When Ireland dominated Eurovision: the best and most memorable Irish acts

He was honored at the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest: Johnny Logan, the man who sang two winning songs for Ireland and helped compose a third that made it to number 2 in the competition.

He came back to the Eurovision stage in Malmö, Sweden, to sing a cover of Loreen's 'Euphoria,' the song that got his Swedish colleague the first of two victories. The hosts called Logan 'Eurovision royalty', and rightly so.

Image: Sarah Louise Bennett / EBU

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Before Loreen won the Song Contest in 2023, Ireland was the record holder of most Eurovision victories. Now, both Ireland and Sweden lead the participating countries with seven wins in the contest's history. After them, the UK, Luxembourg, France, and the Netherlands are tied in third with five wins each.

Ireland first entered the competition in 1965, and its entry 'Walking the Streets in the Rain' could only finish sixth in the rankings, despite being a powerful ballad that was sung by the charming Butch Moore.

In 1970, however, Ireland got its first win on the board. Before becoming a politician, Dana was a softly-spoken singer, and her song 'All Kinds of Everything' was Ireland's first Eurovision winner.

At the tender age of 18, and in front of an audience of two hundred million, she beat the likes of Julio Iglesias to the top spot.

Dana's music career after Eurovision was eclectic. In the 1970s, the singer with real name Rosemary Brown had both hits and misses. In the 1980s, she recorded a song for the Northern Irish football team before the 1982 World Cup.

She also starred on the West End and tried to crack the Christian music market in America. As a politician, she was a Member of the European Parliament for five years. She lost her seat in 2004.

In Ireland, Johnny Logan is a legend, and he is perhaps the country's most iconic Eurovision winner, as evidenced by his appearance in TV adverts for McDonald's.

He's a record holder along with the Swedish Loreen. Both have two wins to their names. For Logan, his first came in 1980 with 'What's Another Year?'

His first Eurovision win did not launch his pop singing career. Despite these setbacks, he wrote Ireland's winning entry for the 1987 Eurovision Song Contest, 'Hold Me Now'. With this second victory, he was finally able to kickstart his career in pop music. 'Hold Me Now' is the unofficial anthem of Dublin's Bohemians FC, and Logan is still a big name in Scandinavia.

He has threaded the boards in a couple of successful rock operas, with 'Excalibur' being the most famous of the two. He also penned Ireland's Eurovision entry in 1984. Linda Martin sang 'Terminal 3', and it finished a respectable second.

Ireland rediscovered its confidence in the 1990s. Another symbol of a newly proud Ireland was Riverdance, which debuted to rapturous acclaim at the interval of the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest, which was hosted in Dublin.

Ireland won Eurovision four times (three consecutively) in this decade, which also meant that, as winners, Ireland hosted it four times as well.

Irish dominance of the competition entered popular culture, and the hit comedy 'Fr. Ted' even joked that the country would deliberately lose the Eurovision Song Contest because it was becoming too expensive to host.

In 1992, Linda Martin asked 'Why Me?' and won the Eurovision Song Contest. Written by Johnny Logan, the song was a massive hit around Europe.

At the interval of the 2013 Eurovision show, host Petra Mede controversially joked that Linda Martin was actually Johnny Logan in drag. The Irish media were not pleased, but Martin subsequently said that she benefitted from the publicity.

In her later years, she became the host of numerous talent shows (including 'You're a Star' - photo) and she acted in musicals and pantomimes. Martin famously fell out with longtime friend Twink, another Irish celebrity, while touring 'Menopause the Musical'.

Niamh Kavanagh brought the house down in Cork, where the 1993 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest was being held. Many Irish fans of the competition consider her to be the best vocalist in the history of the competition.

'In Your Eyes' won on the night in a nail-biting finish. She was neck-and-neck with the UK entry for most of the voting. The song subsequently went double platinum.

Her reappearance in 2010 for that year's Eurovision was a mixed bag. She was enthusiastically supported by the public and media alike, and she made it all the way to the final. However, she ultimately finished third last.

The trilogy was completed in 1994 when Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan sang 'Rock 'N' Roll Kids' and won the top prize.

As can be seen from this picture of the duo performing on RTÉ's The Late Late Show, age has not dimmed their love of singing. Arguably, Paul Harrington is the more famous of the two, and he made a name for himself in Dublin's notorious Lillie's Bordello, where he sang for the likes of the Rolling Stones in the VIP room.

In 1996, Eimear Quinn ensured that Ireland won the contest four times in five years. No other country has ever matched this feat. Her song 'The Voice' is Celtic balladry at its finest.

She has also performed for Queen Elizabeth II, who visited Ireland on a historic visit in 2011. In 2014, she performed for President Michael D. Higgins at the Royal Albert Hall, and in 2019, she sang for Pope Francis.

The last twenty years have not been kind to Ireland's Eurovision hopefuls. A rotating cast of minor Irish celebrities and unknowns have repeatedly given it their best, but the results have been mediocre. Nevertheless, Ireland has only missed appearing in Eurovision on two occasions, which is a decent record.

In 2008, in a grim acceptance of inevitable failure, the country sent a puppet - a turkey called Dustin, famous from kid's TV - to the semi-finals. Ironically singing 'Douze Pointe', Dustin failed to qualify for the final. When he was announced as Ireland's entry on live Irish TV, off the back of a public vote, there were audible gasps and boos from the studio audience.

Every Irish person is familiar with the bouncing enthusiasm and coiffured hair of Jedward, the twins who first made their name on X-Factor. Easy to mock - in fact, Johnny Logan has criticised them publicly - their 2011 Eurovision entry finished a creditable eighth.

The resulting single charted well in Ireland and across Asia, where it appeared in a Hyundai advert. Since then, they have performed for Barack Obama and starred in pantomimes.

In 2024, Eurovision saw an Irish participant with high potential. Bambie Thug, a nonbinary artist with a genre of their own - Ouija pop - displayed a layered and visually exciting story of witchcraft and love. The song was 'Doomsday Blues' and will undoubtedly inspire new contestants in years to come.

Image: Alma Bengtsson / EBU

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