Having received the best actor Oscar for My Left Foot in 1990, Wicklow resident and Irish citizen Daniel Day-Lewis well deserves to win again for his tremendous portrayal of an avaricious oil prospector in There Will Be Blood.
Already it has earned him a succession of awards, and he looks unstoppable on Sunday night.
In the best original song category, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová seem set to collect an Oscar for Falling Slowly, which they wrote and performed in Once. In competition are three songs from Disney's Enchanted, which should cancel each other out, and one from Irish director Kirsten Sheridan's US film, August Rush.
If Falling Slowly wins, it will be a sweet victory after the enquiry into the eligibility of the song, which wasn't resolved until the day before the Oscar ballots were mailed to voters. Even if it doesn't win, Hansard and Irglova stand to benefit handsomely from the exposure of performing the song at the ceremony before such a huge global audience.
There are two Irish nominees for Saoirse Ronan for best supporting actress and Seamus McGarvey for best cinematography. Regarded as an early front-runner, the film appears to have lost much of its momentum, and both those Irish nominees are in fiercely competitive categories.
Peter J Devlin, from Belfast, is nominated in the best sound category for with his collaborators, Kevin O'Connell and Greg P Russell. They were shortlisted for Pearl Harbor in 2002. (O'Connell, the ultimate Oscar bridesmaid, is on his 20th Oscar nomination this year and has yet to win.)
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