Eurovision: The divorce papers are on the table but Ireland shouldn't give up just yet
Sweden's entrant Loreen after winning the Eurovision Song Contest at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool. Picture: Aaron Chown/PA Wire
Dressed head-to-toe in my finest communion regalia, a six-year-old me was found beaming around the Gleneagle Hotel in Killarney after bumping into Linda Martin, Johnny Logan and other Irish Eurovision legends in the car park.
They were being ushered onto a bus and whisked off to Millstreet in Cork, where the 39th Eurovision Song Contest was taking place that evening.
At the time of the sweet encounter, like most young girls, compliments on my dress took centre stage in my list of priorities.
So it wasn’t until I looked up at the television later that evening and saw my car park friends being celebrated on national television, that I realised the significance of the moment.
That was it, I was hooked, along with the entire country at the time. Win after win, celebration after celebration, even banter thrown about how we should give other countries a chance at winning (regretting that one now, aren't we?).
Fast-forward, nearly 30 years on from my communion, I sit in the media room of the 67th Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool trying to piece together one question: where did it all go wrong for Ireland?
And they’d be right. In its history, the Eurovision Song Contest has seen many changes.
In 1999 the use of a live orchestra was dropped to save money for the show, in 2000 the ‘big four’ rule was introduced giving France, Germany, Spain, and the UK automatic entry in the contest regardless of previous performance. In 2015, Australia was added to the bill and even this year saw the introduction Rest of the World vote.
So why, if the contest is continuing to change and adapt, do we insist on staying the same?
As our national broadcaster, RTÉ has the job of selecting and managing Ireland’s act every year, with the help of Eurosong special.
They’ve explored options we didn’t even think possible - from sending a turkey in a shopping trolley to selecting twins with hopes as high as their hairline, twice. But maybe it’s time to change up our approach.
Irish Eurovision fans in Liverpool seem to think so.
TikTok creator and superfan, Adam McCallig from Galway compared Ireland’s Eurovision team structure to the selection of the manager of a soccer team and believes it needs a complete overhaul.
“Let’s say a football manager wins one game and loses nine games, he’d be fired after like four or five games,” he said. “You wouldn’t keep him for ten games.”
Irish Eurovision Podcasters Louise Holst and Conor Devin, who host , believe that we need to re-think our Eurovision process entirely which would mean moving away from Eurosong and adapting to a more modern Eurovision approach.
Conor believes that the pressure of Sweden now matching Ireland’s record seven wins could force change.
“I welcome the pressure. It might make Ireland rethink their Eurovision process and send an act that reflects a more modern Eurovision,” Conor says.
“A Eurovision that we haven't been performing at."
If a new approach is needed, what would that look like?
I asked the Head of Label and Artist Partnership at TikTok, Darina Connelly, who hails from Kanturk in Co Cork and she believes that the UK’s Eurovision model is something Ireland should be paying attention to.
“The UK came last in 2019, it was cancelled in 2020 and they came last in 2021. From that point I think someone in the BBC said, ‘Right we need to get our act together’ and last year Sam Ryder came in at second,” she says.
“There’s never a formula but there are best practices out there that we can follow; we just need to change our mindset and do just that”.
Connelly adds that promoting our entry on social media is as important as the performance in the current Eurovision.
“Building the audience starts far before the semi-finals,” she says. She believes in this new era of Eurovision it’s important for the fans to know who the artist is before they take to the stage.
“Think TikTok, think social media strategy. Along with the song and performance, we need to be concentrating on building on the artist’s already established fanbase”
In semi-final two of this year’s competition, host Hannah Waddingham said: “It all begins with a writer and a dream and look what they create for us all”.
It’s that word, ‘create’. We need to show them that Ireland can create an entire package.
Not just write, not just perform – create, with the help of up-and-coming music industry professionals, social media strategies, lighting designers and projectionists. As if we’re writing, producing and marketing a show, within a show.
The divorce papers may be on the table, but we shouldn’t sign them until we attempt a more modern-day approach.
We rule the world in other creative arts with global pop stars and a hat full of Oscar nominations attached to our actors' names.
There is no reason why we can’t return to the top table of Eurovision as well.
