McHugh's Miscellany - Charm of Eurovision now just “All Kinds of Everything”

I would like to tell you that I was glued to the television on Tuesday night watching Ireland’s latest attempt to get to the finals night of the 2023 Eurovision Song contest in Liverpool with Wild Youth. 

It was the eight time that we have failed to get past the semi final stage in the last ten attempts. 

The family stretched out on the sofa luxuriating in the cacophony and chaos of what was once, along with the Grand National, an indispensable part of the yearly diet and drama of terrestrial TV viewing. 

It was a single night event, oft times augmented by who would vote for who, the parochial nod or not to neighbours! and a European Union that you could rattle off its membership in a single breath.   

Then again, you tend to get a bit more selective, when you get older, if not plain wiser. 

Last year, a young singer, Brooke Scullion (pictured above) from our neighbouring county of Derry represented us, so that piqued my interest more than anything. 

She missed the final cut as well, but it did get her a spot on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ where she was more successful, as a joint runner up on the dance floor. 

I was a big Eurovision fan once and even attended the event in Dublin as a pressman the year after Ballyshannon’s Charlie McGettigan won it with Paul Harrington with a song - ‘‘Rock n’ Roll kids’. 

I remember as far back as Dana and her All Kinds of Everything, as the reel was played repeatedly and constantly for years after her victory in 1970.  

A young Dana back in 1970 

Little did we know that she would become an MEP (as Dana Rosemary Scanlan) and run for President. 

On her first day in the Euro parliament she said she met an outgoing MEP Nana Mouskouri, herself a one time Eurovision contestant, who also took a turn in politics.  

Apparently, the first successful Irish contest tune was written by a couple of compositors in a newspaper who had aspirations to follow in the footsteps of Phil Coulter, an early messianic composer of Eurovision favourites from the lips of the likes of Cliff Richard and Lulu.  

While many think that the Derry man actually wrote “All Kinds of Everything”, he didn’t, but is credited with giving it the lyrical intro, that proved a winner with tv audiences of the time. 

And we later had the legend of Johnny Logan, but that story is for ‘another year’; Linda Martin, Niamh Kavanagh, Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan, and Eimear Quinn.  

The Rock n' Roll kids themselves Charlie McGettigan, a native of Ballyshannon and Paul Harrington, who won the contest for Ireland in 1994 

Former winners have also included Celine Dion (singing for Switzerland in French and winning at Mill Street in Cork)  and of course, Abba, which alone, probably exonerates Eurovision pasts of all sins. 

And who can forget our own glorious Mickey Joe Harte who represented Donegal in the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest with, ‘We’ve got the World’ in Riga, where he finished a very respectable 11th place and made it a number one hit in Ireland. 

But as the contest grew to bring in countries like Australia, in fact a whole continent, its melodic meanderings began to see me lose interest, a bit like the ever continual expansion of the EU itself. 

Our lowest point could reasonably be argued as being when ‘Dustin the Turkey’ was allowed to fly the tricolour. 

Thankfully I can neither remember the year or the entry and there was Jedward, again I am sure it was a great effort, but I cannot recall a single note of the song. 

Johnny Logan has won the Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland on two occasions 

These days the contest has little now to do with songs themselves and the theatre and drama of the performance has almost surpassed the catchy tunes on offer.  In my opinion!

Maybe, I will have a sneaky look in on final night on Saturday, if only to remind myself of growing in an Ireland, where the watching of the Eurovision was almost a religious rite of passage for all Donegal teenagers who actually shared the musical extravaganza in the company of their parents - if only for one night a year!!