Gerard Butler has been named the best British actor in Hollywood. The Scottish hunk, who is best known for playing King Leonidas in “300,” beat a host of stars, including Christian Bale and double-Oscar winner and Irish citizen Daniel Day Lewis to win the title in a poll of more than 1,000 British film fans by the DVD rental service LoveFilm.

If “Clash of the Titans” is half as good as the trailer then fans can expect a roller coaster ride when the movie, which stars our own Liam Neeson, comes out next year.

Daniel Day-Lewis looks like he’s enjoying his leading male role in the upcoming film “Nine,” and what red-blooded male could blame him?

Famous Irish writer/director/producer Jim Sheridan has been named as this year's recipient of the Gregory Peck Award at the annual Dingle Film Festival.

As an Irish-American fan of Pattinson’s who’s also a New Yorker, I feel I should offer up the star, who's been mobbed by fans while filming "Remember Me" in Manhattan, some advice. Let’s face it: ignoring the fans isn’t doing it for ya, Rob.

British born Irish citizen Daniel Day-Lewis seems set to relocate to the U.S. The current County Wicklow resident, the first Freeman of the Irish county, is married to American writer/director and daughter of famous playwright Arthur Miller, Rebecca Miller, who is intent on moving back to her birthplace.

These celebs weren't born in Ireland, but that doesn't mean they can't call it home! From Jeremy Irons somewhat infamous pink castle, to Sarah Jessica Parker's Donegal cottage, these stars lay their heads in the Emerald Isle as often as they can.

Oscar-winning “There Will Be Blood” star Daniel Day-Lewis has been named the first Freeman of Wicklow.

Neeson, Brosnan, Byrne, Farrell, Rhys-Meyers: Irish men have been a big success in Hollywood. But where are all the Irish ladies?

When our resident film critic picked her Top 10 Irish movies of all time, she provoked a storm of protest from many of our readers. So here, we let our readers have their pick.

When Martin Scorsese released his epic film "The Gangs of New York," the old New York neighborhood of The Five Points was on everybody's tongues.

The star-studded movie, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Liam Neeson, along with Leonardo DiCaprio, is set in the multi-ethnic slum, and follows the gang wars between Irish and Italian immigrants.

That area now has its own history, on a grand scale, in "Five Points: The 19th Century New York City Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum" by Tyler Anbinder, an Associate Professor of History at George Washington University.

Whoever knew that the Civil War Draft Riots would become hip! In 2002, Martin Scorsese unveiled his long-awaited film "The Gangs of New York." Stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Liam Neeson, Daniel Day-Lewis and Cameron Diaz play lowlifes in Civil War-era New York, who are eventually swept up into the devastating riots of July 1863, which left over 100 people dead. Before that, though, there was novelist Kevin Baker's hefty novel "Paradise Alley.

Martin Scorsese just can't get enough of the Irish! Just as the legendary director of "Raging Bull" and "Taxi Driver" is wrapping up his next movie (based on a novel by Irish-American best seller Dennis Lehane), word is that Scorsese's next project will explore the Irish and their role in the creation of New Jersey's gambling mecca Atlantic City. Best known for exploring the Italian-American underworld, Scorsese has been involved in numerous Irish projects in recent years. There was the epic "Gangs of New York" in 2004, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Liam Neeson, which explored the Famine-era Irish and how they transformed 19th century New York.

See where "The Crying Game," My Left Foot" and "The Commitments" rank on a countdown of the best films out of Ireland.

Daniel Day-Lewis has two Oscars, while Peter O'Toole, Richard Harris and Liam Neeson don't have any. See the roles for which they could have, and perhaps should have, won.

There Will Be Blood Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Ciaran Hinds

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

IN There Will Be Blood, the highly anticipated new film opening in limited release on December 26, we follow a madly driven businessman's pursuit of riches through the guise of oil.

Academy Award winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis - in a cast that also includes Irishman Ciaran Hinds - plays Daniel Plainview, the man who's quest for power and wealth changes his life. Not surprisingly, given its stellar cast, critical buzz is already predicting a sack full of Oscars for the film in 2008, when it goes up against stiff competition from other in-the-running films like No Country for Old Men and Atonement.

2007 was a banner year filled with extraordinary new Irish plays, films, concerts and novels, and a sack full of Tony and Oscar nods lie ahead for many new and seasoned Irish artists. CAHIR O'DOHERTY takes a look back at some of the year's highlights (and inevitable lowlights).

FILMS starring Irish actors will dominate the awards season this year.

MEL Gibson, beware of The Passion of the Irish Jewish Community. The star, who launched a notorious drunken tirade against Jews while being hauled off to the slam for drunk driving a couple of summers ago in LA, is due in Dublin this weekend to accept the Outstanding Contribution to World Cinema Award at the Irish Film and Television Awards, but a rabbi in Ireland is furious that Mad Mel should be placed on such a pedestal. "We find it very puzzling.

IT was a case of VIP gridlock alert in Dublin last week, and celebrity watchers were the gleeful beneficiaries. A gaggle of stars - Mel, Daniel, Bo, Colin, Charlize to name a few - arrived in the Irish capital for a whole bunch of events that firmly established Dublin as a stop on the celeb map of cool places to be seen.

The photos speak for themselves, right? Many of the notables walked the red carpet at the Irish Film and Television Awards on Sunday night at the Gaiety Theatre, chief among them Mel Gibson, who picked up an award for outstanding contribution to world cinema.

WHO, in our humble estimation, stole the show at the Oscars? Perhaps we're slightly biased, but the dynamic acting/singing/writing duo of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova stood head and shoulders above the rest when accepting their award for Best Original Song for "Falling Slowly," the signature theme from their smash-hit indie film Once.

The film, made "for a hundred grand" as Hansard said during his speech, went on to score in the region of $20 million worldwide for its distributors, Fox Searchlight, so Sunday night's ultimate honor was the icing on the cake for its stars, who were the toast of Hollywood even before their names were announced. The win must have been even sweeter considering there was a minor kafuffle about the song's eligibility a couple of weeks before showtime.

DANIEL Day-Lewis may be the flavor of the month in Hollywood right now after his Academy Awards success on Sunday night, but the man of the moment bored me to death for almost an hour the day before he got his hands on another golden gong.

The English-born Irish citizen was the guest of honor on the Marian Finucane radio show on RTE on Saturday morning, a prelude to what the presenter and her producers rightly hoped was going to be a great weekend for the Wicklow resident.

The interview was shockingly uninteresting, aside from one brief moment when Marian informed Daniel that he had previously won an Oscar for playing Christy Moore.

WILL Ferrell brought along his Irish American sidekick in the film Step Brothers, John C. Reilly, for a week of business in pleasure in Dublin that just wrapped up. The visit marked Ferrell's second trip to the Emerald Isle this year - in January he gave an hilarious speech at University College Dublin, dressed in tight fitting Irish rugby gear, to accept an award.

Noel Pearson, the legendary Dublin born film and theater producer, will arrive in New York this month for the opening of his latest feel good film How About You, starring Vanessa Redgrave, Brenda Fricker, Imelda Staunton and Hayley Atwell. This week he talks to CAHIR O'DOHERTY about the making of the film in Ireland, and it's forthcoming U.S.

WHEN he's not wowing critics and audiences alike with his rare but riveting performances on screen, Oscar nominee Daniel Day-Lewis is just a regular, ordinary guy, say his neighbors in Roundwood, Co. Wicklow.

Though he's a virtual shoo-in for Academy Award glory next month with his star turn in There Will Be Blood, DDL leaves Hollywood behind when he's at home in Wicklow with his American-born wife Rebecca Miller and their two sons, Cashel and Ronan.

THIS is the year of the Oscar musical hiccup. Just this week, after a lengthy process of consultation, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has finally ruled that the song "Falling Slowly," the signature track from the breakout hit Irish film Once, is again eligible for Oscar consideration. Written by the Frames lead singer Glen Han-sard and Marketa Irglova, stars of Once, the song's road to Oscar glory has been long and winding.

IT'S a very long way from the tiny village of Adrattin, Co. Carlow to the Academy Awards - or at least it used to be. Last week Saoirse Ronan, 13, the young Irish film star and Carlow native, brought the two separate worlds a little closer together when she was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her work in Atonement, the epic film which won a total of seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.

Daniel Day Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren and Penelope Cruz are on location in Italy shooting the film version of the hit Broadway musical "Nine," which has actually been in production since last year. The English/Irish Day Lewis plays the sole male lead, an Italian film director going through a midlife crisis via a whole bunch of women, including a wife, a mistress and a muse. Recent Oscar winner Marion Cotillard and singer Fergie are also down as co-stars.

Irish eye on hollywood

Tom Deignan

The Irish and boxing are longtime Hollywood staples, from John Wayne as the reluctant slugger in The Quiet Man right up to Russell Crowe in Cinderella Man and Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby. In December, a Cork-born writer-director and quirky American actor are going to take their shot at the genre with Strength and Honor.

Buzz on the film is solid.

Irish eye on hollywood

By Tom Deignan

Saoirse Ronan didn't take home an Academy Award at the big show on February 24, but the 13-year-old Hollywood star has a busy 2008 planned. Ronan was nominated as a best supporting actress Oscar for her role in Atonement. Prior to the Oscars, Ronan was happy just to be going to the show, which was nearly canceled because of the prolonged writer's strike.

He's cleaning up in the pre-Oscar award blitz and hotly tipped to win a second Best Actor Oscar next month - indeed, if the show goes on as the writer's strike has already put the kibosh on the Golden Globes - but Daniel Day Lewis, English-born but Irish to the core, is taking it all in his stride. Day Lewis was in Santa Monica on Monday night to collect his first gong of the season, top actor honors at the Critics' Choice Awards for his star turn in "There Will Be Blood." But one gets the feeling that the low-key star would just as soon stay at home in Co.

Oscar joy for Once and Day-Lewis

By Declan O'Kelly

It was a victorious night for the Irish independent movie Once, as its stars and songwriters Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova picked up an Oscar for best original song for "Falling Slowly" at the ceremony held at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles on February 24. It was the first nomination and win for both, and Hansard could hardly believe what was happening as he accepted the famous statue.

"What are we doing here? This is mad," said the 37-year-old Hansard, who is also the lead singer of the Irish band The Frames.

Daniel Day-Lewis in Nine

Daniel Day-Lewis is famously picky when it comes to movies, but he may have been won over to shoot his first film since "There Will be Blood," for which he won his second Oscar. Day-Lewis is in talks to star in "Nine," based on the Broadway musical of the same title which in turn was based, in part, on Federico Fellini's film "8 1/2."

Day-Lewis is being discussed for the role of Guido Contini, originally meant for Javier Bardem, who dropped out of the project.

Top 100 Irish America's Finest in Dance . Music . Acting

The Irish have had a long history in the entertainment business, from the days when actors Errol Flynn and James Cagney graced the silver screen, Gene Kelly danced his way into hearts, and crooner Bing Crosby brought joy to millions with his heavenly voice. So too, our Top 100 honorees, dancers, musicians, stars of stage and screen, light up our lives with their particular talent.

They have made us laugh, cry, sit spellbound in our seats, and gasp in awe at their enormous talent.