What have the Irish worn to the Oscars?

For such a small island, Ireland has developed a long and illustrious relationship with Hollywood since the early days of cinema.

In fact, it was MGM art director Cedric Gibbons that designed a statuette of a knight standing on a reel of film gripping a crusader's sword - a design that was eventually sculpted into the famous Oscars statuette by LA artist George Stanley.

Born in Dublin, Gibbons went on to receive an incredible 39 Oscar nominations during his career in America, winning 11 for his Art Direction in movies like An American in Paris (1951), Julius Caesar (1953), Little Women (1949), and Pride and Prejudice (1940).

Additionally, the very first Academy Awards in 1929 featured an Irish man, with Dubliner Herbert Brenon nominated for Best Director thanks his silent feature film, Sorrell and Son.

Since then the Irish have been leaving their mark at the star-studded ceremony, whether it be Barry Fitzgerald's controversial double nomination in 1944 for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for his role as Fr. Fitzgibbon in Going My Way (he won the latter), or Ruth Negga becoming the first Black-Irish person to be nominated for Best Actress in 2017 thanks to her role as Mildred in Loving.

George Bernard Shaw earned Ireland's first screenwriting Oscar in 1939 when he was awarded Best Adapted Screenplay for Pygmalion.

The prize - which the Dubliner famously referred to as an insult - made Shaw the first person to receive both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar.

Irish actress Maureen O'Hara is a permanent fixture in Hollywood history thanks to her iconic role in John Ford's The Quiet Man.

Known for her feisty characters and flame-red hair, 'The Queen of Technicolor' was a star of Hollywood's Golden Age, and was presented with an Honorary Academy Award in 2014.

In more recent years, Irish actress Saoirse Ronan has been trailblazing through tinsel town, earning four Oscar nominations by the young age of 27, while method actor Daniel Day-Lewis (who has held Irish citizenship since 1993) has six nominations under his belt and three golden statues to his name.

Far from slowing down, Ireland's impressive legacy at the Oscars seems to be gathering momentum, with the 2023 Academy Awards celebrating a record-breaking number of Irish nominations, while 2024 saw Cork man Cillian Murphy become the first Irish-born man to win Best Actor thanks to his portrayal of J. Robert Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer.

Additionally, Poor Things, a critically-acclaimed movie produced by Dublin's Element Pictures, scored a whopping 11 nominations in 2024, making it the most nominated Irish-produced film of all time, beating Martin McDonagh's The Banshees of Inisherin's nine nominations in 2023.

As well as contributing to the film industry, on and off camera, our stylist stars have delivered some memorable looks to the iconic red carpet.

Whether it be Barry Keoghan's lilac Louis Vuitton suit in 2023, or Donegal singer Enya dazzling in a scarlet chiffon dress from Irish designers Tyrrell and Brennan in 2002, these homegrown heroes have been doing the country proud on the world's stage for quite some time.

Click through the photo gallery above to see all the red carpet looks.