers and shakers from her class, which included Father Ted's Ardal O'Hanlon and RTE's Pat O'Mahoney.
She cut her teeth in RTE and after a stint working on Today Tonight she left for greener fields. She moved to BBC Pebble Mill and after three years in London with various independent production companies joined the BBC.
She was promoted to producer in 1993, series producer three years later and editor this year. The programme has eight million viewers, the biggest for a programme of its type in Britain. Hugely popular, it has spawned a further six programmes in the consumer area.
She has earned herself the nickname "Stalin" in the BBC. But what does she care? She's on the way up.
Martin Mackin
Fianna Fail general secretary
This is a man who will have a lot on his hands in the coming years. As the newly appointed general secretary of Fianna Fail he will be responsible for the entire party machine - 4,000 cumann and more than 50,000 party members. It's a high-profile position for Mackin, whose previous experience in the party has been of the backroom type, where his name would be more familar to journalists.
Just turned 34, he worked for some time in the Fianna Fail press office, was a key member of the party's media team during the general election and ran the media end of things for the President, Mrs McAleese's election campaign. He was chosen for the position from more than 40 candidates, pipping Noel Whelan - a candidate in Dublin South East in the general election - at the post.
The day job has been looking after the Fianna Fail MEPs, which necessitates a monthly trip to Strasbourg for the European Parliament. Following the general election he was much sought after as a ministerial adviser, but the Minister for Finance's cap on spin doctors' salaries meant that Mackin was slow to move from his £50,000 per annum salary (European tax rate) to the £36,000 on offer.
Now Mackin, a native of Dundalk, Co Louth, takes over from Pat Farrell who has left for a plum job in the EBS. As part of the Fianna Fail management team he will closely liaise with the Taoiseach and party chairman Rory O'Hanlon.
Clingfilms: Paul Fitzgerald, Harry Purdue, Damien O'Donnell
Film producers
These are three to watch. In a particularly tough industry they have been making their presence felt. Neil Jordan may well find he has some company of an Irish kind in Hollywood shortly. Partners in Clingfilms production company, they have been together since their college days in Rathmines, where they studied communications. Paul is producer; Harry and Damien do the writing, directing and camerawork.
They graduated from making music videos to produce the hugely successful 35-A-Side, a film about a boy who is bullied at school. It may not sound very promising in print, but this short drama has swept all before it, winning 38 awards - almost unheard of - including at Clermont Ferrand, the biggest international short film festival, where it made a clean sweep of the three major prizes. It was made as part of an RTE/ Irish Film Board scheme.
A previous offering, He Shoots He Scores, has been no slouch either, picking up a number of awards. The company has just got some financing from the Film Board and the EU Commission to work on new projects. Expect a short film in the new year with a time travel theme - Chronoperambulator. The Oscars are only around the corner.
Paddy Jolley
Photographer
Paddy Jolley's claim to fame was that he was interviewed by a Mexican TV crew. They were doing a documentary about people doing curious things in New York.
Jolley's work was certainly that. The 32-year-old graduate of the National College of Art and Design went to New York three years ago on a scholarship for an MA course in the School of Visual Arts.
When the Mexicans got to him he was tossing headless mannequins off tall buildings and bridges in New York and photographing them as they fell. His Tall Buildings series was among work that he sold through a gallery in New York.
He collaborated on a short film which featured more curious things, including underwater shots in New York harbour, "working with a lot of explosives and working with survivalists in Pennsylvania. At one stage we left when they told us it was going to be hard liquor and handgun night."
He is spending three months in India and will return to a residency at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Speaking about the residency he says: "I'm going to enjoy the comfort."
A combination of grants and gallery sales in New York have paid his rent. "It's so tenuous - the whole kind of art thing. But in the last three years I haven't worked for a living for longer than a week." His work included a fashion shoot for French Connection in London. "If it comes along I like doing commercial work."
He has never sold any work in Ireland. So why is he coming back? "Why not? That will hopefully improve."
Dr Donald Fitzmaurice
Scientist
Imagine an electronic cell that could assemble itself like a human one. Then think of the smallest thing you can imagine and shrink it by about a thousand. Then you might begin to understand Donald Fitzmaurice's world.
The 34-year-old works in nanochemistry (that's really small science) at the chemistry department in UCD. His team's work could be the future of microchip technology. He is considered by his peers to be one of the brightest scientists to walk into the department.
He describes his research in layman's terms as "building chips that are smaller, faster and cheaper". When you cut your finger the cells regenerate and mend themselves. This healing process is programmed into the cells, he says. "We would like to programme particles to get them to build chips in the same way." Although the field is still experimental, the commercial world believes in its potential. At the end of 1997 IBM awarded Fitzmaurice $50,000 for his team's research.
The results could bring the microchip into the organic world in a way that looked like science fiction 10 years ago. Pills could contain tiny micro-processors controlling the release of medication. A patient could have a microchip inserted in his or her heart which would monitor its health, transmitting information that could be downloaded by a doctor on a PC.
Fitzmaurice is the youngest member of the Government think-tank, the Irish Council for Science, Technology and Innovation. Born in Dublin, he completed his degree and PhD in UCD and spent three years at Berkeley University in California. It was during a stint at a Swiss university that he applied for the Newman scholarship and returned to UCD in 1990.
Grainne Clohessy
Barrister
In the male-dominated bear pit that is the Law Library, a successful young female barrister stands out. Especially as she is working in one of the most male of legal fields - commercial and insolvency law.
Grainne Clohessy, one of the bright sparks in the junior bar, also comes to the job without the boost of a legal family background. She came to the bar in 1988, after working in the taxation department of Ernst and Young. She deviled for two years with Ian Finlay, SC.
She was among a band of barristers who moved into the new law library building in Church Street which was built to combat the chronic overcrowding in the Four Courts.
Clohessy was the junior counsel representing Fianna Fail at the McCracken Dunnes Payments to Politicians Tribunal this year. She was a lecturer in commercial and insolvency law at the King's Inns and has written a book on stamp duty.
Her colleagues describe her as very bright, with boundless energy and good humour. She is a passionate skier, doing so at least once a year, and keen on fitness.
Pat Gunne
Auctioneer
At the tender age of 25, Pat Gunne sits at the top of the Dublin auctioneering world. He faces a huge challenge in the coming years, not least in overcoming the sudden death of his father Fintan this year. Young Gunne is now head of the multi-million pound auctioneering empire - the business ranges from old-fashioned cattle auctions, to house and car auctions.
Earlier this year he took up the gavel at the annual ISPCC charity ball, continuing the voluntary work at the rostrum which his father had done for many years before him. Prior to moving back to Dublin, Pat worked in London with Richard Ellis & Co, a huge UK auctioneering group.
He is acclaimed as an all-round nice guy and very eligible bachelor, recently back on the Irish scene. The question now, given his relative youth, is how he will handle the vagaries of the property scene. But if good wishes were to speed him on his way he should certainly succeed.
Jasmine Guinness
Model
Despite punching above our weight in many fields, Ireland has yet to spawn a supermodel. According to fashion pundits 21-year-old Jasmine Guinness looks like our best shot.
Her pedigree is as glamorous as her career so far. She is the granddaughter of Desmond Guinness and great-granddaughter of Diana Mitford.
Based in Richmond in London, she has been modelling since the age of 11. "I got paid £50 cash a day and thought this has got to be the job for me," she told The Irish Times earlier this year.
She joined London agency Models One while still at school and then went on to study history of art in Winchester. Her studies are now on hold, and early this year she featured on the catwalks of London, Milan, Paris and New York. She also worked on shoots for Paul Smith, Max Mara and Joseph's autumn/winter campaigns.
She favours photographic work over the catwalk and has worked with a number of heavyweight snappers, including Mario Testino, Michael Roberts, Ellen Von Unsworth and Deborah Turbeville.
Press reports last year speculated that she was planning a move to the US. However, she says she has no such plans and tries to get back to Ireland as often as possible. She did a fashion shoot in Leixlip Castle, Co Kildare, this year and also worked in Irish locations for Amica and Grazia magazines.
Her name is associated with other well-connected models - a sort of titled brat pack on the fashion circuit related to marquises and dukes.
Tom de Paor
Architect
A visiting English architect recently characterised the Dublin scene as two schools: the stern gang and the crazy gang. Tom de Paor (30) resists the latter label.
"I'd like to think that our work is very serious and very rigorous in its own terms. If crazy equates to curvy bits then we don't do curvy." Asked what style he ascribes to, he thinks a bit and says, "I suppose you could say we're interested in loveliness."
Born in London, de Paor was raised in Ennis, Co Clare and graduated from DIT Bolton Street and UCD in 1991. Last year he designed the interior of Temple Bar's Eden restaurant. His first major project was the visitor centre at the Royal Gunpowder Mills at Ballincollig, Co Cork.
His practice, with a staff of five, has just been named lead artist in a £7 million public art and architecture project in Britain. A six-kilometre stretch on the A13 in east London has been earmarked for a mixture of landscaping, ecology, art and architecture. The funding represents the largest public art award from the British Lottery fund.
De Paor is excited about the project and its scale. "It involves urbanism, making bridges, building lakes and hills."
About half his practice work is private commissions. Projects for next year include two apartment developments and an extension to the national sculpture factory in Cork.
Jack Lukeman
Musician
The young man from Athy, Co Kildare, has vocal chords of honey laced with bourbon topped off with a superstar dollop of charisma. Now only 24 years old, he performed his first gig at the Baily Court Hotel in Howth, Co Dublin, three years ago. Then, in the steamy summer of 1995 he packed out the Da Club on Clarendon Market in Dublin as Jack L, with his band the Black Romantics, and he was crowned a "cult act".
The set, mainly covers of Belgian singer Jacques Brel, suited Lukeman's melodramatic stage persona. A morning-coat, a top hat and a mahogany walking cane were his props which by the end of the night were discarded by a sweat-soaked Lukeman in frilly shirt and full voice.
With the release of his album Wax Jack L took off. He did eight shows at Midnight at the Olympia and then split from The Black Romantics. Lukeman took a year out "to experiment with different styles," his manager Martin Clancy says, and now most of the band have returned.
Next year looks like it will be Lukeman's year. His management company, 38 SCR (the house on South Circular Road where it all started), is coy about what is in the pipeline as deals have to be signed, but says to expect an album of his own songs, several gigs "and a lot more besides".
He played gigs in the US and London this year, with the London end managed by Oasis agent, Primary Talent. Unlike the Gallagher brothers he did not trash any hotel rooms. "He actually goes round cleaning up after himself," Clancy says. The last thing he wants to become is an Irish Harry Connick Junior.
He has collaborated in shows with Butcher Boy author Pat McCabe and Angela's Ashes author Frank McCourt. Gigs are kept deliberately small and they have had to turn away up to 400 people on some occasions.
Keith Ridgway
Writer
This 32-year-old Dublin writer publishes his first novel in February 1998. Cutting through the publishers' gushing publicity, great things are promised.
The book, The Long Falling, is set against the background of the X-case in February 1992 and tells the story of an Englishwoman who has lived in rural Ireland all her adult life but is still a stranger.
Ridgway was born and raised in Dublin and, apart from a brief period in New York when he was 21, he has always lived in Dublin. His stories and poems have appeared in various anthologies, including New Writing 6 and Best Irish Stories 1996. His novella, Horses, was published in the most recent volume of Faber's First Fictions series.
His new book has been sold to Houghton Mifflin in America and a US tour is planned. It is being published in Ireland and Britain by Faber and Faber.
Fellow writer Colm Toibin has described it as a "brilliant first novel". "This is a murder story and a love story, and an original and dramatic insight into the clash of cultures and moralities in contemporary Ireland. The pacing is superb; the novel is written in spare, clean prose."
With praise like that, Ridgway looks like one to watch next year.