Ireland made history at Saturday night's Eurovision Song Contest - for all the wrong reasons. For the first time since entering the competition in 1965, Ireland finished last, receiving only five points from Albania.
The Sligo-based traditional band Dervish, which performed Ireland's entry, They Can't Stop the Spring, offered one of the evening's less focused performances, with vocalist Cathy Jordan failing to meet the camera with her eyes during the song's first verse.
Contest rules require instrumentalists to mime their performances, which did few favours to Dervish's five other members, who came across as slightly uncomfortable onstage.
The winner of the 52nd Eurovision contest, held in Helsinki, was Serbia's Marija Serifovic with the powerful ballad Molitva(Prayer), which scored 268 points, followed in second place by Ukraine's zany cross-dressed sing-along Dancing Lasha Tumbai, which was favourite to win.
There were many firsts associated with Serifovic's win: the first time that Serbia had competed as an independent country (having politically separated from Montenegro last year); the first time since 1956 that a country making its contest debut won; and the first time since 1998 that a winning song was not sung in English.
"I honestly think that a new chapter has opened for Serbia and not only in music. I'm proud," said Serifovic (22) in a post-victory press conference.
Irish Timescolumnist John Waters, the lyricist of They Can't Stop the Spring, said he and his Irish Eurovision colleagues were "gutted" over the result.
"There's nothing that convinced us why we got five points and Serbia got 268. To us that doesn't necessarily reflect the reality of the songs. But there's clearly a deeper message here about what Eurovision means in Europe, east and west."
Julian Vignoles, head of RTÉ's Eurovision delegation, said he was disappointed but remained proud of Ireland's contribution: "Dervish gave it everything. They were better in the competition than they'd been in rehearsals all week, but the voters went with something else."
Vignoles said RTÉ was planning to "look at everything and take stock of opinions" before making any decisions about Ireland's future approach to Eurovision.
Saturday's result has fuelled controversy about the eastern European dominance of Eurovision. All 10 top-scoring countries, who qualify automatically for next year's final, are located east of the Danube, with three from the Balkan region.
This was a similar result to Thursday's semi-final, in which every competing western country was relegated.
The bottom of the final's scoring charts was populated almost exclusively with western countries, with the "Big Four" (the UK, France, Germany and Spain, so named because they pay significantly larger fees for contest participation than any other country) all scoring in 19th place and below.
The UK's entry, Flying the Flag, finished second to last, receiving points only from Malta and Ireland.
While many western commentators have complained of Balkan "bloc voting" in recent years, this is the first year a Balkan country has won the contest since the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. While Serbia was well-supported by its neighbouring countries - all of the other former Yugoslav republics gave it 12 points - it also received high scores from many western and central European countries, including Switzerland, Hungary, Sweden and host country Finland. It remains the case that, while neighbouring voting helps, the winning Eurovision entry needs to receive votes from across the continent.
"I don't buy into the idea of voting pacts," said Waters. "There is clearly a cultural affinity at work in the voting. Where the lie is given to the notion of an [ eastern] conspiracy in the Irish vote - voters in Ireland voted for eastern countries too."
Ireland gave 12 points to Lithuania, 10 points to Latvia and eight points to Ukraine, results that suggest enthusiastic voting by its immigrant communities.
Stocky and mannish in appearance, Serifovic wore a black tuxedo and was supported by five conventionally glamorous female backing singers, also in suits.
She refused to be drawn about whether she was making a statement about gender and sexuality.