IT ALMOST BECAME an embarrassment at one stage…
Ireland claimed the Eurovision crown for three years in a row back in the 1990s – sealing our title as the most successful country ever at the contest.
But ever since Eimear Quinn’s triumph in Oslo twenty years ago this week, our fortunes have taken quite the dip.
A quick look at the stats underscores our song contest decline.
We won an astounding seven times between 1970 and 1996.
The following year, we came second.
But since then our performance has been patchy to say the least: the occasional top ten finish (thanks again Eamonn Toal, Brian Kennedy, the two Jedwards) – but couldn’t even fight our way out of the semi-finals on six separate occasions between 2005 and this year.
So how do we explain our national shame? It can’t all be down to the fact that nobody in authority has taken heed of the #draftlogan Twitter campaign (sadly, not a real campaign).
It’s all about the rules
No doubt you’ll have heard talk of the Eastern Europeans having it ‘all sewn up’. Or the rule changes not doing us any favours. But they’re just excuses, right?
Not so, says Eurovision expert and Irish jury co-ordinator Paul G Sheridan.
There are several factors at play influencing why Ireland isn’t winning anymore, says Sheridan. And when you put them all together, it means a win in the near future is, if not impossible, then pretty unlikely.
The voting system began to change the year after we last triumphed, Sheridan explains. Ireland entered its ‘wilderness years’ just as the contest was transitioning from jury voting to full tele-polls.
“What happened is that the year after we last won it in Oslo they introduced televoting for five countries.”
After that experiment, in 1998 they decided to go fully-fledged. So with the televote and the loss of influence of members of the jury, it just goes to show that the members of the public thought differently to the panel of ‘experts’ if you like.
Balance of power
The change benefited countries in Eastern Europe most – Latvia, Estonia and Ukraine all won during the first few years of tele-voting.
Sheridan says the size of the population in Eastern countries, combined with the fact that many of those nations had a high volume of emigrants across the continent in those years, meant the balance of power swung away from the west.
The voting system was altered again in 2009 as national juries were brought back (they now account for 50% of the total vote).
We’ve had seven contests since then, and while power may have swung back to the west slightly, the title still hasn’t gone to any country this side of Norway since the UK claimed it, the year after our last triumph (tele-voting was still only in its infancy that year, remember).
The language barrier
Another factor that has to be taken into account, Sheridan points out, is that the contest’s language policy played to our favour during all of our Eurovision ‘golden years’.
The rules have fluctuated over the contest’s 61-year history – but we had all of our wins in years when artists were only allowed sing in one of their country’s official languages.
Just a handful of nations were allowed sing in the international language of pop music, in other words. The likes of, say, Denmark had to get by with their national tongue – naturally, their entries would have been difficult for the broader population of Europe to understand.
“Yes, we were one of the very few countries that could sing in English alongside the UK and Malta,” says Sheridan.
Of course we lost that privilege since they abolished the language rule in late 1998 - so by 1999 more and more countries were singing in English.
That meant a boost in appeal for other entries – from Scandinavia right across to the Balkans.
The change also coincided with the beginning of the Irish decline.
Ireland nul points
All that being said, we’ve also picked some questionable entries in the last two decades. Our increasingly erratic quest for glory arguably reaching a nadir in 2008 when Dustin – literally a turkey – was chosen to do the honours.
While there was plenty of criticism of the decision at the time (it was a public vote, so we’ve only ourselves to blame) others simply shook their heads, muttering into their soup about conspiracy theories and insisting the powers-that-be were simply trying to make sure we didn’t have to take on the expense of hosting the damn thing.
Nicky Byrne’s failure to make it out of the weeknight heat on Thursday means Ireland won’t have anyone in the showpiece final for the third time in a row.
As a great man once said, what’s another year?
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