IRISH International has won the 1996 Advertising Agency of the Year Award.

The runners up were DDFH&B and Young Advertising which won the overall award last year. Irish International's - managing director, Mr Ian Young, was presented with the award last night by Mr Michael Cullen, the editor of Marketing magazine, the main sponsors of the awards.

Irish International showed a strong return to profits last year after shedding some non core interests, and also won significant new business. The company's accounts for the 12 months to last, March showed a pretax profit of £140,000 compared with a loss of £310,000 the previous year. Turnover was £12.5 million and is expected to rise to £16 million for the 1995 calendar year.

During the year the company won industry awards for its television and poster campaigns for Barry's Tea, Budweiser, Harp, Butler's Irish Chocolates, and Independent Newspapers.