By Jonathan Cullen

Two years ago, Cillian Murphy became Ireland’s first-ever winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Robert Oppenheimer in the biopic of the same name.

Now, history is set to repeat itself as the country looks like it will receive its first ever winner for Best Actress in the form of Kerry-born Jessie Buckley.

The 98^th Academy Awards take place in Hollywood on March 16 and will feature a conclave of Irish talent up for awards.

But Buckley’s nomination – her second after being nominated in 2022 for Best Supporting Actress for The Lost Daughter – will be seen as the feather in the cap. Buckley has already stolen audiences’ hearts and emotions with her performance as Agnes Shakespeare, the wife of William Shakespeare, in Hamnet.

The Kerry actress is the heavy favourite for the award after winning a sweep so far of the Golden Globe, Critics Choice Award and the BAFTA last Sunday. She will face competition from Rose Byrne (if I Had Legs, I’d Kick You), Emma Stone (Bugonia), Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value) and Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue).

Other Irish contenders include producers Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe (Bugonia), visual effects artist Richard Baneham (Avatar: The Way of Fire) and Dublin-based filmmaker Ray Kelly for animation short Retirement Plan.

There is even Derry-representation too, with Coleraine-born author Maggie O’Farrell, who wrote the book Hamnet, nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay alongside the film’s director Chloe Zhao.

This comes at a time when Irish filmmaking and acting has been at heights not seen over the last decade.

This includes not only Murphy’s win in 2024, but also but multiple nominations for acting talents such as Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn, Lady Bird, Little Women), Paul Mescal (Aftersun) as well as the Irish-made The Banshees of Inisherin. There have been other successful wins over the years in other categories, such as Visual Effects, Original Score, Screenplay and more.

But Buckley could help lead to its biggest moment yet.