. . . on retrovision
I’VE STOPPED PROPERLY caring about the Eurovision over the past few years. The nine-year-old me is choking on her fake cigarette sweets reading that sentiment, but sadly it’s true. My Europassion has been extinguished by our recent lack of success. In the past four years we sent two acts that didn’t even qualify for the final and when we did qualify we came last and second last, for the first time in our glorious Eurovision history.
It's not all about the winning, even though we've won the contest more than any other nation. It just feels like a very long time since we fielded consistently solid entries – quality tunes such as Sheeba's Horoscopes, with the classic chorus lines: " Don't let the planets take control of our lives/ believe in the truth and not celestial lies".
Ireland’s golden age of Eurovision is long gone.
In recent years, academics have been given huge grants to dissect the meaning of the Eurovision, but I’ve been doing a bit of analysis free of charge. My research indicates that our Eurofortunes took a turn for the worse during the last years of the boom, perhaps because some of us had completely lost the run of ourselves and stopped focusing on what was really important in life – tacky, pan-European displays of dodgy hairdressing and national oneupmanship.
It all started to go turkey-shaped in 2001, when a chap called Gary O'Shaughnessy sang a ballad called Without Your Love. He got six measly votes. This turn of events meant we weren't allowed to compete in the following year's competition and this provided space for RTÉ to go off, like U2 except on a much smaller budget, and dream it all up again.
A mistake as it turned out.
In 2003 we decided to let the winner of talent show You're A Starbe our representative. Mickey Harte came a respectable 11th, but the following year Chris Doran sang If My World Stopped Turning, and it was a disaster by our national standards. "You're the one who made a winner out of me", he warbled, which would have been a neat lyric if we had actually won but Bryan McFadden's song only got us seven points, from the UK, incidentally, who always look after us in the contest.
Did we take this voting implosion as a message to abandon the tactic of using You're A Starto pick our Eurovision entry? Eh, was Johnny Logan born in Ireland? (That's a trick question for your Eurovision party tonight. And the answer is no, he's Australian-born.) The following year we sent sister and brother act Donna and Joe to bat for us. They sang Love? and Europe replied "hate". We didn't qualify.
In 2006, Brian Kennedy tried his best for us with Every Song Is A Cry For Love, which placed 10th. Then, incredibly, Europe failed to appreciate the post-Cold War lyrical nuances of They Can't Stop The Spring, co-written John Waters of this parish, and for the first time in the contest's history we came Paddy last. In 2008 and 2009 we didn't even qualify for the finals with Dustin and Black Daisy. By the time former winner Niamh Kavanagh stepped back in to rescue us with her impeccable pedigree and a strong ballad, It's For You, Europe had already decided we weren't worth it and gave us only 25 points, 12 of those from the good old UK.
We are where we are and all that, but I can't help looking back to when I was a proper Eurovision fan. Ten years old, gazing in wonder at the collective legginess of Sheeba; aged 11, doing the best impression of Linda Martin singing Terminal 3(the best song that never won the Eurovision) this side of Riga; a teenager in 1985, learning all the words to Brendan Graham's Wait Until the Weekend Comes; then the heady 1990s arrived when we were the musical champions of Europe with Why Me?, In Your Eyes, Rock'n'Roll Kids and The Voice. But it's been an awfully long while since I've watched the contest and felt even a twinge of that old Riverdance pride.
I'll never stop hoping, though. Last year's interval act featured a flashmob from around Europe, a genuinely moving piece of television that touched on all that is brilliant and bonkers about the contest. It fairly melted the icicles of my Eurojaded heart. And now with Lipstickand their "OMG, yes we so can" attitude, Jedward have reignited the fire of my Europassion.
As I write, I don’t even know whether they have qualified for tonight’s final. Perhaps they have sustained a hairspray-related injury that prevented them performing in the semi-finals, or maybe an extreme anti-Jedward faction rigged the voting. But if there is any justice at all on this continent then the brothers Grimes are still in Düsseldorf preparing for one of the greatest moments in their career.
Jedward, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you. No pressure, boys.