During the last week, while we had restricted press access , we at Eurovision Ireland have been taking a look back at some of the memorable moments of Eurovision over the years.

There is no doubt that Eurovision over the years has often given us lots of rather entertaining moments, apart from the singing ! Ranging from the funny, to weird, to dramatic and sometimes serious .Who could, for example, forget the four country win back in 1969 , or host Lill Lindfors , losing her skirt at the contest in Gothenburg in 1985? We at Eurovision Ireland decided it would be fun to look back at some of those entertaining moments , so each day during the run up to Basel 2025, we will be refreshing those memories by looking at one of those special moments .

Today’s Memory

As we are “Eurovision Ireland”, we felt we couldn’t not include something Irish in our Eurovision memories. So today, we are going to focus on something that no other country has yet achieved in all of Eurovision’s history. While there have been back to back wins , where a country wins the contest twice in a row, Ireland have achieved not only that but won the contest three consecutive years! It all started back in Malmö in the 1992 contest when Linda Martin sang the country to victory with her power ballad, “Why me?”.

When Ireland hosted the contest in Mill Street , County Cork, the following year, Niamh Kavanagh was selected by National final selection , to represent the host nation. There were probably few who would have bet on her winning the contest . Niamh was finding it difficult to find a record label willing to release the record because of the association with Eurovision .She had to part fund the recording herself and release it in Ireland under a made up label “Eureyes Music “.She then met Simon Cowell, who got her signed up to Arista records and the song was released nationally. Somewhat ironic is that Simon was also working with Sonia, the UK entrant, who came a very close second to Niamh. In 1993, we didn’t have televoting and the contest outcome was decided by international juries . Niamh took victory for Ireland with 187 points. This meant that Ireland took first option to host again the following year. Niamh represented Ireland again in Oslo 2010 with “It’s for you”. She managed to make the Grand Final, but didn’t reach as dizzy heights as in 1993, only coming in at 23rd place .

Niamh’s victory in Mill Street cause some headaches for the Irish National Broadcaster RTE , who were faced with having to fund a second hosting only a year later .In 1994, the contest was hosted in the Irish capital city , Dublin. Paul Harrington and Charlie McgGettigan represented the host nation with their gentle ballad “Rock n Roll kids”, a song reflecting on past memories. It was said that the Irish media at the time thought that the song had been selected to reduce Ireland’s chances of winning again and therefore having to host again. However, if that were the case, they didn’t reckon on the International juries thinking otherwise .Ireland won the contest convincingly, with the audience getting really excited through the voting at the prospect of a third Irish win. I’m not so sure the chiefs at RTE were thinking the same . A second win was hard enough but a third win was enough to bring on more than just one headache at the prospect of having to host he contest again three years running ! To their credit , Ireland did host again in Dublin , when Norway finally managed to break the Irish monopoly, winning with a song with very few words and also still having an Irish element to it , as the violinist in the group Secret Garden, Fionulla Sherry was Irish .

Despite Norway breaking the deadlock, Ireland returned to form in Oslo the following year and won the contest with Eimear Quinn and her song, The Voice.This gave Ireland a record 7th win at Eurovision and this has only recently been equalled by Sweden, when they won the contest in Liverpool in 2023 with Loreen and Tattoo. Should Sweden, the current betting poll leaders win on Saturday in Basel, they will pass theirs and Ireland’s 7 victories.

What do you think? Do you remember these moments? What is your favourite memory of Eurovision ?Let us know by lea ving a comment in our comments box and you can find us on our FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM, BLUESKY and X feeds.

You can see our previous memories HERE HERE HERE HERE HERE HERE HERE HERE

Keep a look out for more of our favourite memories each day here at Eurovision Ireland !

Author: Sarah Rudman

Source : Eurovision Ireland, Wikipedia, James Scanlan.

Visual Source You Tube.