5 April 1965 Before Eurovision, what did Ireland do for national pop-cultural psychodrama? Whatever public interest or patriotic pride our first Eurovision entry may have whipped up in 1965, I doubt anyone anticipated its grip on the Irish imagination ever since. If anything, our recent trail of semi-final elimination has intensified our fascination and fervour; … Continue reading Butch Moore – ‘Walking The Streets In The Rain’ →

29 April 2004 You're A Star, Ireland's early-'00s talent show format for Eurovision selection, had two crucial design flaws. First, it's one thing plucking a fresh-faced unknown from obscurity and planting them in the white-hot glare of national TV. But You're A Star went way beyond that: it then teleported them onto the unforgiving stage … Continue reading Chris Doran – ‘If My World Stopped Turning’ →

9 August 2003 Well, this is cheeky. Mickey Harte's 2003 Irish Eurovision entry and number one 'We've Got The World' was noticed to have a similar chorus melody to the 2000 Eurovision winner, 'Fly On The Wings Of Love' (or as it was known in my house, 'Wings On The Fly Of Love') by the … Continue reading XTM – ‘Fly On The Wings Of Love’ →

3 May 2003 I remember a lot of genuine good will for Mickey Joe Harte and 'We've Got The World'. (The single and the Eurovision entry are credited to Mickey Harte. Perhaps the colloquial 'Joe' was considered infra dig for those formalities, or the domestic distinction from the Gaelic football manager of the same name … Continue reading Mickey Harte – ‘We’ve Got The World’ →

5 April 2003 Wow! You people of Ireland 2003 must have really loved your Eurovision, to say that the runner-up of the national final got to number one! Well, context: 2003 was the year Eurosong became You're A Star, an Irish solution to the Irish problem of how to domesticate the new TV reality talent … Continue reading Simon Casey – ‘A Better Plan’ →

5 May 1994 It was a dreadful song anyway: insipid, retrograde AOR balladry about being old people. How it won can only be explained as a whole continent really, really wanting to come back to Ireland on another expenses-paid jolly same time next year. (The UK entry that year, 'Lonely Symphony' sung by Frances Ruffelle, … Continue reading Bill Whelan – ‘Riverdance’ →

23 May 1993 Aside from winning the 1993 Eurovision Song Contest, 'In Your Eyes' provides an unlikely musical connection between two very different hit movies decades apart, The Commitments and Frozen. Its singer, Niamh Kavanagh, didn't appear in The Commitments but sang lead vocals on a couple of its featured songs, notably 'Destination Anywhere'. Its … Continue reading Niamh Kavanagh – ‘In Your Eyes’ →

28 May 1992 A Eurovision This or That question for you: an Irish entry that's good but unsuccessful, or one that's bad but wins? In 2021 and 2022 we had the former, with neither Lesley Roy's energetic 'Maps' nor Brooke Scullion's smart 'That's Rich' even making it out of the semi-final. In the '90s we … Continue reading Linda Martin – ‘Why Me?’ →

16 May 1987 Resplendent in an all-white kit, Spurs lost a classic FA Cup Final in 1987 to unfancied Coventry City and Keith Houchen's diving header. Johnny Logan, also top to toe in white, won the Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland a week earlier in equally dramatic circumstances. For years I misremembered both as being … Continue reading Johnny Logan – ‘Hold Me Now’ →

15 May 1982 Later on in the '80s I would hear this song from the folk group that occasionally accompanied whatever mass I was dragged along to as a child. Also in their repertoire was 'The Rose', whose baked-in melodrama always blew 'A Little Peace' out of the water. Even for a folk group at … Continue reading Nicole – ‘A Little Peace’ →