Pat’s IFTA awards double

Date Published: 17-Feb-2009

IT was a mammoth project for Galway director Pat Comer, who would film comedian Des Bishop four times a week for over a year in his quest to master Irish while holed up in Connemara.

That effort was officially recognised by his peers with two awards for In The Name Of The Fada on St Valentine’s night at the Irish Film & Television Awards (IFTA), winning the gong in the Factual Programme category as well as the Irish language category.

The Salthill native beat off stiff competition in both categories, seeing off Fiona Looney’s Celebrity Bainisteoir and the popular ancestry search programme, Who Do You Think You Are? as well as the controversial documentary Fairytale of Kathmandu which followed the Donegal poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh in Nepal.

Comer’s involvement began after with a phone call from…