Motormouth’s Mutterings- Does My Blog Look Big In This?!

Far before the days of blogging (Blog is an abbreviation of “weblog”, apparently!), my first ever article was published in CarSport Magazine. It must have been the early 90s, when I think of it! I went on to become the Irish Correspondant for Motorsport News and of course I was honoured to pen pieces for that bible of Irish Motorsport, Michael O’Carroll’s Irish Motorsport Annual.

Happily, I still write for CarSport (the Yearbook piece is on the way Pat, I promise!) and am still the reporter for Motorsport News and now Autosport for Irish race events. In 2012 however, I set up Motorsport.ie and immediately felt John Kenny‘s pain- it can be hard to get content and a website is a monster that needs constant feeding. This meant I began writing more than ever before. Motormouth was a nickname I earned from my in car TV commentries for RPM’s programme whilst racing my Punto back in 2002/3, hence the “Motormouth’s Mutterings” column! Earlier this year, I received an email from Blog Awards Ireland informing me that I had been nominated for their awards. I honestly couldn’t believe it- I was over the moon. As the various processes went through, I had a series of mails telling me the blog was longlisted, shortlisted and then through to the finals. The Awards themselves were held last week in the Tivoli Theatre in Dublin and the evening was run in a 1920s “Guys N Dolls” style.  I organised a crew- Dean Kennedy who built the site we now run, David Hall who writes the F1 column, MJ from IT Monkey who helped setting up emails and answered endless questions during the relaunch, Cregor Elliott, one of the many photographers who has supported us since the start, Bike commentator and occasional blogger Jim Halligan, the wonderful Jenny of course and the Internet Sensation that is my Dad. We visited Partymad.ie in Celbridge and got all of our gangster clobber and headed off into town.

What a night. The place was packed and the atmosphere was amazing. There were a selection of bars, including a converted double decker bus out the back and a wonderful selection of street food from the various stalls.

I went to get a pint at one stage from the beer bus and the barman says to me “Eh, I think your Dad just got on the bus there buddy!” I looked around and Dad was nowhere to be seen so checked the doors at the front and there he was, aboard and inspecting the driver’s compartment. He proudly informed me that she had a preselector ‘box!

The night itself is a bit of a blur, it went that quickly, but the presenters Darragh Doyle and Clisaire were brilliant and kept the crowd entertained whilst still wading through the various categories and awards. When it came to our turn, we were delighted to see ourselves on screen as a Silver Award winner! I would love to say we immediately started celebrating, but we had started as soon as we arrived- it was that kind of night. The organisers did a superb job- there was so much more to it than just the presentation of awards. there were a succession of burlesque acts, much to the delight of MJ. He is a fan of the performing arts- no, really! Afterwards there was a really good band and as the saying goes, we danced the night away. I am delighted to say we were pretty much the last to leave, even enjoying a late one with Clisaire and a few of the performers before we finally swaggered out onto Francis Street, in true gangster style.

Anyway, back to where I came in. If you read, nominated, or voted for my blog- thank you. Less than a year ago, I lost all of the content of the site, including all of my blogs. To rebuild, relaunch the site and win an award like this in such a short period of time is an amazing achievement. To all those who helped in my hour of need- thank you. You know who you are.

a very proud

Leo Nulty (and I’m loving this graphic below nearly as much as the big picture above!)