Last Sunday (June 4th), Patrick Carthy from Longford was crowned the first-ever winner of TV quiz show Ireland’s Smartest on RTÉ One, hosted by Claire Byrne. Huge congratulations to Patrick on an impressive win against very strong competition!
Those of you who have attended our events over the years will no doubt know Patrick as he’s been a regular at IQO in-person events since 2014. He has also been a stalwart of Dublin Quiz League since the very beginning in 2015, being part of two league-winning teams in that time. In addition he won our first Brain of Dublin competition in 2020 and only a few short months ago received the David Fay trophy for being Ireland’s top-ranked quizzer for 2022. Not to mention that his team the Rollin’ Estonians has also been runner-up in the Irish Quiz League for all three seasons to date. Quite a track record in total!
Patrick was kind enough to namecheck the IQO in his post-match interview with the Irish Independent. In fact, all three finalists in Ireland’s Smartest have an IQO connection, with the other two finalists also playing in the Irish Quiz League: Brian Craythorne from Belfast has played with A Tribe Called Cheist in all three seasons of IQL so far, winning the league title twice, while Niall Duddy from Galway joined C4M2L this season and helped guide them to the Div 2 title and also victory in the inaugural IQL Plate competition.
Patrick and Brian had further quiz joy last weekend when they achieved the two highest Irish scores in the 2023 World Quizzing Championship. Out of over 1,500 players taking part in the competition worldwide, Brian was the best of the Irish, finishing in a phenomenal 19th place, with Patrick not far behind in 31st place.
So congrats to all – it’s clear that Irish quizzing is in a healthy state with players like this involved and hopefully the extra exposure of having a “proper” quiz on Irish TV will inspire more folks to get involved in quizzing. Remember that you can sign up to our email newsletter to be notified of future quiz events around the country or just stay tuned to the Upcoming Events page on this very website.
