Glory to the Gaels: The complete list of Academy Award winners from Ireland through the years
Previous Oscar winners from Ireland have included George Bernard Shaw, Maureen O'Hara, and Cillian Murphy.
For all his iconic works, it's easy to forget that George Bernard Shaw has a little golden fella to his name. The renowned playwright, who adapted his own play for the 1938 film refused to accept his award in person in 1939, dismissing the Oscars as 'nonsense’. Legend has it he used the statuette as a door stop.
Fitzgerald remains the only person to be nominated in two different acting categories for the same role in the same movie in the same year. The Portobello native was cited in Leading and Supporting Actor for his role as Father Fitzgibbon in eventually winning in the Supporting category and becoming the first Irishman to claim an acting Oscar. A trailblazer in every sense, and still a pub-quiz answer for the ages.
One of only four Irish people to win multiple Oscars, Burke was awarded twice by the Academy for her astonishing makeup work on (1983) and (1993) - the latter is still a benchmark. She passed away in 2025, leaving behind a legacy as one of the most successful artists in her field.
Thrice bestowed with a nomination from the Academy, McAvin finally won on her third go-round for Art Direction on in 1986. The Dubliner was overcome with emotion on the night as she held the trophy with, as some audience members on the night described it, a “two-handed death grip”.
Six Academy Award nominations and three wins is evidence enough that Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the finest actors to ever live. A triple crown in the best actor category - for (1990), (2008) and (2013) - makes him the only actor to have achieved such a feat. Born and raised in England, the actor is a longterm resident of Co Wicklow, and has had Irish citizenship since the 1990s.
The first Irish actress to ever win an Oscar in 1990, as Best Supporting actress in Fricker was sweet, steadfast and quietly commanding as Bridget Brown, mother to Day-Lewis’ Christy. She beat out stiff competition that year too, sharing a category with Julia Roberts, Angelica Huston and Dianne Wiest. A landmark win and a performance that endures.
Set against the backdrop of the Troubles, Jordan’s was particularly pertinent. The film was ahead of its time in terms of gender politics and sexual identity, and deservedly won Jordan an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 1992.
The Irish have become something of specialists in the short form at the Academy Awards, and that began in earnest all the way back in 1997 when Montgomery won Best Animated Short Film for his stop-motion film
It’s hard to believe an acting legend such as O’Toole ( ) left this mortal coil in 2013 without a competitive Oscar to his name. Nevertheless, O’Toole was bestowed with an honorary award in 2003 for his life’s work. Ironically, he’d return to the ceremony four years later after being nominated for his role in Venus. Another actor who straddled both Ireland and England in terms of citizenship.
nod for Best Live Action Short in 2006 is McDonagh’s only win despite earning six nominations across his career thus far. The London-Irish director's cracking 27-minute short film starring Brendan Gleeson was the pick of the bunch that year and would launch McDonagh’s film career into the stratosphere.
Another victor in the short form categories, producer Corinne Marrinan won Documentary Short Subject in 2006 for The film reflects on the life and times of the famous broadcaster. Her Oscar was destroyed in a wildfire last year, but the Academy kindly replaced it.
One of the most fondly remembered Irish moments at the Oscars. Hansard and Markéta Irglová were awarded in 2008 for the song in the heart-rending Irglova was played off just before she got a chance to speak so host Jon Stewart kindly invited her back onto the stage later on to finish her speech. A classy moment.
Baneham and his team of visual effects wizards have been pushing the envelope on visual effects for years with the Avatar movies. Following wins in 2009 and 2022, Baneham received his third Oscar in 2026 for
Terry George is mostly known for his feature length film work ( ) but in 2011 father and daughter teamed up to make a short film called that won the pair an Oscar and added to the list of short form Irish Oscar successes.
An acting legend in her own right, O’Hara was unlucky enough to never find herself up on the Oscars’ stage throughout her magnificent long-spanning career on screen. In 2014, a year before she passed away at the age of 95, the academy did the least it could do and duly remunerated her with an honorary statuette.
Cleary’s powerful claimed the Best Live Action Short Film Academy Award in 2016, and in a year that had a record number of Irish nominees, he was the only one who walked away with an Oscar, exclaiming on stage: “Every day is a proud day to be Irish, but today even more so".
Branagh has been no stranger to the Academy Awards, having clocked up eight nominations across seven categories (still unmatched), but his first win came in 2021 with the Best Original Screenplay award for the semi-autobiographical Belfast.
The most recent of Ireland’s Live Action Short film Oscar wins (six in total) came in 2023 when tugged at the heartstrings. In one of the sweeter Oscar moments in recent memory, the filmmakers used their moment in the spotlight to sing happy birthday to the film’s star James Martin.
was the unstoppable force in 2024, landing seven awards including Best Actor for Murphy who deservedly took to the stage to claim his Oscar and in doing so put himself on the podium of great Irish Academy Award-winning performances. His haunting, deeply internalised take on J Robert Oppenheimer is one for the ages.
The Dublin-based production house run by Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe has been nominated 30 times since 2016, winning six awards across its films Element’s Best Actress nods went to Brie Larson ( ), Olivia Colman for , and Emma Stone ( ), while the other wins have come in Best Production Design, Best Costume Design and Best Makeup and Hairstyling.
After a nomination for Best Supporting Actress in 2022 for her role in The Lost Daughter., the Killarney actress was a hugely popular choice for the Best Actress Oscar in 2026 following her moving performance in Hamnet.
