Well we came home empty handed from this years Irish Blog Awards. Analogue had been shortlisted for best group blog, and ultimately lost out to the girls from Beaut.ie. It was great for such a new blog to get so far in any case, and to be honest, we didn’t deserve a win based on the content that we had on the blog section of the site – at the time the site was nominated / judged.

We’ve stepped it up since then, and I’m really proud of the material everyone’s consistently producing, so who knows, if we’re lucky enough to get nominated again next year we may do better. Congratulations to Beaut.ie, who also won best designed blog last year, and cheers to whoever nominated us in the first place!

In other news, Twenty Major picked up best blog again this year; and the inspirational Robin Blandford picked up the best tech blogger prize for his Byte Surgery blog, Nialler9 picked up best music blog, and Sinead Gleeson received the best Arts and Culture prize, for her excellent Sigla blog.

My good friend Mr. Simon McGarr received a much deserved special recognition award for his services to the Irish blogosphere – it only surprised me to learn that Simon’s found the time to do for others as much as he’s done for me over the years – from kindly (but ignored) warnings about liable, to inspirational ideas about the future of publishing, and other things I hope one day to be able talk about. When not running the McGarr Solicitors blog, editing his online culture magazine Tuppenceworth, or providing free legal advice to Digital Rights Ireland, he’s saving Journalism from itself, and reinvigorating democracy.
Lest this list seem insufficient praise for the man, let me just state that Simon is also the smartest person I’ve ever met in real life.

Check out Daithi’s excellent live blogged coverage of the awards.

Now back to your regularly scheduled musical babblings.