The 80th Academy Awards marked a triumph for brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, who personally collected three Oscars for No Country Old Men- best picture, director and adapted screenplay - and their film took a fourth award for Javier Bardem as best supporting actor.
In a year when there was a strong international representation in the awards, Wicklow resident and Irish citizen Daniel Day-Lewis was named best actor for There Will Be Blood, and Frames lead singer Glen Hansard shared the best original song award with his Czech partner Marketa Irglova for Falling Slowlyfrom John Carney's micro-budget Dublin musical, Once.
Best supporting actress nominee Saoirse Ronan of the film 'Atonement' and her father Paul arrive at the 80th annual Academy Awards in Hollywood
Hansard and Irglova were among the night's most popular winners, loudly cheered and applauded when, introduced by Colin Farrell, they performed the song with passion and to the accompaniment of a 120-piece orchestra, and again when John Travolta presented them with their Oscars. When it was announced that they had won, Hansard and Irglova clasped their hands to their faces in shock, and he hugged his mother, before the duo went on stage to collect their Academy Awards.
"Go raibh míle mile maith agat," Hansard said.
"This is mad. We shot this on two handicams in three weeks for 100 grand. We never thought we would be up here tonight."
He concluded with the exhortation, "Make art. Make art."
Just as Irglova was about to speak, she was drowned out by the orchestra.
Then, in what may well be an unprecedented event at the Oscars, compere Jon Stewart brought her back on stage after the ad break to give her acceptance speech. "This is such a big deal," she said, "not just for us, but for all independent musicians."
Meeting the press backstage after receiving his Oscar, Hansard said he got he a congratulatory text message from Bono, which "is one of the biggest things that can happen to an Irishman," he said, describing the U2 lead singer as "the chieftain of our country".
Daniel Day-Lewis, who received his first Oscar as best actor for his portrayal of Christy Brown in My Left Foot, kissed fellow nominee George Clooney on the forehead as he went on stage, where he bowed on one knee before Helen Mirren, last year's best actress for The Queen.
"This is the closest I'll ever come to getting a knighthood," he quipped as he received his second Oscar.
Referring to one of the themes of There Will Be Blood, the relationship between fathers and sons, he accepted the award, he said, "on behalf of my grandfather Michael Balcon, my father Cecil Day-Lewis and my boys Gabriel, Ronan and Cashel."
The Coen brothers were characteristically laconic as they accepted their awards for No Country for Old Men, while Marion Cotillard was emotional and elated when she was voted best actress for her portrayal of Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose. All four acting awards went to Europeans: Day-Lewis, Cotillard, Bardem, and as best supporting actress, Tilda Swinton for the US legal drama, Michael Clayton.
Saoirse Ronan, the 13-year-old Carlow resident nominated as best supporting actress for Atonement, sat in the front row of the Kodak theatre for the awards ceremony and was wearing a green dress. Armagh native Seamus McGarvey was nominated as best cinematographer for Atonement, but the Oscar was given to Robert Elswit ( There Will Be Blood).
Peter Devlin, who is from Belfast, was on his second Oscar nomination in the best sound category for Transformers, but the award went to the team behind The Bourne Ultimatum, which collected three Oscars (the others for best film editing and best sound editing) on a night when the awards were spread more evenly than usual.
Diablo Cody collected the best original screenplay Oscar for Juno, best animated feature was given to Ratatouille, and for the first time, an Austrian movie, The Counterfeiterswon the prize for best foreign-language film.
There were awards for Taxi to the Dark Side(best documentary), Elizabeth: The Golden Age(best costume design), Atonement(best original score), Sweeney Todd(art direction), and The Golden Compass(visual effects).
The honorary Oscar was given to Robert Boyle, now 98, who received a standing ovation when he came on stage.
Running three hours and 20 minutes, the Oscars ceremony ran over by 20 minutes, but was generally lively and featured copious montage sequences of former Oscar winners and themes in movies (among them such ephemera as bees, and binoculars and periscopes) that had been edited as a standby in case the show was threatened by the continuation of the writers' strike, which had been resolved within a fortnight before the Oscars.
With the assistance of 11 other credited writers, the host for the evening, Jon Stewart, was much more relaxed and a lot wittier than when he made his debut in that role last year.
There can be few complaints regarding the quality of the winners in a year when dark themes predominated in the nominations and in the awards, even though There Will Be Blooddeserved to do better.
Then there was that glorious uplift provided by Falling Slowly. Glen Hansard made his film debut as Outspan in The Commitments(1991), which ended with him busking on Grafton Street, which is what he is doing at the beginning of his second movie, Once. Now he is an Oscar winner, and he and Marketa Irglova well deserve their prize.