Sabrina Dent: Freelance web designer, developer and internet marketer living in Cork, Ireland with one dog and a husband in no particular order.
Best Ecommerce Website 2009: Curious Wines
Here’s a free tip: if you are on a low-carb diet, do not not not drink alcohol at the Irish Web Awards. You will get three times as drunk twice as fast, especially if this is the first booze you’ve had since June. After one drink, your feet will disconnect from your body, and after two drinks, you won’t be able to feel your face. Arguably, however, these are signs of a great night out, which this year’s IWAs definitely was.
Highlights of the evening for me:
- My incredible genius of a husband winning Best New Web Application or Service for KildareStreet.com. This site represents well over 400 hours of entirely unpaid volunteer coding and development to make Irish government more accessible to voters, and was done for no reason other than that it is desperately needed. It means the absolute world to me, because I love him, to have this work and dedication recognised, and I am so grateful to the judges. Thank you for making me cry.
- My favourite client Michael Kane winning Best Ecommerce Site for Curious Wines. He gave a lovely speech that very nearly got him divorced, and then bought us all a bottle of champagne – trust me, you really, really want a wine merchant for a client. He was over the moon, and I was utterly delighted for him. (And me!)
- My client Aidan O’Callahan at Amit.ie making the short list for Best Technology Site. To be honest, I built him his website awhile back and he asked for a blog, so I added one and never read it because I suck. Well, bloody hell if he hasn’t turned out to be a first class tech blogger – I am so impressed and proud of him.
The low point is that I again failed to thank Katherine Nolan for her hard work on Curious Wines. (Did I mention I suck?) We work together on all of the ecommerce sites I take on, and she is a GODDESS. If you get a chance to send her a congrats on twitter, it would be nice because these awards are genuinely more her foo than my foo at work.
Also, it broke my heart to find out that Marcus MacInnes, whom I love from the bottom of my cynical little soul, is leaving Ireland for London. I demand he return regularly to stay connected to the Irish web community, and if he doesn’t, we need to take away his passport and pelt him with potatoes.
On the plus side, I did get see a ton of my favourite people, meet a ton of new @twitter folk, listen to the Greater Dublin Gay Men’s Glee Club sing my requests in the smoking lounge, and eat a mighty fine cupcake or two.
My sincere thanks once again to all of the judges, all of the sponsors, to Fran at Made In Hollywood for the fun swag, to Colm Lyon at RealEx for not swinging for me, to Rick O’Shea for doing his usual first-class job, to Mrs Pat Phelan for babysitting, and to Mulley for making it all happen year after year in enormous style. Thanks lads.
I am very, very happy and really, really need a nap now.
11 Oct 2009
| In: Awards + Design + Ireland | Tags:awards, IWA09
Thanks for the kind words, i dont know if i deserve such praise yet, but many thanks anyway. I think its great that at least theres one positive and happy event that the whole community can go to once a year.
11.10.2009, 7:46 pmSorry to be responsible for your low point :(
I am taking it though that that means the whole evening was high points as you really didn’t omit anything. I was following along on Twitter and cheering like mad – both Curiouswines winning, and most especially John being recognised so deservedly for Kildare St just made my day/week/year.
Just sorry not to have been there, it sounds like a fantastic night.
11.10.2009, 7:53 pmSounds like you had a great time. Great event,great idea. One day I will be there – sigh. Now stuck in Ryanair q.
11.10.2009, 9:08 pmI need to find out who the rest of the guys were, we need to get this shit started and start practicing ;)
11.10.2009, 10:42 pmAlan, you have a great set of pipes there. Seriously. You guys were the icing on the cake of my night; thanks for the great entertainment.
[...] Website at the Irish Web Awards. Curious Mike, his lovely wife, Curious Mary, and the very talented Sabrina Dent, made the trip north to Dublin’s Radisson SAS for Ireland’s most prestigious web awards [...]
12.10.2009, 9:57 amCongrats again to one and all, delighted for you.
12.10.2009, 3:05 pmDyslexia and dyscalcula (which I’d not heard of) must make life tough, especially lefts and rights. I just booked on Aer Lingus for last weekends hols in Dublin, my gripe with them is the U$ 825 I had to pay round trip.. take care!
15.10.2009, 11:50 amCongrats on your wins and your associated wins! Well done.
15.10.2009, 12:03 pm