The IFTAs last night were ultra stylish, as to be expected, the new Convention Centre in Dublin showing itself off to best advantage as the great and the good in the film and television world came to be awarded. The escalators that travel up the central atrium were a spectacular sight - a sea of sequins and colour as the glamourati finished the turn on the red carpet, and headed up to the main auditorium.

Headline Hollywood talent at the event included Pierce Brosnan, Brendan Gleeson, Joely Richardson and Kim Cattrell, but the one to watch is Drogheda's own, Colin O'Donoghue. A newcomer by their standards, he is fresh from filming The Rite with his friend 'Tony' – that's Sir Anthony Hopkins to you and me, which premiered in LA last week.

Colin trained with the Gaiety School of Acting and won good roles here in The Tudors, The Clinic and Fair City, before heading for Hollywood last year to take his chances. A talented musician as well as actor, he landed the role of the young seminarian in The Rite after only a few weeks Stateside, and seems to have been practically adopted by Hopkins, who plays the role of the older priest teaching the student about exorcism.

Despite now hanging with Hollywood greats, Colin comes across as wonderfully grounded and relaxed, as you would expect of Con and Mary's son, and will no doubt stay that way as he heads upwards on that elevator to the A list.

As for the event itself, there have been lots of comments about the empty seats in the auditorium while the televised part of the ceremony was underway, something you would never see at the Oscars or the Baftas.  But clearly those ceremonies have budgets that rise to 'place fillers', dopplegangers who sit in while the occupants of the seats in vision take a break.

Last night we started out observing the instructions about only moving about during the breaks, but as the night went on we flitted in and out at will, the door keepers having no impact at all on those desperate for a drink, or a pee!