Maureen Joyce has two more pieces of crystal to keep sparkling this weekend, after two of her offspring won the marquee prizes at the RSA Cricket Ireland awards on Friday night.

The RSA International Player of the Year awards were won by Ed Joyce and his baby sister Isobel, capping memorable seasons for the pair and giving Ed even more to celebrate on his fifth wedding anniversary.

And Isobel's partner, John Anderson, kept it in the family by winning the Aengus Fanning Emerging Player award.

In front of 300 players, administrators and guests in the Doubletree Hilton, Cricket Ireland's CEO Warren Deutrom set the tone for an evening of looking forward as well as back. "When the history of Irish cricket comes to be written," he said, "2013 will be seen as a prominent milestone. It will be remembered as the end of one era, and the start of another.

"We will shortly say farewell to that great cricketer Trent Johnston. Rarely have I met anyone who had such an impact on a group of people.

"Adrian Birrell's decision to appoint him as captain not only galvanised the team, but the country as a whole. His inspirational qualities will be hard to replace. It is to be hoped that one day he will play a part in our own cycle of renewal."

The new era began at Malahide, where "10,000 people came out on a sparkling September day" to watch Ireland play England. Deutrom admitted the fixture didn't make very much money for Cricket Ireland, but said that wasn't important, that the bigger picture was about showing to ICC and the Irish authorities that if you built Irish cricket's field of dreams, the people would come to fill it.

Deutrom also insisted his personal highlight didn't involve the marquee fixtures, but the nail-biting finale to the Women's World Twenty20 qualifying campaign. That game against the Netherlands went to the last ball, with Ireland winning by two runs.

"The losing team were in tears, the winning team were in tears, the parents were in tears. And the president of Cricket Ireland seemed to have something in his eye too."

In a state-of-the-nation speech, he revealed that playing numbers had this year breached the 40,000 mark with clubs developing and growing in places where the game had been unknown for 150 years.

He also paid tribute to sponsors RSA, "who are helping us to be the sport we want it to be, from the playground to the test arena."

The Volunteer of the Year award went to Ian Talbot, who drove the Malahide stadium project. He told of how he visited John Wright, club-mate and inspirational secretary of Cricket Ireland, shortly before he died in 2008. The vision they had marked out for their club was still years away. "'Ian, you've got to keep going', he told me. So I kept going."

Sunday Independent editor Anne Harris said she was delighted that Cricket Ireland had named the Emerging Player award in honour of the late editor of the newspaper. "Aengus Fanning was in some ways an emerging player all his life. He exemplified the shining spirit and refusal to accept any obstacles which is cricket and Cricket Ireland." The award was won by John Anderson of Merrion, who made a brilliant century against Holland. Anderson's dedication showed that it is still possible to combine a career outside sport with the demands of the international game.

A popular innovation this year was the Hall of Fame, which has hitherto been part of the Cricket Writers award. The journalists agreed to share the scheme with the governing body and the eight previous inductees joined new members Michael Halliday and Simon Corlett.

They formed what must have been the most entertaining table of the night with Gerry Duffy, Ossie Colhoun, Roy Torrens, Alec O'Riordan, Ivan Anderson, Stephen Warke and Ginger O'Brien. Many other stars of Ireland's cricketing past swapped tales of ancient deeds, including Kyle McCallan, Gerry O'Brien, Godfrey Graham, Peter O'Reilly, Albert van der Merwe, Ian Johnston, Alan Hughes, Alan Lewis and Ross McCollum.

Club of the Year is Clontarf, and captain Eoghan Delany summed up the reasons for its success in two words: "Andre Botha". The inspiring all-rounder returned to his first Irish club and galvanised a talented but disparate team to win the RSA Irish Senior Cup.

The biggest applause of the night was reserved for Trent Johnston, who bows out in December. Although he's in his 40th year, "he could keep going for ever", insisted John Mooney. ‘TJ' said he wouldn't be rethinking his decision, and identified the 2007 win over Pakistan as the most memorable of his 186 caps.

"A lot of great things have happened since, but that won't ever be surpassed. Our seven weeks in the Caribbean put CricketIreland on the map and ever since we've kept that going."

RSA chief executive Philip Smith thanked MC Matt Cooper, and slipped in that "we love mats in Leinster cricket", which provoked raucous laughter.

The International Players award winners spoke eloquently about the game and their role as veterans. Isobel Joyce, who has spent half her life as an Ireland player and led her team to qualify for the ICC World Twenty20 in Bangladesh, said: "The younger players keep me going. We have fantastic talent coming up. In recent years we've got great support from CricketIreland and we've got every chance to improve."

Her big brother pointed out "I've been playing for a long time and I haven't won too many of these type of awards so I'm delighted to be up here."

Joyce captained Sussex to 3rd in the county championship, and was leading batsman in the first division, while for Ireland he made centuries against Pakistan and UAE and a vital 96* to help beat Holland. "I love playing - I love every minute of it," he told Cooper.

"It's great to do this for a living." "Eoin (Morgan) and Boyd (Rankin) playing for England was a huge credit to Irish cricket, but we keep producing good players and there's plenty of talent coming through. It's a very exciting time - Irish cricket knows no boundaries."

WINNERS

• Croke Park Hotel Junior Player of the Year: Fiachra Tucker (Pembroke)
• Toyota Coach of the Year: Kamal Merchant (YMCA)
• Johnston Mooney & O'Brien Volunteer of the Year: Ian Talbot (Malahide)
• Tildenet Club of the Year: Clontarf
• O'Neills Club Player of the Year: Eddie Richardson (North County)
• Eventcentre Official of the Year: Mark Hawthorne (NCU Umpires)
• Notts Sport Outstanding contribution to Irish cricket: Mary Sharp (CricketLeinster)
• Aengus Fanning International Emerging Player of the Year: John Anderson (Merrion) Sponsored by The Sunday Independent
• RSA International Women's Player of the Year: Isobel Joyce (Merrion)
• RSA International Men's Player of the Year: Ed Joyce (Sussex)