| Republic Of Ireland In The Eurovision Song Contest |
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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. 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 humourous 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 reversed in recent years with Ireland giving the UK 7 points in 2004 and 8 of Javine's 18 points in 2005 came from Ireland. 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 . A popular urban myth arising from this is that the national broadcaster RTE 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 - it is unlikely to be true as a very large proportion of the budget to host the show is provided by the EBU and the Big 4 . When hosting in 1994 an interval Irish Dancing show, Riverdance was chosen. This launched Riverdance into huge international fame. In 1995 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 . 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 RECENT ENTRIES Ireland suffered somewhat of a fall from grace following its extraordinary run of placings in the mid-nineties (1st, 1st, 1st, 14th, 1th, 2nd), placing 9th in 1998, and a near record setting low of 17th in 1999. There was a brief glimmer of success with a 6th placing in 2000, but in 2001 Ireland suffered the embarrassment of scoring merely six points - and 21st place. Due to relegation rules Ireland missed the 2002 contest entirely, but in 2003 managed to just qualify for the 2004 final, Mickey Harte singing the nation into 11th place. However, the entry in 2004 ('If My World Stopped Turning' by Chris Doran ) once again failed to impress upon the European televoters, only missing out a 'nul points' finishing because of 7 points from its neighbour the UK. Ireland's most recent appearance in the 2005 Semi failed to qualify for the final, and in 2006 the once 'King of Eurovision' must take part in the Semi-Final. There has been much speculation internally and by other countries on what caused the reversal of Ireland's fortunes. It is now generally agreed that the switch from juries to televoting, accompanied by the free language rule established in 1999 hurt the chances of the island state. Ireland's entries are also now seen as being old-fashioned - due to the impression on televoters that the country prefers to send ballads rather than the popular Europop and dance tracks which have been so successful over the last few years. Another factor cited has been the reality-tv show format used in Ireland recently to pick its entrant, the RTE show ' You're A Star ' . Opponents say that this results in amateur and under-experienced performances at the contest. In 2006, RTE abandoned the use of 'You're A Star' to select the entrant, and instead internally selected Brian Kennedy as its entrant. It was felt that Brian, already an established international performer, would give the country a better chance to place well. RTE invited civilians and professional songwriters to send in songs, with a panel including Brian himself picking four, to be performed by Brian on The Late Late Show and for televoting to select the one he would perform at Eurovision. However, only two songs written externally were actually presented to the public - one of the four in the live sing-off was composed by Brian himself, and one was disqualified before the show for being previously published (under EBU regulations all songs must have never been recorded or released previously). In the end, on 17th February 2006 , the voters chose Brian's own song, 'Every Song is a Cry For Love'. The song has already been applauded by critics as one of the best Irish entries for years. ALL ENTRIES 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 - [http://www.soult.com/eurovision/2006/ireland.shtml www.soult.com/eurovision/2006/ireland] FOOTNOTES |
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