IRELAND 2025

The Irish act and song was selected on February 7th. The national final took place during a "Eurosong" special of The Late, Late Show.  The winner was chosen by adding equally weighted scores of public voting, an international jury and an Irish jury. Going to Basel is Emmy with the song "Laika Party".

Emmy Kristiansen is Norwegian and comes from the village of Sande which is south of Oslo. As a child, she sang in a choir called Soul Children. In 2015 she took part in the NRK show Melodi Grand Prix Junior and got all the way to the final. Six years later she entered into Melodi Grand Prix 2021 with the song "Witch Woods" which qualified for the final. She was also a co-writer of the MGP 2024 song "Woman Show" and Citi Zēni's national final song "Ramttai in 2025. Outside of singing, she is very active on TikTok and studies visual communication at the University of Southeast Norway.

Emmy is joined on stage by two female dancers and her brother on keyboard. Emmy confidently joins in with the dancing although the choreography is not exhaustive and the dancers do not take over the show. The costumes are predominantly silver but with blues and pinks in the background. The backdrop also flips between projecting the lyrics, space visuals, an animation of Laika and dancing astronauts. The structure of the song is verse - pre chorus - chorus with a vocalised bridge after each chorus. This runs through twice with an extended outro. The tune is very simple and this twinned with Emmy's very distinctive vocal tone, makes the song incredibly memorable. The lyrics are a little twee, and some of the rhymes are shoe-horned in, but I think this is about the feel of the song rather that its lyrical quality. The use of a historical non-human heroine possibly irons out any problematic issues people may have about known figures (although the only issue I can see is that Laika was Soviet/Russian).

As ever with the Late Late Show, the staging and technical capacity of the studio was basic and these parameters hampered or curtailed the 6 performances. "Laika Party" has appeal, especially with younger viewers. I see this song being used a lot on social media and becoming meme worthy. Also, Emmy really wants to be at Eurovision and will have support in the fan community as well as family support on stage. Now that the semis are 100% televote, this is almost definitely going through - not because it is an amazing song - because it is the kind of stereotypical catchy/funny/earwormy song people vote for. Although the presentation was safe and predictable, it was a tight and proficient 3 minutes. So, with more space, potentially more dancers and scope for more visual trickery this could scale up. On the negative side, many may see this as being a thin and gimmicky song and categorised as a 'joke entry'. This might end up being a big winner in terms of publicity and viral value but I don't think this will be troubling the top of the scoreboard in May.

ARTIST - Emmy

SONG - Laika Party

WRITING/PRODUCTION CREDITS - T Marius Aarra , E Guttulsrud Kristiansen, E K Guttulsrud Kristiansen, H Østlund, L Tormey

IRELAND 2024

 The Irish act and song was revealed on January 26th during a special Eurosong edition of "The Late Late Show". The scoring of a national jury, an international jury and nationwide televote (all with equal weighting) were converted into points and added together to produce a winner. The Irish song for Malmö is "Doomsday Blue" sung by Bambie Thug.

Cuntry Ray Robinson, AKA Bambie Thug, was born in County Cork in 1994. They initially showed promise as a ballet dancer and moved to London for a scholarship. However they sustained an injury causing them to change the focus for their studies to Musical Theatre. They have been releasing music since 2021 under the moniker of Bambie Thug with many of their first releases on the themes feminism, queerness and witchcraft. They created the term "ouija-pop" to describe their music; encompassing goth sensibilities, electro instrumentation and lyrical hexes. Bambie also mentioned in a previous interview that they were friends with last year's successful Serbian act, Luke Black.

Bambie is on stage with two dancers dressed in black catsuits with symbols written down the sides. These dancers also have protruding ears and elongated fingers like the Frank character in Donnie Darko. Bambie is wearing a gothic strapless dress with netting and frills, a white painted face and two different coloured eyes. The look is strange but not unfamiliar. The background screen fluctuates between gothic lettering, scribbled sigils, moody forests and fairytale castles. The song is composed of three main parts, each with its own feel and make up. The verses are chanted/rapped over a macro beat backing track. The bridge is more electro and juddering in the instrumentation whereas Bambie's vocal is repetitive, demanding and high pitched which increases the urgency. Finally the chorus is very melodic, shows off Bambie's rather distinctive singing tone as well as adding a touch of flair with the Spanish guitar earworm. The song ends with some cathartic shouting and metal-esque low growls.

This set up for the Irish NF has never been the best - although this edition had had a slight glow up - but the stage show of the winning act could easily be moved straight to Malmö. I would hope, however, that the choreography is made even bigger with double the amount of dancers on stage. I was quite impressed how Bambie took control of the performance with the lighting and camera angles. Personally this was not my pre-contest favourite however the live performance - as low tech as it is compared to other NFs - absolutely usurped the recorded version. I was impressed that the vocal was so doable live and the visual was well considered. This is not everybody's cup of tea - but it will bring people to the contest, and hopefully vote in the contest, who normally would not. This package will get people talking and watching and this will never be a bad thing. I don't actually think it matters if this qualifies or not. The fact is the Irish choices over the past few years, nay decades, have been safe and almost rooted in past glories. This is in-your-face, confident and shows a side of modern Irish culture and society Europe has never seen before.

ARTIST - Bambie Thug
SONG - Doomsday Blues
WRITING/PRODUCTION CREDITS - Olivia Cassy Brooking, Sam Matlock, Cuntry Ray Robinson,  Tylr Rydr

x

IRELAND 2023

The Irish final "The Late Late Show Eurosong Special" was held on February 3rd at the RTE TV Studios in Dublin, hosted by Ryan Tubridy. The scoring was made up by a mix of an international, national and public televoting all with a 1/3 weighting. The winning act was the band Wild Youth with "We Are One"

The four-piece band are Callum McAdam, Conor O'Donohoe, Ed Porter and David Whelan. They were formed in 2016 and come from Dublin. Their debut hit came out in 2017 and this led to slots supporting Zara Larsson, Lewis Capaldi and Niall Horan on the Irish legs of their tours. Members of the band have also written and recorded songs for The Script and Moncrief. Their break out song "Can't move on" which was released in 2018 and got to number 56 in the Irish charts and their following releases - and EP called "Last Goodbyes" was a top 5 hit.

The band is dotted around the small stage, the a member each on keyboards, drums, guitar and vocalist David, front and centre. Although most of the band is dressed casually, David is dressed in a rather spangly black jumpsuit. Blurred animated figures can be seen on the backdrop as well as strobing yellow patters with lyrics from the song. Words from the lyrics are interspersed on the backdrop with shots of dancers in shadow and close ups of the artists. The song has a very simple verse-pre chorus-chorus structure which is repeated twice with the song ending with a slightly modified extra chorus. Although they were accompanied by two live female backing singers, there was A LOT a backing vocals on the track.

Overall, this song is an anthemic radio friendly song with nods to U2 or Coldplay with a modern stadium pop/rock feel.Unfortunately this performance fell slightly flat because there were not in that setting plus the studio did not lend itself to such interactions. It felt like they were giving a lot but not really getting much reaction back from the audience during the track. At least at Eurovision there will be that opportunity to showcase this song in a place more fitting and with a crowd that may well appreciate them better. I can imagine the lights strobing and the flags wafting in time to the song. It's very memorable and does feel like a song fitting of Eurovision-the occasion, Eurovision-the contest and Eurovision-the community.

However, we are at a time in the contest where we no longer want to see the 'normal' kind of act or song we at sour local hall or hear on the radio. People are now looking for something more local, more cultural, more unusual. This said, the song has appeal and a really positive message. The sounds is very familiar and it's nice to see Ireland trying something a little bit more contemporary for a change. You never know, in a sea of odd-ness and niche genres this song may stand out. Although the song won the Irish jury and televote portions of the vote, the international jury preferred Connolly's song - a fact that might not bode well in a 100% European televote to get into the final. Wild Youth have been mooted as the next big Irish group for a few years and this could be the break they've been after. If they want to qualify they are going to need to work on stage presence,their appeal down the camera and to absolutely nail every single note.

ARTIST - Wild Youth

SONG - We Are One

WRITING/PRODUCTION CREDITS - Jacob Bitove, Jörgen Elofsson, Conor O’Donohoe, Edward Porter

IRELAND 2022

The Irish Final was held on February 4th at the RTE TV Studios in Dublin during The Late Late Show, hosted by Ryan Tubridy. The winner was chosen by mix of televoting, professional jury and international with each part weighted equally. Going to Turin is Brooke with the song "That's Rich"

Brooke is from Derry, Northern Ireland, and studied Drama at Ulster University. Before her appearance on the Late Late Eurosong show, she had performed as support for Nathan Carter, been an extra in Game of Throne and Derry Girls but was also a contestant on The Voice UK in 2020. During that series she chose Meghan Trainor as her coach and eventually came 3rd in the competition. Most of her Instagram and TikTok videos are of her doing contemporary covers - pop with an r'n'b tint - but her Eurovision song is rather more in your face Gaga-ish dance pop.

The song begins with a infectious bassline which grab your attention straight away and relentlessly keeps the whole thing chugging along. The song has a pretty steady "verse into pre-chorus into chorus" setup which gets repeated twice. The chorus has the title repeated at the start of each line and gets in your head almost immediately. Just shy of the 2 minute mark the song takes a bit of a swerve with a spoken word/rap part which Brooke does in a OTT Valley Girl accent which then leads number of chorus repeats with a few slight tweaks to the tune.

Firstly I am going to address some of the visual aspects of the show and this entry. Yes, the staging limitations were many and the audio standard was not up to par. Although I appreciate the effort RTE have gone into making a national final, blowing any of these songs up to a Eurovision stage performance would require a lot of imagination. Brooke's show is youthful and has the right amount of attitude to come across well and not like a spoilt brat! I would love for her and her two dancers to take a leaf out of KaYra's book and do more together like they do in verse two. The outfits definitely need to go as it looks like the three of them have just got out of bed. That all said and done this was definitely the most individual and stand out song and performance on the night and will definitely get a lot of traction online. One a bigger staging this could looks small and lost so will need to think very carefully about the camera angles and any use of backdrop/props. Her voice can get a bit garbled, especially when she does the squeaky bits but hopefully she can rehearse this to keep the energy but keep it legible. I think she will be a great personality during the pre-party and media circles but will this song come across as characterful and youthful or will people think this is a bit cringey and rude? I feel like the whole thing has a lot of promise but the whole package needs rethinking. I suggest they had better start now.

ARTIST - Brooke

SONG - That's Rich

WRITING/PRODUCTION CREDITS - Brooke Scullion, Izzy Warner, Karl Zine

IRELAND 2021

The Irish song was revealed on February 26h, via its premier play on the radio channel 2FM and then its first performance on The Late Late Show later that evening. Back in December RTE revealed that their 2020 representative, Lesley Roy, had been selected again for 2021. Her song is called "Maps" 

Lesley's video is all filmed outside. Through different parts of the song she is running through forests and scrubland and singing in clearings. There are plenty of action shots but also lots of views, especially from the air. Being the Irish countryside, it's not all bright cloudless skies, sunlit shadows and long shots of the horizon - this is much more gritty. Although the colour palette is muted, it still shows a charm and strength which kind of goes arm in arm with the heart of the song. It ends with Lesley looking out onto a windswept beach. 

This song follows a much more conventional song structure compared to some of the songs I have already reviewed this Eurovision. There is a short string led intro which sets up up for the really full backing track about to hit us. We have a verse/prechorus/chorus repeated twice which takes us easily to just before the 2 minute mark. The verses have a steady beat accentuated by the odd sprinkling of strings, as the prechorus comes in the galloping drum beat gathers pace and volume and song starts to fill out. During the chorus the backing track feels like a wall of noise and accentuates the optimistic and positive outlook of the song. At the end of the song we have a bridge which helps lower the pace, change the rhythm before one last chorus.

Lesley has been in the business since 2008 when she released her solo album "Unbeautiful" with some success in America. However from here she changed tack and focused more on song writing for other artists, including a song on Adam Lambert's "Trespassing" album. Lesley's song for Eurovision 2020 had many fans, having had a Katy Perry-esque vibe to it. After the contest was cancelled she kept up her online profile with the Eurovision community and many were relieved to see that she had been reselected again.

I am pleased to see that Lesley has gone in a slightly different direction from last year and this song seems a lot more emotional and positive in a kinder but unconventional way. "Story of my life" was not one of my personal favourites and so the bar was low in order to better it this time round. The galloping drum beats during the chorus is a really simple and effective way to make the song stand out as well as giving it a real primal urge. I also hope that the sights of Ireland from the video are used somehow in the backdrop as it ties in really well with the song. Obviously we have not seen her sing the song live yet - and her first public performance of her 2020 did not go very well - but I think she will be less nervous this time around and she will know that a lot of people around the world are supporting her this time round.

ARTIST - Lesley Roy
SONG - Maps
WRITING CREDITS - Emelie Eriksson, Lukas Hällgren, Lesley Roy, Philip Strand

24/02/12 IRELAND

The Irish Final was held on February 24th at the RTE TV Studios in Dublin, hosted by Ryan Tubridy. The winner was based on a split 50-50 percentage of a jury and televoting. The unanimous winner was the act who represented Ireland last year, Jedward with their new song “Waterline”.

It was a very typical Jedward performance with lots of armography and points as well as a lot of jumping about and cart wheeling. The stage was not that big yet they were able to use all of it well. They were dressed in song very strange black and gold outfits which reminded me of a Michelin man dressed as a wasp. Being used to the huge Eurovision stage, they will be able to come up with something even bigger and bolder for May.

Unlike “Lipstick” one could say that “Waterline” is an actual song. A song with a tune, lack of tedious ‘oh-oh’earworm, no lyricy gimmicks. They *do* have to sing. Yes, they were backed by two male and two female singers but you could audibly hear the two brothers singing live. This, twinned with the fact that they were running around like made men made for quite a performance.

This is definitely one of the better songs from this year’s selections. I feel I would be safe to say that with their ‘previous Eurovision pedigree’ and huge personality Jedward are almost guaranteed a spot in the final.

Right now, I’d say this is possible the first song I could see winning.

SONG  -  Waterline

ARTIST – Jedward

COMPOSERS – Nick Jarl, Sharon Vaughn

LANGUAGE – English

UPDATE 3

Although most of the songs have been presented, songs are re-written, re-produced and changes made and finalised. Aslo offical video clips are madepublic. Here is around up of some news over the past few days.

HUNGARY – As reported a few days so, the Hungarian song “What about my dreams?” has finally been released with a very professional looking video clip. The song is mostly in English, but the second verse is in the original Hngarian




BELGIUM – Witloof Bay have finally released their video for their entry “With love, baby” The style of the video really suits the song but this type of visual with be almost impossible to recreate on the ESC stage.




SPAIN – Lucia Perez has been very busy over the past 2 weeks making her music video which was filmed during the carnival at Sitges. The song has been slowed very slightly and sounds much more folky than before with more instruments used rather than electronics. I think is needsto be speeded back up again slighty.




IRELAND – the video clip for “Lipstick” has been released. Not sure whether they are at the Eiffel tower or Blackpool tower XD I hope that Jedward are working hard on their choreography for the Semi-final and don’t do their Michael Jackson impressions half way through !




BELARUS – as expected the entry “I am Belarusian” has been replaced due to the fact it had been performed before the EBU opening date. A new song and video imaginatively titled “I love Belarus” has been recorded and filmed over the past few days. The song will be presented on March 14th.

IRELAND

The Irish final took place on 11th February as a special Eurosong edition of “The Late, Late, Show” hosted by Ryan Tubridy. This year, RTE have tried to curb the recent run of poor performances of Ireland by introducing a new selection format with a slight x-factor twist. RTE have elected 5 mentors, all with music and entertainment experiences, whose job was to select an act, a song as well as getting them ready for the pre-selection performance.

The panel is presented – Marty Whelan, Cheryl Baker, Brian Kennedy and Marie Farrell.

Act 1 is mentored by Ronan Hardiman
Don Mescall – Talking With Jennifer
Don sings the song backed by a five piece male and female band, all singing live vocals. He is strutting about on the stage and stomping about a lot. The piano riff in the middle is quite catchy in the middle. The song sounds much better than the recorded version although the chorus is not quite clear enough. This would work very well on the radio and could be a hit.
A very favourable review from all the panel.

Act 2 is mentored by Caroline Downey Desmond
Jedward – Lipstick
The twins are dressed in red suits and huge quiffs and backed by two male and two female singers in black. It is quite clear they are not doing all the singing. The backing singers are doing some of the ends of the verses. It is very heavily choreographed but they do some very bad free styling during the verses. These guys are enjoying themselves but Europe will not get it.
The panel think that the song and performance is ‘joyous’, ‘energetic’ and ‘funny’

Act 3 is mentored by Willie Kavanagh
Bling – Shine On
They stand boy-girl-girl-boy behind microphones stands. The motown-esque start is really unusual. The start is far to choreographed and looks quite forced and contrived. As soon as they lose the stands and interact with each other it feels much more real. The group is really tight and the harmonies are very well sung. They seem really pleased with how it went.
The jury seem to agree that this worked much better live than on CD.

Act 4 is mentored by Liam Lawton
The Vard Sisters – Send Me An Angel
The three sisters are in Greek style white dresses with a pianist and 2 backing singers all in black. The song is well sung and is very clear. The theme and style of the song seems a little dated, although cleverly it does have a whiff of lots of other different songs and melodies i.e. “You raise me up” and Ellie Goulding’s version of “Your song”
The jury seem torn as to whether this is a Eurovision song or if it is contemporary enough.

Act 5 is mentored by David Hayes
Nikki Kavanagh – Falling
Nikki is joined by 2 male dancers, 2 male and 1 female backing singer. Her voice is very good and sounds very much like the recorded version. She walks around her mic stand with confidence and the movement does not affect her voice. The backing singers add a little something to the song. This is very contemporary and cold be played on the radio.
The jury does not like the dancers or the staging but say she has the best voice.

While the vote is taking place Tubridy talks to 2 former Irish hosts Cynthia Ní Mhurchu and Mary Kennedy.
Then they show a complication of ‘mistakes’ of Eurovision
The voting lines are shut and while the collate the votes, Bucks Fizz perform “Making your mind up”

The jury votes are added up first
Don Mescall 44
Jedward 62
Bling 32
The Vard Sisters 36
Nikki Kavanagh 66


The viewer points are added on
Don Mescall 48
Jedward 98
Bling 44
The Vard Sisters 54
Nikki Kavanagh 96


This means that Jedward with “Lipstick will be representing Ireland in Dusseldorf.


SINGER – Jedward
SONG – Lipstick
MUSIC – Lars Jensen And Martin Larson
WORDS – Dan Priddy