Irish Eurovision 1980 Winning Composer Shay Healy says that Ryan Dolan has no chance of winning Eurovision this year
Eurovision Winning composer (1980) and Eurosong Mentor (2013) shay Healy – has come out and said to the Irish Press that Ryan Dolan has no chance of wining Eurovision this year. In an interview with The Independent he said “We may have gotten rid of Jedward, but Ireland still has no chance at this year’s Eurovision”.
(YouTube Video Courtesy of fritz51317)
Shay Healy wrote Johnny Logan’s first Eurovision winner in 1980 “What’s Another Year”. Healy said that Dolan’s “quite a good singer, but unfortunately with the genre he’s in, he’s going to be saturated with similar people”. He went on to say that this year we are still “Gimmicky” and are lost in the telephone vote era. “I think we or the contest, will never re-establish itself like the way it was” and has no plans of tuning into the show on the night.
Shay mentored an act in this year’s Eurosong Irish National Final – “Son Kez/The Last Time” by the Irish/Turkish band Inchequin. It does feel strange that Shay should question the tele-vote element to the contest as he had said that with his Act Inchequin that Ireland could benefit from the large European Turkish diaspora vote! Either tele-voting is good or not?
(YouTube Video Courtesy of Inchequin)
People said that with tele-voting that none of the Big 5 countries would ever win Eurovision again. Well Germany winning in 2010 proved that to be wrong where a good crafted and current song will win an audience over. We for one think that Ryan Dolan’s song is not “Gimmicky” and has a strong chance of success at Eurovision and furthermore Jedward have to be commended for bringing Ireland back to the Top 10 at Eurovision and for introducing a new following of Eurovision fans to the contest here in Ireland – something which we were lacking.
(YouTube Video Courtesy of RTE)
Ireland will be represented by Ryan Dolan at Eurovision 2013 with the song “Only Love Survives”
Author/Website Co-Founder and Editor in Chief Garrett Mulhall
(Source Independent.ie and Photograph courtesy of seniortimes.ie)
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it would be a shame if this was just a little sour grapes on shay’s part….The contest has changed dramatically since we were to the fore .I would agree that Jedward have introduced a new era of Irish Eurovision fans and I think Ryan will continue that trend.maybe its me but I will be VERY dissapointed if we are not in the top 10 this year…..Gimmicky we are not…..Good we are !!
it would be a shame if this was just a little sour grapes on shay’s part….The contest has changed dramatically since we were to the fore .I would agree that Jedward have introduced a new era of Irish Eurovision fans and I think Ryan will continue that trend.maybe its me but I will be VERY dissapointed if we are not in the top 10 this year…..Gimmicky we are not…..Good we are !!
Shay Healy was thinking of Ireland’s best interest.
Do you think Fulya that he could have expressed his concerns better? After all it is good to support your National team on an International platform – like we would in Sport etc
Shay is living in a different time! Just look at the way the recent eurovision winners have gone into the charts.
Very true indeed. Eurovision demographic is changing radically and Ireland has started to keep up
Shay needs to move with the times. Jedward did an amazing job for Ireland. Complaining about block voting and televoting yet cynically going with a song aiming to appeal to the Turkish diaspora to represent Ireland seems a bit ironic.
Good luck to Ryan he had an uptempo pop song in a year full of mostly dreary ballads! Hopefully he’ll stand out nicely.
Well said Katharine – we agree
I agree totally. Well put.