{"id":331294,"date":"2026-03-06T02:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T02:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/331294\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T02:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T02:58:10","slug":"cmat-wins-choice-music-prize-album-of-the-year-for-euro-country-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/331294\/","title":{"rendered":"CMAT wins Choice Music Prize Album of the Year for Euro-Country \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

CMAT<\/a> has won the RT\u00c9<\/a> Choice Music Prize Album of the Year for Euro-Country.<\/p>\n

The prize was awarded at a ceremony in Vicar Street<\/a> in Dublin on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

CMAT will receive \u20ac10,000, provided by the Irish Music Rights Organisation and the Irish Recorded Music Association<\/a>. All shortlisted acts will receive a specially commissioned award.<\/p>\n

She previously won the award for her 2022 album If My Wife New I\u2019d Be Dead.<\/p>\n

Euro-Country received rave reviews in Ireland and abroad when it was released last year, featuring in many \u2018best of\u2019 lists at the end of 2025. It was also nominated for the prestigious Mercury Prize<\/a> in the UK.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0CMAT: Euro-Country review \u2013 Dunboyne Diana\u2019s new album delivers joy and sadness in the same heartbeatOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In her acceptance speech, CMAT, real name Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, thanked former taoiseach Bertie Ahern<\/a>, who is namechecked in the title track.<\/p>\n

The singer-songwriter said, in a roundabout way, the album would not have been possible \u201cwithout me holding a 20-year grudge\u201d.<\/p>\n

The song Euro-Country deals with the 2008 financial crash in Ireland and the impact it had on CMAT and her peers. It features the refrain: \u201cAll the big boys, all the Berties, all the envelopes, yeah they hurt me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking at the ceremony, CMAT said: \u201cI\u2019m so happy. I love writing songs. I love Ireland. I love Dublin. Up the Dubs. Up Bohs. Up Dunboyne. Free, free Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Choice Music Prize, now in its 21st year, recognises the best in Irish recorded music. <\/p>\n

The Album of the Year award was chosen from a shortlist of 10 albums<\/a> by a panel of 11 Irish music media professionals and industry experts.<\/p>\n

The other nine albums nominated for the prize were Amble\u2019s Reverie; Bricknasty Black\u2019s Law; Joshua Burnside\u2019s Teeth of Time; Dove Ellis\u2019s Blizzard; Junior Brother\u2019s The End; Just Mustard\u2019s We Were Just Here; p\u00f4t-pot\u2019s Warsaw 480km; Maria Somerville\u2019s Luster and Sprints\u2019 All That Is Over.<\/p>\n

Also at the ceremony, CMAT won Irish Artist of the Year and Amble won both Irish Breakthrough Artist of the Year and Song of the Year.<\/p>\n

\"SongSong of the year was awarded to Amble for Schoolyard Days. Photograph: R\u00f3is\u00edn Murphy O\u2019Sullivan <\/p>\n

The T\u00e1in by Horslips, released in 1973, won Classic Irish Album.<\/p>\n

Earlier on Thursday, it was announced on RT\u00c9 2FM that Amble had won the Song of the Year for their track Schoolyard Days. This prize was voted for by members of the public.<\/p>\n

Amble described the news as \u201cunbelievable\u201d, saying they were \u201cvery, very happy and delighted\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CMAT has won the RT\u00c9 Choice Music Prize Album of the Year for Euro-Country. The prize was awarded…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[894,893,63274,93,61,60,106236,12103,278,6085,37168],"class_list":["post-331294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-bertie-ahern","tag-cmat","tag-dublin-8","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-recorded-music-association","tag-mercury-prize","tag-music","tag-rte","tag-vicar-street"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}