Republic of Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest
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| Member station | RTÉ |
| Appearances | 40 |
| First appearance | 1965 |
| Best result | 1st, 1970, 1980, 1987, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996 |
| Worst result | 14th in the semi, 2005 |
The Republic of Ireland made its debut in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1965. Since then Ireland has won the ESC seven times making it more successful than any other entrant (nation). The country is usually styled Ireland in the contest.
Ireland broadcasts the show on RTÉ.
Contents |
[edit] All entries
[edit] Winning Irish entries
Johnny Logan from Ireland was involved three times with a winning entry (once as a singer (1980), once as a songwriter (1992), and once as both (1987)). No other artist has done the same thing, neither did any other performer win the contest twice as such. Brendan Graham also wrote two winning entries: those in 1994 and 1996.
| Year | Song | Performer | Article |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | "All Kinds of Everything" | Dana | ESC 1970 |
| 1980 | "What's Another Year" | Johnny Logan | ESC 1980 |
| 1987 | "Hold Me Now" | Johnny Logan | ESC 1987 |
| 1992 | "Why Me" | Linda Martin | ESC 1992 |
| 1993 | "In Your Eyes" | Niamh Kavanagh | ESC 1993 |
| 1994 | "Rock'n Roll Kids" | Paul Harrington & Charlie McGettigan | ESC 1994 |
| 1996 | "The Voice" | Eimear Quinn | ESC 1996 |
[edit] Entrant
The Republic of Ireland's member of the European Broadcasting Union is Radio Telefís Éireann. RTÉ however allow and encourage people living in Northern Ireland to enter and vote in the national contest. There have also been accusations of neighbourly voting levelled at Northern Irish voters, frequently lambasted as skewing the UK's voting. This has lead to the sometimes humorous pattern of the UK awarding votes to Ireland, but with Ireland frequently failing to reciprocate. It is perhaps the only one-way voting pattern in Eurovision. This, however, has been mirrored in recent years with Ireland giving the UK 7 points in 2004 and 8 of Javine's 18 points in 2005 came from Ireland, while the UK continues to also give high points to Ireland. Although in 2006 it was noted, even by the Irish commentator Marty Whelan as very strange that Ireland's highest points did not come from the UK, who gave 8. Ireland's highest points, in fact, came from Monaco, who gave 10.
[edit] Host
The first country to host the event twice in a row was Ireland which actually hosted the contest three times in a row, as they won the contest in 1992, 1993 and 1994 and hosted the event in 1993, 1994, and 1995. Ireland also holds the record for the most times hosting the contest as a winner, at 7 (the UK has hosted the contest a record eight times, but four of these instances were when the national broadcaster due to host the show was unable to fulfill its duty): 6 times in Dublin, and once in Millstreet, County Cork.
A popular urban myth arising from this is that the national broadcaster RTÉ was in huge financial difficulty as a result of having to host the contest four times in the space of five years (as Ireland also won in 1996 and thus had to host the contest in 1997). This myth is however unconfirmed by anyone including RTE - although now the financial burden to host the Contest is much lower, since the late 1990s, when a decision was taken to secure a very large proportion of the budget directly from EBU revenues (including televoting) and the Big 4 .
When hosting in 1994 an interval Irish dancing show, Riverdance was chosen. This launched Riverdance into huge international fame. In 1997 Ronan Keating not only hosted the show but performed the song 'Let the message run free' during the interval act, together with the other members of Boyzone.
[edit] Voting
Being an island on the fringe of Europe, Ireland does not benefit from the likes of neighbourly voting as mainland European countries do. It is also not part of a distinct block, it is neither Western European nor Nordic when it comes to voting. Traditionally, the only consistent vote-giving to Ireland is by the UK, due to the large nationalist population of Northern Ireland and the Irish diaspora in the rest of the UK.
Ireland itself rarely gives votes consistently to anyone, except sometimes reciprocating the UK's votes (although this was far more common before the free language rule, when only UK and Malta were also singing in English). Statistically, Ireland is the sixth best country at predicting a winner (behind Bulgaria, Serbia-Montenegro, Netherlands, Switzerland and Russia in that order), giving an average of 8.7 points to the winning country every year over its 23 appearances since the current voting methods were implemented. For this reason, it is said that Ireland "know a good ESC" [citation needed]
[edit] Recent entries
Ireland suffered something of a fall from grace following its extraordinary run of placings in the mid-nineties (1st, 1st, 1st, 14th, 1st, 2nd), finishing 9th in 1998, and a record low 17th in 1999. There was a brief taste of success with a 6th placing in 2000, but in 2001 Ireland suffered the embarrassment of scoring a mere six points, finishing in 21st place. Due to relegation rules, Ireland missed the 2002 contest entirely, but returned in 2003 and Mickey Harte finished in joint 10th place. This result gained Ireland a placing directly into the 2004 final but the 2004 entry, ('If My World Stopped Turning' by Chris Doran), failed to impress the televoters, and only missed out a 'nul points' finishing thanks to its only vote of 7 points from the UK. Ireland were then relegated to the semi-final in 2005, and failed to qualify to that year's final, when Donna and Joseph McCaul sang "Love?", but in 2006 the former 'King of Eurovision' just sneaked through from the semi-final in 9th place, finishing in 10th overall in the final, ensuring direct qualification for the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest to be held in Helsinki, Finland, on May 12, 2007.
[edit] Links
RTE (Ireland's national broadcaster) - www.rte.ie
Brian Kennedy's Official Homepage - www.briankennedy.co.uk
A History of Ireland's Eurovision performances and review of Brian's song - www.soult.com/eurovision/2006/ireland
[edit] Footnotes
| Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest |
|---|
| Albania | Andorra | Armenia | Austria | Belarus | Belgium | Bosnia and Herzegovina | Bulgaria | Croatia | Cyprus | Czech Republic | Denmark | Estonia | Finland | France | Georgia | Germany | Greece | Hungary | Iceland | Ireland | Israel | Italy | Latvia | Lebanon | Liechtenstein | Lithuania | Luxembourg | Republic of Macedonia | Malta | Moldova | Monaco | Montenegro | Morocco | Netherlands | Norway | Poland | Portugal | Romania | Russia | Serbia | Serbia and Montenegro | Slovakia | Slovenia | Spain | Sweden | Switzerland | Tunisia | Turkey | Ukraine | United Kingdom | Yugoslavia |
