They’re the country who made their Junior Eurovision debut in 2015 and have brought the Irish language to the song contest. The Irish broadcaster TG4 has now confirmed that Ireland will not participate in the upcoming Junior Eurovision 2020, citing travel issues relating to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In January — before the Covid-19 pandemic had taken hold — TG4 had tentatively confirmed their participation in Junior Eurovision 2020. But now they’ve had to reverse that decision. The broadcaster confirmed the news to Eurovision news site Eurovoix.
It’s important to note that Ireland’s Junior Eurovision entry is organised by the Irish-language broadcaster TG4, whereas Ireland’s Eurovision Song Contest entry is organised by general broadcaster RTÉ.
The Irish government currently advises Irish citizens to avoid non-essential travel outside Ireland. However, while there is nothing stopping an Irish delegation travelling to Junior Eurovision 2020 in Poland, the delegation would need to self-isolate for 14 days upon returning to Ireland.
The Irish government has also recently delayed moving to Phase 4 of its Covid recovery, which would have seen some easing of social restrictions.
The government has also confirmed that the restriction will remain on indoor events having no more than 50 people. This effectively rules out Ireland holding its Junior Eurovision national final — and therefore missing out on several hours of Irish-language television. Internally selecting an act would mean TG4 misses out on its core role of television that promotes the Irish language.
A year of pandemic withdrawals
Ireland joins regular Junior Eurovision competing countries North Macedonia, Wales and Australia who have also confirmed that they won’t be part of the contest in 2020.
Earlier in July, Welsh broadcaster S4C tweeted that “Due to the present circumstances, unfortunately we will not be taking part in this year’s contest.”
Soon after, Australian broadcaster SBS confirmed to wiwibloggs that they also would not be heading to Poland in November. A spokesperson said “Due to the current restrictions and the ongoing uncertainty around this situation, Australia will not be competing in the Junior Eurovision Contest 2020. We have informed the EBU of our decision.”
Then last week, North Macedonia’s MRT confirmed they also would be sitting out 2020, “due to the current COVID-19 pandemic”.
It is important to note that these four countries have only confirmed their non-participation at Junior Eurovision 2020, not total withdrawal from all future editions of the contest.
Ireland’s withdrawal leaves 12 countries that have provisionally confirmed their intention to participate in the contest. This includes Germany, who will be making their debut. Fans are still waiting on the 2019 participants Albania, Armenia, Italy and Portugal to confirm their participation for 2020.
With four countries having withdrawn from Junior Eurovision 2020 due to Covid-19 concerns, the question remains whether countries will have to make the same decision regarding their participation in Eurovision 2021.
Junior Eurovision 2020 is due to take place on 29 November. It will be held in Warsaw, Poland, hosted at a large television studio.
What do you think? Are you sad to see Ireland withdrawing from JESC 2020? Will we see any more debuts in this year’s contest? Tell us your thoughts below!
Not surprised.
Our “new” government which took office at the height of this pandemic is suffering from anxiety or PTSD or something. Zero clarity on anything.
Our “Green List” for safe travel without quarantine on return is made up of countries with no airports/direct transportation from Ireland. Actual safe European countries like Iceland, Germany etc have been excluded. It’s farcical.
Hopefully we can still participate in ESC21 and return to JESC next year.
Surely safety should be decided by Covid numbers, not the convenience of the airports?
But some of the countries on our list you need to go to a non-green list country to get to them. Doesn’t make sense. Monaco doesn’t have an airport, gotta go to Nice in France. Greenland has no direct flight from Ireland, gotta go to Denmark or Iceland (neither are on the list).
I mentioned Iceland because they where among the first to get control of the pandemic in their country and in turn open to visitors.
Unrelated, but is anyone going to say anything about the passing of Agathonas Iakovidis? Really a shame. “Alcohol is Free” is one of my favorite Greek entries, probably their last really great one.
I didn’t even know until you just said it. Rest in peace, Agathonas. (I will have to disagree tho I think Better Love was absolutely immaculate)
Better Love was great in the studio and great in the semi. For some reason – don’t ask me what, it didn’t fundamentally change all that much – it just completely fell flat in the final. You can see that in the jury scores, and for once I totally get how the same juries that gave it 12 points before didn’t even give it a vote in the final. Alcohol is Free was a blast all the way through. Catchy, energetic, and very very Greek.
San Marino comfortably outpaced it in the televote in both the semi and the final. I felt very vindicated.
Rajko Dujmic passed away recently as well. “Rock Me” might not be the best winning entry of all time, but it’s still sad to lose such an accomplished Eurovision composer and performer.
I heard that too. I agree – I don’t think it’s as bad as its reputation lets on. It at least deserved a top-5 finish. I’m not a huge fan of any of his Eurovision compositions, I’m afraid (I think Dzuli, the song that got the ball rolling for Yugoslavia’s propensity towards ’60s-style pop songs, was better than any of the late ’80s entries), but they’re all undeniably catchy and showed Yugoslavia finally got how to find the happy medium between their local sound and a sound that was more accessible for Western Europeans.
WHAT, NO!!! I felt like more countries will withdraw this year and comeback next year 🙁
So I guess this year’s JESC, there’s going to be 12 countries unless Italy, Armenia, Portugal, and Albania made their decision that they’ve confirmed their participation and maybe we might see Azerbaijan and United Kingdom returning to the competition 🙂
Portugal have said there “highly likely” to go, Albania is probably gone, not sure about Italy and Armenia
Hopefully, as a British person the UK can come back
Politicians and our chief medical officers in Australia are now saying that international travel from and to Australia – bar expats returning to Australia will not happen until mid 2021 that means possibly that Australia may not be at Eurovision 2021 and Montaigne may not participate as Eurovision is in May and they are talking June or July if we are lucky but some predictions are even later than that like 2024 depending on what’s happening with other countries and how covid is affecting them.
No, it’s a nonsense. I mean, it’s not as if Australia has been the centre of coronavirus infections.
as an Australian myself your point has some merit but literally NOBODY is saying 2024 for christ’s sake
Even if there is no miracle vaccine found (there will be) but IF…..life will return to normal by 2024. Without a doubt.
Either a vaccine/treatment is found, or enough people get the virus that the spread just slows to a controllable level or else governments just say “to hell with it, we tried, use your own judgement now” and opens everything up again.
This will be long over by 2024.
Picturing JESC 2020 in my head with what you said and now I’m even more concerned than ever.
It ‘s sad but I understand the reason why. I hope to see Ireland, North Macedonia, Wales and Australia back in 2021. It won’t surprised me if Junior 2020 also be cancelled, but I hope not…..
We don’t know how the world will look like in May 2021, but it will be rather ironic if they’ll be forced to host with a very limited audience who needs to keep a distance, since some (Bakker, for example) argued in favor of the 2020 cancellation because, apparently, Eurovision is not worth it without the usual audience and atmosphere. I disagree. Although, from today’s perspective, the 2020 cancellation seems to have been rather inevitable to me, too. But certainly not because of the limited audience thing.
So weird to see countries preparing actively their national selections as for The Netherlands, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, and to see at the same time some countries withdrawing……. It feel so strange to see so much disparities as we all live on the same continent ….
It feels bizarre too to see Germany debuting with joy and fervor and in front of that some countries leaving with resignation.
Something doesn’t work for me, it’s so contradictory.
Why is everyone talking about Armenia Italy and Portugal to save the day when Albania haven’t confirmed anything either ?
Efi from 2018 said they won’t participate this year..
Hey Erasmus. Efi followed up that statement and clarified that that was just her own personal opinion, due to the rising covid-19 cases globally and, therefore, not an official withdrawal. We await the decision on participation from the Albanian broadcaster.
Here to stay: Armenia, Italy, Portugal
Please let me know when you find out the second these countries confirm participation.
* Armenia
* Italy
* Portugal
As Padraig said, this seems to be more about the staging of the national final and the channel’s remit than simply not wanting to travel for the actual contest. This is a shame as, for me, Ireland really GOT IT last year and I was really looking forward to see how they would go about measuring up to Banshee.
Damn. That’s upsetting. Was hoping Ireland might pull off a top 5 after the masterpiece that was Banshee, although the online vote paid it dust
At this rate, we’ll be darn lucky if we even get a show this year. 🙁
It’s up to these countries to move the world. In other words, save the day.
* Armenia
* Italy
* Portugal
* United Kingdom, but this time with BBC
You’re a bit of a broken record
I think that the final nail in the coffin for Ireland’s JESC participation was the government’s announcement regarding indoor event limits staying at 50 people – it’s hardly a coincidence that this announcement came just hours after the government speech. It’s around now that TG4 normally holds auditions and pre-records the national selection heats – activities which obviously aren’t possible to arrange in the present circumstances. The multi-week process and the several hours of Irish-language programming which ensue would be too important to just go for an internal selection. An internal selection, appealing as that would seem, doesn’t fit well… Read more »
How come not having Ireland singing in Irish at the contest is better in terms of promoting Irish than internally selecting the act?
I don’t understand their logic
TG4’s remit is to promote the Irish language in Ireland, not in Europe.
National selection equals over five hours of Irish-language programming.
Internal selection equals three minutes.
To go for an internal selection especially cause it’s a “special” year wouldn’t prevent them to promote the irish language, on the contrary.
To not go to the contest it won’t help the international promotion of the irish language.
I understand the issues about the covid, but we are only at the beginning of August so why countries don’t wait a little more to see how the situation will be in october for example, it will be again possible to withdraw at this time I think ……
TG4’s remit is to promote the Irish language in Ireland, not in Europe.
So national selection equals over five hours of Irish-language programming.
Internal selection equals three minutes.
Ok thank you I didn’t get it. But it’s better to do maybe just a little promotion of the irish language than nothing at all,
TG4:s original plan was to film the national selection back in March. I wish they would have done it a bit earlier when the covid wasn’t around yet – that way they might have still taken part. Now they postponed filming it and it eventually never happened.
because internal selections are horrible, dull
With Online voting , Poland will ALWAYS win. 2 years in a row and soon 3. if they dont take away online voting, poland will kill jesc this year. As everyone knows, polish ONLY vote for polish. they dont care about other songs. I have heard so many polish saying: we only vote for ourselfes.ALWAYS.
2017 begs to differ.
The online voting crashed during the final back then and the result was a mess.
The voting system is gonna be changed! Another country will win. Sparkle and magic recommended. All songs will memorable. Great voices required. Plus, it’s up to the following countries to save Junior Eurovision.
* Armenia
* Italy
* Portugal
The voting system’s gonna change any minute. Don’t count on a third Polish victory. Instead, pray for another big country to win, such as France, Germany, Italy, or Spain.
In 2017 Poland didn’t win the online voting. Then it was the Netherlands that won it and in the following years, they did good with online voting as wel. Since I believe they ended up 6th and 4th.
It’s not just Poland voting for Poland. It’s the Netherlands voting for the Netherlands as wel and I think pretty much any country voting for themselves. There for it comes to the biggest audience and the having the best song you you get the second and third vote.
I’m irish, and this Is hardly a shock for us. The government here is being extremely cautious, (rightly so) so it would make sense for them to publicly withdraw. They’d probably receive backlash for joining a music competition when they’ve been so cautious on home soil. We’ll be back next year! ??
Dearie me. That rules out my prediction of getting 15 or 16 countries.
Could still be fifteen if nobody else pulls out.
Oh, I was already going on the possibility that Albania might pull out too.
I’ll honestly be happy if there’s more than 12 or 13
What?! This came out of nowhere… They had just confirmed their participation in Junior Eurovision 2020 earlier this year 🙁 This was really unexpected, now we have the participants down to 12.
This is also sad, because Ireland was AMAZING last year and deserved so much better than 12th place. I guess we will have to see who gets 12th this year after all.
I don’t know if it came out of nowhere, exactly. Ireland had confirmed provisionally back in January, and nobody had an inkling of an idea of what was to come in the next few months.
Oh, yeah you’re right. Had to check when they confirmed their participation and it was indeed in January (14th to be precise). And yes, at that time Covid-19 wasn’t a big concern. Ugh, you hate to see it though, I hope we can get the contest after all with atleast a maximum of 14-15 participants or so.
Also, I should’ve read the article first before commenting 😉
We’ve all been there.
The following countries are here to stay:
* Armenia
* Italy
* Portugal
yes Ireland loves junior eurovision, but they can’t participate in a year with dangerous Covid-19 pandemic
Yes, I completely understand that. The health and well-being of people comes before entertainment. Hope to see Ireland again in 2021!
Truth be told, after Wales pulled out, I kind of saw this coming. Here’s hoping we’ll still have a nice number for the year!
And I can’t wait to see them back next year!
I’ve been watching Junior Eurovision on the G4 iPlayer because it’s playable in the US–with Ireland out, would they not broadcast the contest? What other players are playable in the US from the countries currently participating?
I think you will always have the official JESC YouTube Channel. Plus, all the broadcasters still competing which are available in your country. Some aren’t geoblocked for the occasion.
And if they are, VPNs always work if you can use them.
I don’t think the official JESC channel plays official videos of the live performances in America because of geoblocking. I’ll have to test each participating country’s iplayer and find one that is playable in America.
I feel like they might not, for the same reason as Wales: the purpose of their channel is to promote the Irish language (which is why all their entries are in Irish), so to broadcast it without an Irish-language entry wouldn’t fit in with their programming unless they did a commentary in Irish, which I doubt they’d find necessary when most Irish people would understand what’s going on in English. (Same reason TG4 doesn’t bother doing an Irish-language commentary for Eurovision itself: pretty much every Irish viewer would either watch the livestream, RTE, or depending on where they are, the… Read more »