To celebrate being Irish this St Patrick's Day the RTÉ TEN team have chosen some of the rising stars from the world of Film, Fashion, Sport, Literature and Music.
Sport: Betram Allen
Bertram Allen rides Romanov on February 7, 2015 during the Jumping International in the western French city of Bordeaux
While other sports such as football, gaelic games and even cricket grab most of the headlines, there's no denying that a) we're traditionally up there with the global best as equestrians and b) the most promising Irish sports person of the moment is Bertram Allen.
2014 was a fantastic year for this 19-year-old showjumper, moving up to 17th in the world ranking, he won a qualifier for the 2015 World Cup in Las Vegas as well as the Grand Prix in Belgium and Dublin Horse Show before joining the Irish team for the World Equestrian Games in Caen, where he finished the highest-ranking Irish rider and seventh in the individual event.
Allen was also named the Irish Independent’s Young Sports Star of the Year and in November he won the Italian World Cup class at Verona.
Last month, Allen saw off some of the world's top equestrian athletes to win his second World Cup competition and in doing so, promoted himself to the top of the Western European league table with that victory in Bordeaux. He was also named The Irish Field Show Jumper of the Year.
2015 promises to be a very exciting and successful one for the Wexford native, whose targets this year include the World Cup final in Las Vegas, followed by the European Championships in Aachen where the Irish team will seek qualification for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Fashion: Danielle Romeril
Models walk the runway at the Danielle Romeril presentation during London Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2015/16 at Somerset House on February 21, 2015 in London.
Danielle Romeril has fast made a name for herself in the notoriously competitive world of fashion having launched her eponymous label for spring/summer 2013. The Dublin-born designer honed her craft in Limerick School of Art and Design, before gaining a Masters in Fashion Design from the Royal College of Art in London. Since then, she has taken the fashion world by storm, winning high praise for her modern, innovative and fresh designs, which manage to perfectly balance being directional and wearable. She made her London Fashion Week debut with her spring/summer 2015 collection which featured utility parkas, pocketed dresses and lots of cool camouflage prints. This ultra-covetable collection is now available on luxury retailers Matches Fashion.com – another coup for the young designer.
In February, she built on her LFW success with her showcase for autumn/winter 2015. This strong offering explored the idea of a survivalist future where you need to scavenge and salvage to make new things – an interesting concept in this more-is-more consumer culture. Tartan blanket capes, asymmetrical check skirts, rough cut denim and fierce textured leather formed the basis of the collection. We can’t wait to see what she does next.
Fiction: Rob Doyle
Matthew, Rez, Cocker, and Kearney have just done the Leaving Cert, and are celebrating heady notions of freedom, roaming through Dublin, their only aims the next drink, the next high, with rather scary ideas of recreational sex.
Kearney, in particular, pushes the boat out so much that he scares the wits out of his peers. On a trip to the U.S. his violent fantasies turn darker. Ultimately, he makes the other guys face both the violence within themselves and the limits of their own indifference.
'Visceral and chilling’ – according to Bloomsbury. Rob Doyle’s debut Here Are the Young Men excited much interest on its first publication in June 2014 through Dublin’s highly-esteemed Lilliput Press. His second book, This Is the Ritual, a collection of short fiction, will be published in spring 2016 by The Lilliput Press and Bloomsbury.
Doyle was born in Dublin, and holds a first-class honours degree in Philosophy and an MPhil in Psychoanalysis from Trinity College Dublin. His fiction, essays, and criticism have appeared in The Dublin Review, The Stinging Fly, Gorse, The Moth, The Penny Dreadful.
His work has appeared on RTÉ national radio and the BBC World Service, and has been translated into French and Serbian. Having spent several years in Asia, South America, the US, Sicily, and London, he currently lives in Dublin, after a spell in Rosslare.
TV: India Mullen
2015 is definitely the year for Dubliner India Mullen - a recent graduate of the Gaiety School of Acting – as she has jumpstarted her acting career with a part in TV3's brand new soap Red Rock. Red Rock follows the trials and tribulations at a local Garda Station in a fictional seaside town with two feuding families at the heart of the drama and India plays the youngest daughter in the Kiely family, Katie.
If you think you might have seen her somewhere before, India did have a very small part as Rachel in RTÉ's Damo & Ivor. Previous to that she spent a lot of time on the stage during her training playing the role of Mary in Dirty Laundry, a new play by Chris Edmund (WAPPA), Becky in Retweet by Gemma Dorley, and also worked with Michelle Read and Liam Halligan on an original one-woman piece called ‘_Sifting_’, which was performed as part of the Gaiety School's Manifesto program.
Other credits include Lady Justice in Rough Magic’s production of The Critic in Dublin Theatre Festival 2013,and Lily in Do It Now, a short film by Viko Nikci.
Not one to rest in between scenes India is also a founding member of Gumption Theatre Company. She's really proved her acting chops in Red Rock so far and we reckon India is an actress who will be in demand for quite some time.
Music: Staring at Lakes
Up-and-coming Dublin indie-folk four piece Staring at Lakes were voted as Viewers Choice for a place in the IMRO Other Room at Other Voices in Dingle in December, beating off competition from 700 entries. They have since released their debut album, Warm Wars.
Creating music that has been compared to that of Sigúr Ros and Lisa Hannigan, they produce a sound that is hard to pin down, but the focus on poetic lyrics and slick melodies, make them one of the most exciting up-and-coming acts in the country. Laura Sheary on vocals and keys is simply sensational and a star in her own right.
Check out their awesome cover of The Cure's Boys Don't Cry below.
Staring at Lakes are longlisted out of 120 acts to play at this year's Gastonbury Festival as part of the Emerging Talent competition. Best of luck lads!!
Film: Moe Dunford
We'll be hearing about - and seeing - the Dungarvan actor a lot more soon and three months in, 2015 has already been a very good year. Having received much acclaim for his breakout performance in Terry McMahon's Patrick's Day, Dunford was one of 10 young actors from across Europe honoured with a European Film Promotion (EFP) Shooting Star Award at the Berlin International Film Festival last month. Previous recipients include Daniel Craig, Carey Mulligan, Domhnall Gleeson, Andrew Scott and Ruth Negga. Now that's the best of good company.
In honouring Dunford, the EFP jury praised his "physicality and sly charm" and said he has "the ingredients of a modern-day Hollywood hero". As for his work on mental illness drama Patrick's Day, Dunford, the jury said, showed "compassion and subtlety, always putting the character first, never letting Patrick's issues overwhelm the performance".
In his acceptance speech, Dunford showed as much class off-screen as he does on it.
"I am immensely honoured to receive such a prestigious award," he said. "I am very passionate about and proud of Patrick's Day, which I know has played no small part in winning me this accolade."
He continued: "I want to especially thank Terry McMahon, the writer and director of the film, for taking a chance on me as a young actor and giving me one of the most rewarding acting experiences of my life."
He'll have to get a bigger mantelpiece shortly.
