Irish Broadcasting Icon Mary Kennedy receives IFTA Lifetime Achievement Award

On Wednesday evening, IFTA presented beloved Irish broadcaster Mary Kennedy with the Irish Academy Lifetime Achievement Award, in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the television industry.

The Award was presented at a special intimate reception in the company of Mary's industry peers, colleagues, family and friends at the historic Shelbourne Hotel following a Fireside Chat hosted by Brendan Courtney.

Among those in attendance were former President Mary McAleese, and her husband Martin McAleese, as well as broadcasters Marty Whelan, Eileen Dunne, Marty Morrissey, RTE Director General Kevin Backhurst, and NPA Director Anna May McHugh. Mary was celebrated with a series of beautiful musical performances from her sister Deirdre and friends Eleanor Shanley, Don Mescall and John Feehily.

Brendan Courtney spoke with Mary about her 40 year career, from her first RTE job as continuity announcer to hosting the Eurovision Song Contest, Open House, Nationwide and appearing on Dancing With The Stars.

Mary wrapped up the evening with a reflection on her incredible career:

"I'm so pleased and so grateful and so thankful that you have all come here this evening. I'm particularly grateful to the Irish Film and Television Academy, for this huge, huge honour. I never felt that work was work. It was great fun, and it was always a privilege to work on the kind of programmess that I was working on. We Irish people come from a very ancient and rich tradition, and that has to be celebrated and nurtured: our storytelling, our enterprise, our language, our dance, our music, our culture. All of that is so important. I think it makes us what we are.

Everywhere you go in the world, if there's any kind of strife, you will find Irish people, and they're there because they care. I hope we never lose that. I do feel that the programmes that I have had the privilege of working on really had that at their at their centre. We've had such fun over the years. It's been an honour to work for 41 years.

I have always felt totally fulfilled by the work that I do, and I honestly believe that it is so important that public service broadcasting has its rightful place now and always in our country."

Previous recipients of the IFTA Lifetime Achievement Awards have included, for example, icons such as Judi Dench, Maureen O’Hara, Gay Byrne, Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne, Bryan Murray, Shay Healy, Brendan O’Carroll, Fionnula Flanagan, Pat Kenny, Mícheál Ó Meallaigh amongst others, and international recipients of IFTA’s special John Ford Award have included Martin Scorsese and Clint Eastwood.

The event was proudly supported by Canon & Don Julio.