Ireland: RTE confirms participation in Eurovision 2021

The Irish national broadcaster, RTE, has confirmed that the country will be present in next year’s edition of the Eurovision Song Contest .

RTE has confirmed that it will continue to be part of the Eurovision family in 2021 despite this year’s unprecedent cancellation of the contes due to the coronavirus outbreak. In a post referring to this year’s cancellation on RTE’s official site, the Irish Head of Delegation, Michael Kealy, revealed that RTÉ will continue talking with the EBU ahead of next year’s contest.

Specifically the Irish HoD stated:

RTÉ had been working closely with our writer/performer Lesley Roy and creative directors THISISPOPBABY and we were all very excited about how this years’ entry was shaping up. We’re disappointed for Lesley and the whole creative team behind Story of My Life which we felt was an offering with huge potential representing Ireland.

RTÉ looks forward to continuing to engage with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and our broadcasting colleagues throughout Europe on Eurovision and the competition in 2021.

Ireland remains the country with the most victories in the history of the contest, having taken the trophy home seven times. This year’s the country was supposed to be represented at Eurovosion 2020  by Lesley Roy and her entry “Story of My Life”. However RTE hasn’t revealed its intentions for the Eurovision 2021 representative.

The Irish Eurovision Story so far

Ireland is a country of records when it comes to the Eurovison Song Contest. It participated for the first time in 1965 and has won the competition 7 times, more than any other country. (1970, 1980, 1988, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996).It is the only country that has won the contest three successive years (1992, 1993, 1994) while Dublin is the only city to have hosted the event two consecutive years. (1994,1995).

During the decade of 90’s the country had a row of 4 vicotries in a 5 year time  (1993, 1994, 1995 and 1997) and Dublin became host city three times.Irish act Johnny Logan is the only one to have won the contest twice (1980, 1987).

In 2018 the country selected internally  Ryan O’Shaughnessy to represent the country with his song Together, which finished 16th in the grand final. In 2019 internally selected  Sarah McTernan represented the country with her entry “22” which failed to qualify to the grand final.