<P> The RTÉ Sports Person of the Year Award is the titular award of the RTÉ Sports Awards ceremony, which takes place each December . The winner is the Irish sportsperson (from the island of Ireland) judged to have achieved the most that year . The winner was originally chosen by a special panel of RTÉ journalists and editorial staff, but was selected by a public vote from a pre-determined shortlist in 2016 . The first Irish sports award ceremony took place in 1985, and was closely modelled on the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award . </P> <P> Three people have won the award multiple times: athlete Sonia O'Sullivan won the award five times, including a record three successive awards, and golfers Pádraig Harrington, with three wins, and Rory McIlroy, who won it twice . The oldest recipient of the award is Christy O'Connor Jnr, who won in 1989 aged 41 . Rory McIlroy, who first won in 2011, aged 22, is the youngest winner . Ten sporting disciplines have been represented; golf has the highest representation, with seven recipients . </P> <P> Eamonn Darcy, Ronan Rafferty and Des Smyth, who won the Alfred Dunhill Cup in 1988, are the only non-individual winners of the award . Counting them separately, there have been twenty - seven winners of the award . Five of these have been Northern Irish . The most recent award was made in 2016 to mixed martial artist Conor McGregor . </P>

Who has won rte sports person of the year five times