CMAT has won the RTÉ Choice Music Prize Album of the Year for Euro-Country.
The prize was awarded at a ceremony in Vicar Street in Dublin on Thursday night.
CMAT will receive €10,000, provided by the Irish Music Rights Organisation and the Irish Recorded Music Association. All shortlisted acts will receive a specially commissioned award.
She previously won the award for her 2022 album If My Wife New I’d Be Dead.
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Euro-Country received rave reviews in Ireland and abroad when it was released last year, featuring in many ‘best of’ lists at the end of 2025. It was also nominated for the prestigious Mercury Prize in the UK.
In her acceptance speech, CMAT, real name Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, thanked former taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who is namechecked in the title track.
The singer-songwriter said, in a roundabout way, the album would not have been possible “without me holding a 20-year grudge”.
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: “All the big boys, all the Berties, all the envelopes, yeah they hurt me.”
Speaking at the ceremony, CMAT said: “I’m so happy. I love writing songs. I love Ireland. I love Dublin. Up the Dubs. Up Bohs. Up Dunboyne. Free, free Palestine.”
The Choice Music Prize, now in its 21st year, recognises the best in Irish recorded music.
The Album of the Year award was chosen from a shortlist of 10 albums by a panel of 11 Irish music media professionals and industry experts.
The other nine albums nominated for the prize were Amble’s Reverie; Bricknasty Black’s Law; Joshua Burnside’s Teeth of Time; Dove Ellis’s Blizzard; Junior Brother’s The End; Just Mustard’s We Were Just Here; pôt-pot’s Warsaw 480km; Maria Somerville’s Luster and Sprints’ All That Is Over.
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.
The Táin by Horslips, released in 1973, won Classic Irish Album.
Earlier on Thursday, it was announced on RTÉ 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.
Amble described the news as “unbelievable”, saying they were “very, very happy and delighted”.
