Shane Hegarty's encyclopaedia of modern Ireland.
Can't we just pretend we don't care about the Eurovision Song Contest? Even for a year? Maybe find some other distraction that is less likely to see us humiliating ourselves in front of the entire continent?
It used to matter, back in the days when Ireland was desperate and demoralised. When victory offered some exhilarating affirmation. When it meant that Europe would, for one night of our wretched lives, pay our little, insignificant island some attention. They were good times, but we need to stop trying to re-create them, to stop acting like a former boy soprano whose voice broke years ago but who keeps trying to sing Pie Jesu anyway.
It's obvious that in recent years a nation hasn't been able to win a Eurovision without throwing on stage a supermodel who has first been doused in fake tan, dipped in glitter and ravaged by a dinosaur. And they have each performed a pounding disco song while dancing with all the verve of someone being flung about aboard a roller coaster. Each year we have noted this. And each year we've ignored it. Some day, we argue, the ballad will come back into fashion. And we'll still be there when the rest of Europe gets back. In exactly the same spot that they left us at all those years ago. And they'll be just in time to hear us hit the key change.
Each year the selection process inevitably results in some sort of controversy. The song is accused of being a rip-off, or it was written by the judge's mother, or it is being performed by singers whose previous stage experience comprises solely of belting out Achy Breaky Heart from the back of a truck at their annual tractor festival.
It might revitalise things if we could have what a couple of other countries have had in recent years: some sort of Eurovision nervous breakdown. Such as the way Finland has this year sent out a death-metal act. Maybe we could send some sort of death-trad group. Or actually pick the first band to take to the back of a truck at a randomly selected tractor festival. Or send a dog that can say "sausages".
It's a wild hope, though. Because the contest is still something we spend too much time worrying about and too much money voting in. We seem intent on holding on to the event as an annual outing for our national self-confidence. Every song is a cry for help.