Ireland: Get to know Ryan O’Shaughnessy

Ireland: Get to know Ryan O’Shaughnessy

Ryan O’Shaughnessy is this year’s Irish representative at 63rd Eurovision Song Contest and is one of the country’s most famous singers-songwriters. He was born on September 27, 1992 in Skerries. He became widely famous after he had finished 5th at “Britain’s Got Talent” show in May 2012.

Ryan is the youngest of the three children of his family.  He has another two siblings, Graham and  Apryl. He studied at the DIT (Institute of Technology of Dublin) and conducted a course on music at the Brighton Institute of Modern Music in Dublin, as well. He describes himself as a “flexible singer”. While joining “Billie Barry Stage” when he was 4 years old, he plays the guitar, the piano and the saxophone while he has written songs for many artists.

Ryan took part in the Irish soap “Fair City”  for 9 years (2001-2010) where he played the orphan Mark.

His musical career began in 2012 when he took part in the “Voice of Ireland” with the song “The Power of Love”.

The next step was “Britain’s got talent”, but he entered it somewhat mistakenly.After the battle but before the live performances  of “Voice of Ireland”, O’Shaughnessy auditioned for this contest, performing a self-written  song called “No Name”. The inspiration behind the song was a girl who had a crash on and received three “yes” from the jury.At that time, he had contracted with Universal Records. One week before the live appearances of the “Voice of Ireland”, they called him to “Britain’s Got Talent” where the judges were going to send him to live performances,.But due to his position on live appearances in “The Voice of Ireland” and the contract with Universal, it was ruled out. Later, it was announced that O’Shaughnessy would appear in the semi-final of “Britain’s Got Talent” after he was released from Universal.

He competed in the semi-final  with an original song entitled “First Kiss”. He received the most votes and qualified to the final. In the final, he delivered “No Name” for the second time and won 5th place, with 4.8% of the votes.

On May 19th, 2012, O’Shaughnessy signed with Sony Music. His first single, “No Name”, was released on August 5th, and on August 13th, 2012, a mini-album was released featuring six songs written by O’Shaughnessy himself.

In 2015, O’Shaughnessy released two other singles, and in the beginning of 2016, he released the single “Do not Wait”.

In July 2013, it was announced that O’Shaughnessy would be one of the artists to take part in the new Irish song contest “The Hit” and would compete against his former coach at “The Voice of Ireland”, Brian Kennedy. The show, which aired on August 2nd, 2013, saw six songwriters pitching their songs to both artists. In the initial stage, each artist had to choose two of these six songs. O’Shaughnessy chose a song called “Blush” by Gavin Doyle and “Who Do You Love?” by Mark Graham & Frances Mitchell. O’Shaughnessy chose to release “Who Do You Love?” to enter the chart battle against Kennedy. O’Shaughnessy won the chart battle with the single charting at No.3 in the Irish Singles Chart, beating Kennedy’s song “Try” which mapped at No.15.

On August 30, 2013, O’Shaughnessy, along with the four other chart battle winners, returned to perform their song live in the “O2” for the Grand Finale with the “RTÉ Concert Orchestra”.

Finally, in 2015, O’Shaughnessy founded in Dublin a record label called “Bayview Records”.

This year, after the internal selection made by RTE,the Irish national broadcaster, Ryan O’Shaughnessy was selected to represent his country at ESC with the song “Together”, whivh you can listen to below:

And,read below the lyrics of “Together”:

[Verse 1]
We were drifting like two icebergs out on the ocean
I was doing all I could to keep you close
There were troubles in the water
You swore it was nothing
You said that we would always stay afloat

[Pre-Chorus 1]
Why would true love, look me in the eye and lie, lie?

[Chorus]
I thought we’d be together ’til we die
I’ll forever wonder why
I thought we’d be together ’til we die
I’ll forever wonder why

[Verse 2]
Why have you been coming home so late in the evening?
Is there someone else that I should know about?
‘Cause there’s a smile on your face that I haven’t seen
Since we started going out

[Pre-Chorus 2]
How could true love, look me in the eye and lie, lie?

[Chorus]
I thought we’d be together ’til we die
I’ll forever wonder why
I thought we’d be together ’til we die
I’ll forever wonder why
I’ll forever wonder why

[Bridge]
We said “Until death do us part”
And then you chose to break my heart
Remember right back to the start
When we said we’d be together ’til we die
I’ll forever wonder why
I thought we’d be together ’til we die
I’ll forever wonder why

[Outro]
You said we’d be together ’til we die
I’ll forever wonder why
I thought we’d be together ’til we die
I’ll forever wonder why
I’ll forever wonder why

Fotis Kourouvanis

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