Latest update 2024: We hope to run Brain of Dublin again at some stage in conjunction with a future season of Dublin Quiz League – watch this space.
Held for the first time in 2019-2020, Brain of Dublin is an individual quiz tournament which ran in parallel with the Dublin Quiz League. Here’s how it works:
- The tournament is open to anyone (you don’t have to be a Dublin Quiz League player)
- Teams are not involved – this is an individual tournament, so every man or woman for themselves!
- The tournament takes place over multiple months, starting with a qualifier (next qualifier will be sometime in 2021)
- Entry fee is €5 per person, payable on the qualifier night.
- The qualifier is be a written quiz of 50 questions to be completed in 30 minutes. The top 32 scores will qualify for the tournament proper.
- The remainder of the tournament will take place in monthly heats held on the same night as Dublin Quiz League matches (either before or afterwards) in the same venues.
- The first three heats are each be a quiz match between 4 players, with the top 1 or 2 scorers going forward to the next round.
- That then leaves 4 players to contest the grand final, with cash prizes for both the winner and runner-up!
If you’d like to take part in the next tournament in 2021, email league@quizireland.ie to be added to our mailing list.
Brain of Dublin 2020 results
Qualifier round
The qualifier round was held in two parts, on Nov 4th & 12th 2019. We had 46 entrants altogether, each of whom had 30 minutes to tackle the 50-question written paper. The top 32 qualified for the Brain of Dublin tournament itself. Results as follows:
(Note: the tiebreaker answer was 707, so players with the same score are ranked by how close their answer was to the tiebreaker, namely the “tiebreaker difference” column.)
Round 1 (Dec 2019-Jan 2020)
The 32 qualifying players were randomly drawn into 8 heats of 4 players each, with the 2 top-scoring players from each heat going to the next round, as highlighted in green. Each heat consisted of 4 rounds of questions (32 questions in all).
| Heat 1 | |
| Conor Horgan | 10 |
| Tom Diffley | 11* |
| Anthony Strogen | 13 |
| Gearóid Grogan | 11* |
| *Gearóid won the tiebreak 3-1 | |
| Heat 2 | |
| Dónall Hoey | 15 |
| Brian O’Hanlon | 15 |
| Greg Redmond | 10 |
| Padraig McLoughlin | 11 |
| Heat 3 | |
| Noel Rogers | 8 |
| Dónal Ring | 14 |
| Kevin Jones | 15 |
| James Sherry | 7 |
| Heat 4 | |
| Mark Lynch | 8 |
| Gerry Barrett | 19 |
| Damian McDonnell | 6 |
| Alan King | 11 |
| Heat 5 | |
| Jules Carney | 8 |
| Karen Crofton | 12 |
| Gary Stephens | 11 |
| Patrick Carthy | 13 |
| Heat 6 | |
| Gary Power | 8 |
| James Bane | 12 |
| Eamon Murphy | 11 |
| Paul Curtayne | 16 |
| Heat 7 | |
| Amanda Bane | 7 |
| Peter Lowney | 14 |
| Kevin Lawless | 10 |
| James Conroy | 6 |
| Heat 8 | |
| Eamonn O’Riordan | 12 |
| Daniel Watts | 5 |
| Colm O’Sullivan | 10 |
| Cathal Dunne | 15 |
Round 2 (Feb 2020)
The last 16 players were randomly drawn into 4 heats. Again, each heat consisted of a 4-round 32-question quiz, with the 2 top-scoring players going through.
| Heat 1 | |
| Dónall Hoey | 10 |
| Kevin Jones | 20 |
| James Bane | 15 |
| Dónal Ring | 6 |
| Heat 2 | |
| Anthony Strogen | 11 |
| Gearóid Grogan | 7 |
| Cathal Dunne | 15 |
| Peter Lowney | 13 |
| Heat 3 | |
| Kevin Lawless | 6 |
| Paul Curtayne | 12 |
| Eamonn O’Riordan | 16 |
| Patrick Carthy | 13 |
| Heat 4 | |
| Brian O’Hanlon | 13 |
| Alan King | 7 |
| Gerry Barrett | 10 |
| Karen Crofton | 12 |
Semi-finals (Nov 2020)
After an 8-month delay caused by COVID-19, the tournament resumed online with the remaining matches played via Zoom. In the semi-finals at the end of November, the last 8 players were randomly drawn into 2 heats. This time, each heat was twice as long, consisting of 8 rounds of questions (64 questions in total), with once again the 2 top-scoring players going through.
| Heat 1 | |
| Eamonn O’Riordan | 24 |
| James Bane | 19 |
| Peter Lowney | 21 |
| Karen Crofton | 19 |
| Heat 2 | |
| Brian O’Hanlon | 19 |
| Kevin Jones | 26 |
| Patrick Carthy | 34 |
| Cathal Dunne | 17 |
Final (Dec 2020)
The final was held on Saturday 5th December, again via Zoom.
After a very closely-fought quiz, both Patrick Carthy and Kevin Jones finished level on points. An additional tiebreaker round failed to separate them, so it came down to the final nearest-the-pin question. Patrick’s answer was closer, so he was crowned Brain of Dublin and received the trophy plus €100 cash prize, while Kevin received the runner-up prize of €50. Congratulations to both!
| Finalists | |
| Peter Lowney | 21 |
| Kevin Jones | 29* |
| Patrick Carthy | 29* |
| Eamonn O’Riordan | 14 |
| *Patrick won via tie-breaker |
Questions & answers
All the questions & answers from Brain of Dublin 2020 are here for you to freely download: