Irish Examiner view: Bring back Dustin the Turkey 

It may be time to adopt an approach which inclines more to performance art, which means only one thing — enlisting Dustin the Turkey once again. Picture: Kobpix

Gone are the great days of Irish participation in Eurovision, perhaps forever. The glorious nights watching Dana or Johnny Logan collect douze points — preferably at the expense of the Royaume-Uni — to win the title seem unlikely to return.

Irish contestants Wild Youth failed to make it into the top 10 of the acts in Tuesday’s first semi-final and were eliminated, removing direct Irish interest in the final.

The necessity of qualifying rounds and semi-finals is clear, as the number of countries in Europe increased enormously when the Iron Curtain fell. 

What doesn’t appear quite as necessary is the decision by the European Broadcasting Union to allow viewers from outside the participating countries to vote — a move to capitalise on Eurovision’s widening global appeal, according to the EBU, but one surely at odds with the idea of a competition based on participants voting.

Perhaps the time has come for Ireland to stop playing by the rules and entering run-of-the-mill songs engineered to fit the Europop profile, and take a more subversive approach. 

It may be time to adopt an approach which inclines more to performance art, which means only one thing — enlisting Dustin the Turkey once again.