The top drawer of Irish technology bloggers this year contains

• Contrast
• Robin Blandford (last year’s winner)
• Pat Phelan
• Michele Neylon
• Justin Mason

As in previous years, each individual shortlist has turned up some gems. There’s some regular appearances by certain blogs in their respective categories again joined by several new faces, a great indication of growth in blogging in Ireland and the quality of output of those blogs.

I’ll be in attendance at the Awards myself on Saturday night and I’m staying over in the hotel so there’s

Rhyme Rag is a young poetry publication issued by the Kilkenny Arts Office, directed by local arts officer Mary Butler.

You can also follow the artist-in-residency blog for No 72 John Street here where Gypsy Ray has recently commenced a four week residency.

I had offered in the past to carry the ball but my time constraints are just as bad.

The site detailed fatal traffic collision reports for 2006 and into 2007, plotting each accident on a map of the country.

This would be a great project for someone interesting in road deaths in Ireland, mapping, or someone with a desire to improve the facilities already in place. If you’re interested in the project, see the Jaiku note here or visit John’s blog to contact him.

• Best Pop Culture Blog: Rick O’Shea
• Best Blog from a Journalist: Present Tense
• Best Food/Drink Blog: Italian Foodies
• Best Crafts Blog: A Simple Yarn
• Best Arts and Culture Blog: Sinead Gleeson: The Sigla Blog
• Best Political Blog: Irish Election
• Best Group Blog: Beaut.ie
• Best Use Of Irish Language In A Blog: Blag Ghael gan Náire
• Best Technology Blog: Bytesurgery
• Best Designed Blog: Sabrina Dent
• Best Sports and Recreation Blog: ArseBlog
• Best News/Current Affairs Blog: The Limerick Blog and Maman Poulet
• Best Specialist Blog: The Voyage
• Best Newcomer: John Braine
• Best Business Blog: Ice Cream Ireland
• Best Music Blog: Nialler9
• Best Personal Blog: Head Rambles, Grannymar
• Most Humorous Post: Twenty Major
• Best Photo Blog: GingerPixel
• Best Blog Post: Fat Mammy Cat
• Best Blog: Twenty Major
• Special Recognition: Simon McGarr, Rymus, Rick O’Shea

I had been featured under Best Technology Blog for kenmc.com while KilkennyMusic.com was included in the Best Music Blog, those categories going to Robin and Nialler9 respectively. Couldn’t go to two nicer lads! Fair play!

I’m currently shaking off a hangover, getting sorted with some photos from last night as well as the list of names of people I spoke to – yes, I saved them to my phone “just in case” the pints kept flowing. The pints, and shots, flowed until we were pretty much the last ones out the door so I’m glad I kept that list!

Full flashback / summary later this evening…

The 2008 Irish Blog Awards are taking place tonight in the Alexander Hotel, Dublin with kick off scheduled for 7:30pm. Having been to the Awards last year I can say that the Alexander is a great venue and anyone going is bound to run into some fantastic people.

The blog finds itself nominated for in the Best Technology Blog category amongst the likes of Tom Raftery’s Social Media, Donncha O’Caoimh, Alexia Golez, Michele Neylon’s Pensieri, Michelle Gallen, Dave Northey, Inside View from Ireland, Robin Blandford’s ByteSurgery, James Corbett and Chris Horn.

Word has that list gets shorter again tonight before the awards are announced but it’s been a pleasure to have kenmc.com nominated for the very first time. I’ll also be there with Ross as KilkennyMusic.com found it’s way on the music shortlist though a betting man would put money on Nialler9 doing the double. Not a bad way to round out a week with Super Extra Bonus Party bagging the Choice Music Prize too.

According to Ross…

Ken will be the guy to talk to if you basically want to talk about anything from music to technology, sport, you name it. I’ll be standing beside him, the guy with the mohawk, consuming copious amounts of free alcohol and saying things like “what the hell is a blog anyway!?”

Says he leading the way for staff bloggers at KKM. Either way, we’re going to go and have a bit of craic, wind down after a few hectic weeks on all fronts and mingle with the very best the Irish blogosphere has to offer.

While having two phones might make me a terrorist, I’ll also be concealing my new Nikon Coolpix S200 so if you’re talking to me, jump in for a picture, sure why not!

See all y’all tonight.

Jennifer Farley made reference to some pink designs during the week, while Eoghan McCabe has also “gone pink” for the month of October.

I’ve no problems at all in sporting a pink design and I’m happy to do it in raising awareness of breast cancer, knowing as well that it can develop in men as well as women.

Update: Also spotted the iQ Content blog is sporting a pink theme, while Will is going to be posting pink-coloured photos for the remainder of October.

The Net Visionary Awards voting is up and running from this morning, a few names in there I’ll recognise, a lot of names in there I won’t recognise.

Congratulations to everyone nominated, you can vote until October 19th.

Me, I’m looking forward to the Blog Awards – if anything it’s cheaper to attend

Going through the feeds this morning, Michele raises an interesting point or two

A review of Statcounter over the weekend showed some activity on the blog here, coming through Politics in Ireland in search of the discussion over Keola Donaghy on KCLR on Friday afternoon. Likely, this is due to the mention of a particular Labour Party TD who featured in the radio interview.

Politics In Ireland, run by Damien Mulley, is now it it’s second iteration with a much improved facelift. Aggregating feeds from blogs political and non, Politics In Ireland allows you track news developments and issues raised online featured the country’s political parties and politicians, the content of which can be broken down by party, constituency and TDs past and present.

A quick dip into my own constituency (Carlow/Kilkenny) brings up recent mentions by Bernie Goldbach of local Minister For Trade & Enterprise at the launch of Sprit of Enterprise in Tipperary recently.

Further to tracking the site via RSS feeds for all elements (overall, parties, politicians) you can also grab a javascript widget for your blog or even a WordPress plugin to boot.

Drop by and see what your local politicians have been up to in the online world.

It is an honour to have been elected… Nice to be back here after a break – a different and more realistic environment for the board of the IIA to be operating in and I am looking forward to it.

Fair play good sir.

The opening post on the blog covers an introduction to the web/tech scene in Ireland at present and lists some of the great web services on offer at the moment. You’ll get the latest tech events in the calendar (though *ahem* PodCamp Ireland isn’t among them yet – September 29th for FREE in Kilkennny) and a lot more besides.

One thing that jumped out at me from the post is Conor’s mention of the VC scene at present and what some options are.

The single biggest blocking factor for web startups here continues to be access to capital

Reason being in that I had a chat (and a sneak preview at the beta service) in Kilkenny today with a Beverly Hills startup (Kilkenny native) who politely offered his thoughts on the VC scene at present and the reason he’s now set up – with funding – in the US. Having watched in on the Auctomatic boys last week and the upcoming Paddys Valley tour in December I can see some of his points!

The first article though is a great one, well worth the read if you can. Would be a nice place to get some tech company profiling going on if the opportunity presented itself (with Damien currently compiling companies in Ireland) but thats for the editors to decide!

Anyway, tip of the hat to Conor O’Neill and fair play to Sam Sethi and Blognation for opening a door into the Irish market.

No so fair by the looks of this wouldn’t you think?

If I was one of their web folk lurking around registering someone who has a bone to pick with your company for a very valid reason I’d be cowering about now….. Bloody childish carry on if you ask me.

Looking forward to Daw’s upcoming blog on sound production techniques and tips (certainly more niche), Mickey’s not ONE but TWO proposed sports blogs and hopefully Ross’s further development of Rants By Ross.

Amazing what an awards show can bring out in people once you spend a few hours immersed in the company of other drinkers bloggers at a pissup blog awards ceremony.

I’ve started to upload some photos from the blog awards, I know Ross has a couple as well so I’ll see if I can steal those from him. Here’s Daw and Phil at the bar, prior to heading in to plonk ourselves down for the show.

More here…

@Conor – There’s pics of Ross in there too – check the hair!

Back to the grindstone after the weekend away in Dublinia, gotta say – some craic.I caught Bernie’s post last night on ‘whats the craic’ and there was certainly more than a few pints had in the local! Sure, we didn’t win Best Music, and muchos congratulations to Niall for doing so but I think Ross summed it up really well for the four of us at KilkennyMusic.com when he said

Tonight is the first time in a year and a half that the four of us are actually out together not working. A year and a half of working our asses off for free and we’re finally gonna get pissed together and just relax.

…and we certainly took care of both of those.

Serious congratulations due to all who scored awards on the night, tip of the hat to the girls from Beaut.ie, if the awards show had gone on any longer it is quite possible they would have just kept on winning. Major kudos goes to Mr. Damien Mulley though and there’s nobody in the room who could have complained when Bernie handed his ‘Best Contribution’ award over to Damien.

Got to catch up with a few people, had a few words with Phil, Ronan, Niall, Bernie (never did that elevator podcast and I hope I didn’t ramble incoherently about FeedBurner for you!), Will (thanks for the tip and sorry didn’t chat longer, or even properly introduce myself – shame on me), good yarn with Keith about the highs and lows of Vista and the fact that I still haven’t posted my iPAQ 6515 review (have a place in mind for that one) but overall it was just a brilliant night for the four of us to unwind, gather a bit of feedback, and drink way too much beer.

We skipped out of the show shortly after the close of the awards ceremony itself and made tracks for The Lower Deck in Portobello to catch a few bands who had played with KilkennyMusic.com over the past year or so but the KKM blog itself is going to pick that post up from here.

Again, thanks to everyone who was there, everyone who I spoke to, all the winners, all the nominees, the organisers, the Alexander Hotel, the Mount Herbert Hotel and that poor taxi driver who took us from Camden Street back to the hotel, one lunatic in particular singing “To the left, to the left” all the way home at the top of his voice….

We’ll be back in force next year

PS: Only realised now that I’ve still got that ‘I’m blogging this’ badge glued to my hat…. I’m also going to get some pics up on Flickr today and see what I can salvage that can actually be displayed online without us winding up in court for some reason.

Update: PAUL!!!! Still gonna hold you to that pint, my fault for not seeking it out earlier in the night and getting a chat with you before we left!

One or two things to sort out but I’m looking forward to the night and delighted to be a part of it.

Courtesy of redmum

First place I’m gunning for is the bar where I expect Paul Browne to be on hand with the nicest pint of Heineken in Dublin. Free pints are quite often the nicest pints.

Congratulations to everyone who was nominated, everyone who made the list, everyone who didn’t make the list.

Time to crack open a Cobra I guess!

If you haven’t voted yet and you’d like to vote for one of my nominations (thanks to those in particular who nominated KilkennyMusic.com and kenmc.com) then take a minute to head over to the voting area. There’s plenty of incentives on offer now including copies of Windows Vista, a trip to New York or Thailand, free pints, design work and more.

I’m not bribing folk into voting but if you enjoy the daily read across the blogs and fancy a vote then consider this blog! It can be your good deed for the day If anyone has already voted for them, then thank you very much!