Villa81

This day one week ago I finally was able to unite a trophy with its rightful owner after a month on my mantelpiece. In February I accepted the Digital Media Award (DMA) for Best in Blogging on behalf of Ronan Lyons. This was a somewhat unusual task as you see I don’t actually know Ronan, or rather I didn’t at the time.

Our story begins outside of Subway on Nassau St where I was rather classily munching into a sandwich when I saw Darragh Doyle and Stephanie Francis walking by. I said hello and Darragh noticed that I was wearing a tux, uncommon garb for Subway sandwich stores. When I mentioned I was off to the DMAs Darragh asked if I could accept an award on behalf of Ronan Lyons in case he won. Ronan lives in England most of the time and Darragh had volunteered to collect it for him. I volunteered to step into the breach for Darragh and only then realised the oddity of what would happen if I accepted this award on behalf of someone I didn’t know.

So I got to the table and quickly asked fellow tech journo Eamon McGrane to give me a look at Ronan’s blog. You see I hadn’t actually ever read it before then (I have since and it is rather good) and was surrounded at the table by people that know Ronan in some capacity or another.  Sure enough he won and I went home with a trophy and bottle of vodka which very much didn’t belong to me.

I am now happy to say that last week  I met up with Ronan in Trinity while he was over on a break from his PhD studies in England. As you can see from the photo below he trophy and winner have now been united.

As you can also see in the bottom right hand corner of the shot, I also gave him his bottle of vodka as well, despite the strong temptation to yoink it. Congratulations again to Ronan from everyone here at Villa81.com.

Filed under: General by Emmet Ryan