The Killarney man who mastered Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy award-winning record Luther has said “it was a real joy” to work with the rapper.
Mastering engineer Ruairí O’Flaherty worked with Lamar on his surprise release album, GNX.
“It was really fun to be part of an album that was under wraps. No one knew it was coming,” he said. “Every project has a different rhythm and this one was in some ways challenging and complex and in other ways very easy.”
Lamar became the most-awarded rapper in Grammys history after he won five gongs on Sunday night, bringing his total up to 27 Grammy awards.
Although O’Flaherty worked on the project which won the four awards, he receives a trophy only for record of the year.
“The funny thing about mastering is there are only three categories in contemporary music where you get a trophy and that’s album of the year, record of the year and best engineered non classical,” the California-based Kerry man said.
The Sunday night prize marks the mastering engineer’s first Grammy, having seven nominations under his belt for work with Sabrina Carpenter and Lana Del Rey.
He was twice nominated this year in the record of the year category for Carpenter’s Manchild along with Luther, and album of the year for his mastering work on Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend as well as GNX.
“When you have two things like that nominated against each other you are just kind of grateful that they are being recognised, and you’re happy for the artist and the team.”
“The point of what we [mastering engineers] are doing is not to get recognised. As you get older, and I have been doing this a long time, you realise where the true value is; in the relationships and the joy of it,” he said.
In the wake of his Grammy win, O’Flaherty is swamped with “hundreds of messages from Killarney and my family too”.
However, there are two high-profile well-wishers who are notably absent. Namely, the Healy-Raes. “Winning a Grammy is one thing, but a direct message from a Healy-Rae, I don’t know if I could handle that. That could be too much altogether for me,” he joked.
Donnacha Dennehy received an award for his work Land of Winter. Photograph: Hugh O’Conor
Also taking home a gong at the 68th Grammy awards was composer Donnacha Dennehy, who won an award for best chamber music/small ensemble performance.
The Dubliner received the award for his third album Land of Winter, which was also nominated for best contemporary classical composition.
The album is his largest non-operatic work, and is performed by Alarm Will Sound, a 20-member chamber orchestra, and conducted by Alan Pierson.
The 12-movement piece explores the character of Irish seasons through rhythm and harmony.
Composer Emma O’Halloran’s operas Trade/Mary Motorhead explore the complex modern lives of three characters. Photograph: Alex Dowling
Other Irish nominees included Athlone woman Emma O’Halloran. The composer’s double opera Trade/Mary Motorhead was nominated for best opera recording.
She was nominated along with Cork woman Elaine Kelly for her work as a conductor on the recording, which was performed by the Irish National Opera and released on Signum records in August 2025.
Elaine Kelly, resident conductor of Irish National Opera, was also nominated for an award
The operas, which explore the complex modern lives of three characters, are based on original plays by Mark O’Halloran, the composer’s uncle.
Trade/Mary Motorhead featured fellow 2026 Grammy nominee mezzo-soprano Naomi Louisa O’Connell, along with John Molloy and Oisín Ó Dálaigh.
O’Connell was further nominated in this category for her work on Mary Kouyoumdjian’s opera Adoration which follows a high school student whose fictional story about a terrorist plot goes viral.
The best opera recording went to the Houston Grand Opera for their production of Jake Heggie’s Intelligence.