More than 150 of Ireland's best young artists were acknowledged as the winners of the 53rd Texaco Children's Art Competition at an award ceremony yesterday.
Joined by their parents and siblings, the prizewinners posed for photos with former Labour Party leader and four-time contest award-winner Ruairí Quinn, who was the ceremony's guest of honour.
Speaking at the event in Dublin, Mr Quinn said the competition, entered by some 33,000 children aged four to 18, can serve as a launch pad for talented young people and as a legitimisation of a skill sometimes considered impractical.
"The size and the scale of the competition is very impressive," he said. "It might be the first public acknowledgment that your sketches and doodles might be good - and that kind of external validation can be very important."
All of the 161 prizewinners and special merit award recipients were presented with either cash or an art box set.
The winner, 17-year-old Cillian Boyd, of Gaelcholáiste An Chláir, Ennis, Co Clare, took home €2,000 and an additional €1,500 UTV/Texaco special commission for his watercolour, Rising Trout.
For second prize in "category A" (16 to 18 years), 16-year-old Mantas Poderys, of St Eunan's College, Letterkenny, Co Donegal, was awarded €1,000 for his lively portrait, The Queen of Tory and the Guardian Angel.
Mantas, who came to Ireland from Lithuania with his family as a boy, was also a winner in the 2006 competition.
Though he's been painting for almost his entire life - since the age of three - the winning portrait is among his favourites.
"It was the most challenging thing I've done," he said.
"I got the idea from two photographs taken years ago by one of my teachers and was drawn by the woman's personality."
Like many of the other young artists, Mantas keeps busy with other academic work, but said he plans to remain an artist for life. "I'm definitely going to do art [as an adult]," he said.
Many past winners in the long-running competition have gone on to notable success in the art world.