Ireland’s 2019 EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Finalists have been revealed

This year's EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Finalists include business people from all four provinces.

It's not just true in a sporting sense that Ireland often punches well above its weight. Even with a population as modest as our own, we have a proud history of producing an incredible variety of successful and ambitious entrepreneurs. It's only right that they receive the accolades they deserve, which is what the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ Ireland programme is all about. After several months of nominations that have seen more than 120 worthy entries, the 24 finalists for this year's awards have been chosen. Collectively, this year's finalists employ more than 13,000 people and generate annual revenues of almost €1.2bn. They are already some of the most successful business people in the country, and a panel of previous winners will decide, across the categories of Emerging, Industry, and International, which of them is the cream of the crop.

Emerging Category

• Mark Dowds - Trov, Antrim
• John Mullins - Amarenco Solar, Cork
• Tom Cronin - Rye River Brewing Company, Kildare
• Mervyn O'Callaghan and Simon Murray - Provision Vehicle Cameras, Dublin
• Sonia Deasy - Pestle & Mortar, Kildare
• Ian Nolan and Alex Kelly - Brightflag, Dublin
• Triona Mullane - mAdMe Technologies, Dublin
• James and Timothy McElroy - HouseMyDog, Dublin

Industry Category

• Matt Ryan - Press Up Entertainment Group, Dublin
• Pat McDonagh - Supermac's Holdings, Galway
• Mark Whitaker - Johnson & Perrott Motor Group, Cork
• Patrick  Derry - DRT (NI) LTD, Armagh
• Peter and Una Kearns - The Institute of Education, Dublin
• Ashley McCulla - McCulla (Ireland) Ltd., Antrim
• Laurence O'Kane - IMED Healthcare, Derry
• Donnacha Hurley - Motor Mania Limited., Offaly

International Category

• Richard Kennedy - Devenish, Antrim
• Andrew Day - Keywords Studios, Dublin
• Lily Holmes - PB Machine Tech, Carlow
• Paul McKenna - mac-group, Dublin
• Philip Noone - Aalto Bio, Dublin
• Shane Evans - Scrapinghub, Cork
• Brian Leslie - Seaquest Systems, Donegal
• Lulu O'Sullivan - GiftsDirect.com/TheIrishStore.com, Dublin

As part of our show The Architects of Business, we tap into the knowledge of previous finalists. With host Sonya Lennon, the most recent episode saw Pat Rigney, Founder of Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin, tell us how Irish business people are often seen as far too modest. Subscribe to The Architects of Business for free on iTunes, SoundCloud or watch every episode on YouTube.