Artists and cultural campaigners across the US were in the frame last night at the inaugural Irish Echo Arts & Culture Awards which recognised almost 50 heroes of the pandemic.

While coming from as far apart as Santa Barbara, California, and Portland, Maine, the honourees all shared a love of Irish arts and a determination to weather the Covid storm which has roiled  cultural organisations and venues for well over a year now.

And well as saluting the backroom battalions who ensured the show went on in Irish community centres, social halls, dance studios, theatres, trad sessions and festivals, the virtual awards also raised a glass to Irish American artists who moved their creative endeavours online.

Topping the bill were Irish American luminaries, author Alice McDermott (recipient of the Life in Irish Letters Award presented by Mary Sugrue, CEO of the Irish American Partnership),  poet undertaker Thomas Lynch (recipient of the Soul of Irish Literature Award presented by New York business leader Jim Clerkin) and Malachy McCourt, author of A Monk Swimming, actor and raconteur (who, from a prone position as he recovers from an ankle break, received his Irish America Seanchaí Award in a virtual presentation from Irish American Writers and Artists representative Seán O'Dowd). 

However, the biggest virtual cheer of the evening went to the youngsters of the Aisling Irish Center Céilí Band and Ballad Group who had gathered outside their Yonkers, New York, base to hear the result of the overall Hero of the Pandemic Award. Decided by an online poll between all the honourees, the prestigious accolade went to the junior choristers by a margin of just four votes. 

During the event, champions of Irish arts across the States told how they had created drive in concerts, pop-up park Irish dance classes, Zoom Irish classes and socially-distanced St Patrick's Day parties to keep spirits up over the past year. 

Guest speaker at the event, Congressman Conor Lamb, who captained the Pittsburgh Celtics GAA team from 2006-2008, had high praise for the honourees. Addressing the Irish contribution to the US, he said the officials in charge of immigration policy could learn a lot from Séamus Heaney. "Many of the struggles that we have here in the United States and back in Ireland right now have to do with borders," he said.

"In his poem 'The Republic of Conscience', Séamus Heaney imagined a place you could travel to called the Republic of Conscience and he said that at immigration, the clerk was an old man who pulled a wallet out of his homespun coat and showed you a picture of your grandfather. And in that image, I thought to myself how much good would be done if policy-makers, leaders, prominent people in every country, had to look at a picture of their grandfather or their grandmother and think about their own origins when they made decisions around the topic of borders and whether to welcome other people and whether to pursue the cause of peace."

A bio of each of the honourees plus a full video of the three-hour awards extravaganza can be accessed on the event website. 

Recipient of the AOH Award for the Greatest Community Contribution during the Pandemic went to Diane Byrnes of Echoes of Erin radio show in Pittsburgh, PA, in recognition of her 33 year unbroken run of Sunday shows. A special Croí an Chultúir Ghael-Mheiriceánaigh (Heart of Irish American Culture Award) accolade, sponsored by Foras na Gaeilge, went to Gaeilge dynamo Caitríona Weafer.

Big Apple artist and film-maker Marcus Robinson, who hails from East Belfast, was singled out for his work in chronicling the rebulding of the World Trade Center in New York while Belfast native Kyle Darcy, a Boston Globe Bestsellers-listed author, was also recognised. 

A list of all 40 medal-winners can be accessed online. Among their number were representatives of the top Irish centres across the US including:

Maureen Kennedy of the Irish Heritage Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Natalie Nugent-O'Shea and Cormac Ó Sé of the Celtic Arts Junction in St Paul, Minnesota.

Jean Haney and Tony O'Reilly of the Maine Irish Heritage Centre in Portland, Maine

John Nolan & Seán McMenamin of the Commodore John Barry Irish Arts and Culture Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Tadhgín Ó Máirtín (Tim Martin) of An Claidheamh Soluis/Celtic Arts Center, Los Angeles, California. 

Dr Elizabeth Stack of the Irish Heritage Museum, Albany, New York. 

Among sponsors of the arts extravaganza were NI Bureau, AOH, Aer Lingus, Culture Ireland, Irish American Partnership and Foras na Gaeilge. The show came live from the NIAVAC studios in Belfast.