IFTAs show us it has come of age

There are two maxims in the entertainment industry: one says there’s no business like show business and the other insists that the show must go on.

Thursday night’s IFTA Gala Television Awards, as they are now called, embodied both of these. In just one year the country’s top entertainment awards ceremony went from a car-crashing, cutlery-clanking calamity to a slick and sober affair.

When the Irish do something well, we do it really, really well. Like that time we took on England in the 2007 Rugby Six Nations and with precision, focus and unwavering determination we beat our former (sporting) enemy by a decisive 43 points to 13. Thursday night’s IFTAs had that kind of a feel to it.