Most-decorated contestant

Ireland first entered the Eurovision Song Contest in 1965, the eighth year of the competition, and won it for the first time five years later in 1970. With seven wins in total to-date, Ireland is the most successful nation in Eurovision history. The country has not had a win since 1996, however, and national attitudes toward the competition have soured in the years since.

With so much success during the 1990s, this change of attitude towards the competition is not that surprising. During that decade, Ireland not only set the record for total number of winning songs, but also won the competition three years in a row, the only country ever to do so.

Those wins in 1992, 1993 and 1994, and then again in 1996, meant that Ireland started to expect success. But 1996 proved to be Ireland's climax in the competition.

Martin Baker, a lifelong Eurovision fan and an active member of the Irish Eurovision Fan Club, says the previous triumphs are part of the problem.

"Sometimes I think that the worst thing that ever happened to Ireland was winning it seven times because we got lazy after that, and we acted as if we had a right to win it every year regardless of the quality of the song that we sent," commented Baker.

A few bad choices

In many ways, Eurovision success paralleled the improvement, and anticipated the subsequent decline, in Ireland's economic fortunes. From the time of the country's first entry until the early 90s, Ireland had endured a series of crippling economic and political crises.

The Eurovision song contest was one of the few avenues available to Irish people to see their country represented - and excel - on an international stage. Then, the quality of the entries changed.

Johnny Logan has been involved in three of Ireland's Eurovision victories since 1980, once as the singer, once as the songwriter and once as both. "Growing up, anything that the country voted for to go outside of Ireland carried our pride with it," he told Deutsche Welle.

Logan has not been happy with how Ireland's choice of entries has developed in the years since 1996. According to him the methods that the country has been using to choose these entries have been at least partly to blame for the successive failures.

"They have made a mess of the selection process for years," Logan said, "It was disgraceful what they did and they should hang their heads in shame."

He regrets that text-message voting process used to select candidates and contends the organizers were too focused on "making money on it." Logan named a specific example: "When we sent a puppet."

The puppet

Ireland did actually send a puppet - to the 2008 competition in Belgrade. Dustin the turkey has been a children's TV presenter since 1989 and has unmatchable name recognition in Ireland: When the Irish want to register a protest vote in an election in Ireland, they often write in "Dustin" on the ballot.

But it was the Irish people themselves who sent Dustin to Eurovision, since the "Eurosong" selection contest depended on text-message voting from viewers.

Were they making a joke of Eurovision, or resignedly expressing a belief that the competition already was a joke? Either possibility is feasible, but it's safe to conclude that Ireland wasn't taking the competition that seriously anymore.

Perhaps it was a bit of national sulk on the part of a country that had won so often, but not enjoyed any success since 1996.

A step in the right direction

By 2008 at the latest, it was a commonly held belief in Ireland that Eurovision had become a sham. As a slew of Eastern European countries joined the roster, many tended to exclusively vote for each other. That gave established Eurovision participants the feeling that they no longer had a chance at victory - even though Eastern Europe participants did not dominate the winners table in the 90s and 00s.

This was often held up as an ungracious excuse for lack of success in the competition - and that in a country that had itself once used the competition as a vehicle for national pride in the same way that the "new" Eurovision countries now do.

Ireland may be starting to take the competition a bit more seriously again though - and accepting that a victory isn't predestined.

The selection system has changed and, according to Johnny Logan, "they seem to be getting it better now again, and starting to get back to the way it should be," with a combination of popular voting and a panel of music industry judges. This year's entry, Jedward, is popular in Ireland, though not exactly regarded as serious artists.

"We will win it again," according to fan Martin Baker. "The only thing that Ireland needs to win the contest is a good song." This year might not be that song; but it's possibly a step in the right direction.

Author: Colm Coyne

Editor: Kate Bowen