Alan Parker's Angela's Ashes and Conor McPherson's Saltwater between them took four of the six film prizes given out by the Irish Film and Television Academy at its second annual awards ceremony on Sunday night.

The Academy was set up three years ago to foster recognition of Irish talent and expertise in the fast-growing film and television output of the island as a whole.

Angela's Ashes beat competition from Peter Sheridan's Borstal Boy and Pat Murphy's Nora to win the best feature award. The Paramount Pictures production also picked up the craft achievement award for costume design. The recipient of the award, Consolata Boyle, was also nominated for her work on Nora, and was up against Jean-Francois Robin's cinematography on the same film, and Seamus Deasy's work as DoP on When The Sky Falls.

Saltwater took the best screenplay and best leading actor prizes for Conor McPherson and Peter McDonald respectively. Also nominated for best screenplay were Rat (Wesley Burrowes) and Nora (Pat Murphy, Gerard Stembridge), while actor nods had also gone to Angela's Ashes (Robert Carlyle) and Nora (Ewan McGregor).

The best actress prize went to Susan Lynch for Nora, who beat both Emily Watson's emotive performance in Angela's Ashes and Imelda Staunton in Rat. The best short film prize went to Headwrecker, directed by PJ Dillon.

In keeping with the collegiate nature of the awards, the presentations were made by members of the Irish film-making community, including Neil Jordan, Brendan Gleeson and veteran actor Milo O'Shea who is currently in Northern Ireland filming an adaptation of Spike Milligan's satirical novel Puckoon. Hosted by actor and playwright Marie Jones, the event was recorded and broadcast by both RTE and BBC Northern Ireland on Monday night.