Jo Spain wins award for The Boy That Never Was at 2025 Zebbie Awards celebrating the best in Irish writing for stage, screen and radio.
Writers from across Ireland gathered at The Sugar Club in Dublin on Wednesday, 24th September 2025 for the 18th Writers Guild of Ireland (WGI) Zebbie Awards, which celebrate the best of Irish writing for stage, screen and radio.
Jo Spain received the Best TV Drama script award for her work on The Boy That Never Was, the hit tv drama series that tells the story of a father’s frantic quest for the truth when he spots a boy that resembles the son who disappeared in a North African earthquake.
Éamon Little and Pat Collins picked up the best feature film script award for their adaptation of the John McGahern novel That They May Face The Rising Sun.
Sheena Lambert won a Zebbie for Best Theatre Script for Cosima, facing stiff competition from the writers of The Life and Times of Paddy Armstrong & Trifled.
Naomi Sheridan’s Kiki took home the Best Short Film Script Award. Máire Zepf won Best Animation Script for Lí Ban; Best Radio & Audio Drama Script went to Richie Conroy and Sophie Hodkinson for Ón Domhan Thios, and Hiram Harrington won Best Continuing Drama Script for Fair City.
The Guild also presented an award to the family of writer Ken Harmon who died last year, recognising the lasting impact he made through his work in soap, TV Drama and Theatre.
Writer and actor Tara Flynn once again presented the Zebbie Awards as the Sugar Club celebrated the best of Irish writing in Theatre, Television Drama, Continuing Drama, Short Film, Feature Film, Radio & Audio and Animation. Only WGI members could vote for the winners from the nominated scripts.
The awards are named in honour of O.Z. ‘Zebby’ Whitehead, a Broadway and Hollywood actor who was a great supporter of theatre and writing in Ireland after he moved to Dublin in 1963.
The WGI, which campaigns for rights, remuneration, more control of work and better recognition for its members, represents over 600 Irish writers for film, television, theatre, radio, animation and games.
The WGI gratefully acknowledges the support of Zebbie Awards sponsors Comisiún na Meán and the Irish Copyright Licensing Agency (ICLA).
Jennifer Davidson, Chair of the Writers’ Guild of Ireland, said:
As always it is a privilege to get to celebrate the phenomenal talents of Irish writers, and our WGI members through our Zebbie Awards. In a year when there’s so much talk of cutbacks and global contraction, it’s a really important reminder of how bright the future actually is, and how irreplaceable the craft of human writers remains, despite all the posited advancements of Generative AI. My warmest congratulations, not just to the winners of the 2025 Zebbie Awards, but to all the nominees who can be rightly proud of the work that they have achieved. The landscape in which we all write may be changing, but the talent, and passion of Irish writers remains unchanged.
The 2025 Zebbie Awards Winners are:
Best Short Film Script
Naomi Sheridan for “Kiki”
Best Animation Script
Máire Zepf for “Lí Ban”
Best Radio & Audio Drama Script
Richie Conroy and Sophie Hodkinson for “Ón Domhan Thíos”
Best Continuing Drama Script
Hiram Harrington for “Fair City” Series 35, Ep 123”
Best Theatre Script
Sheena Lambert for “Cosima”
Best TV Drama Script
Jo Spain for “The Boy That Never Was” Ep 1”
Best Feature Film Script
Éamon Little and Pat Collins for “That They May Face the Rising Sun”
Zebbies Images: