Another day, another major piece of national selection news. Ireland’s RTÉ has confirmed its selection process for Eurovision 2022.
Six songs will compete for the Irish ticket to Turin during a special broadcast of The Late Late Show in February.
The first two songs are set to be revealed on Monday 17 January during Ryan Tubridy’s morning radio show, with the remaining four songs coming later in the week.
Ireland: First two Eurovision 2022 competitors to be released on Monday
RTÉ confirmed the news on Twitter on Sunday.
The Irish broadcaster wrote: “Ireland’s road to Eurovision 2022 begins tomorrow morning on the Ryan Tubridy Show RTE Radio 1, where songs from two acts bidding to represent Ireland will be played. A further four will be played during the week.”
The Ryan Tubridy show airs on RTÉ Radio 1 from 9:00-10:00 GMT every weekday.
All six songs will then be performed on The Late Late Show on RTÉ One in February, where the Irish public will decide its representative for Eurovision 2022.
The date of the show remains to be confirmed.
?? Get ready! Ireland will reveal its 6 #Eurovision candidates and songs starting Monday. https://t.co/h7RUZGYMU3
— wiwibloggs (@wiwibloggs) January 16, 2022
Ireland returns to The Late Late Show national selection
In September, RTÉ confirmed it would return using the The Late Late Show as its national final for Eurovision following six years of internal selections.
Ireland’s Head of Delegation for Eurovision Michael Kealy said:
“I am very excited by the return of a Eurovision National Final on The Late Late Show and the prospect of giving the public a greater say in selecting our entry for Italy.”
“Every year the Eurovision gets bigger and more competitive than ever and given the enormous exposure and huge financial rewards for the winner I’m hopeful that we will attract a very high calibre of songwriter and performer.”
“This year’s artist Lesley Roy has gained tens of thousands of fans all over Europe on the back of her involvement with Eurovision and her very strong social media presence. She’s currently on an extensive tour of the UK and Ireland.”
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Ireland’s Eurovision fortunes have been mixed over the past decade, using both internal selections and The Late Late Show public selection format.
The Late Late Show helped the likes of Jedward’s “Lipstick” score the Eurovision ticket, leading to an unforgettable performance in Düsseldorf and a top ten finish. However, other national selection winners including Molly Sterling and Can-Linn featuring Kasey Smith failed to qualify for the final.
Ireland’s internal selection choices have also had mixed fortunes. Ryan O’Shaughnessy’s “Together” is the only internally-selected Irish song to qualify for the grand final. Acts including Lesley Roy, Sarah McTernan and Nicky Byrne of Westlife fame all failed to make it out of their respective semi-finals. Could this be the year things change for the Emerald Isle?
What do you think? Are you excited to hear the competing Irish songs? Let us know in the comments down below.
If only Ireland sent a beautiful traditional certic song instead of 2003 pop.
Ffs! Is this the only thing people in Ireland watch?! Or is the broadcaster that out of touch, biased and lazy? I can understand that some countries only send songs so they wouldn’t be forgotten and have no ambition for hosting the show, but if you’re spending any money at all why not just try to reach 15th to 20th position on the scoreboard?
Guys since nobody has already heard the songs don’t be pessimistic like that because no matter how and where takes place a national final, it’s not the way or the place where the song is selected that is judged in May but the song itself, it’s not the Eurovision National final Contest. The average viewer in May doesn’t care if the song has been selected in a late show, in a big national final (with level, with competition or not) or in my grandmother’s garden, if the song at the end is really really good and very well presented on… Read more »
Some interesting rumours this evening. Brendan Murray is back and also Patrick O’Sullivan and Janet Grogan from RTE1’s recent talent show “Last Singer Standing” (Patrick was the overall winner of the programme).
Brendan Murray is an excellent and unique singer and the right song would make him a contender. However, I would be surprised if he returned as he totally blanked Eurovision and separated himself from the contest when he appeared on X Factor.
Janet Grogan is also a fantastic singer who was a backing singer for Nicky Byrne a few years back.
Doesn’t scream progress to me.
Though I’m interested to see who the rumoured Scandinavian act in the running is too.
I guess they’re all a bit similar alright – very much from the ‘talent show’ genre.
Janet Grogan was also one of Ryan O’Shaughnessy’s backing singers in Lisbon (I believe that was her at the piano, but I could be wrong).
No, she was one of the two singers at the back of the stage in fact. She’s a good vocalist anyway and seems comfortable belting out uptempos as well as ballads.
Does that mean we will see Linda Martin have a fight again?
I want her to be the host lol.
Joining my fellow Irishmen and women in saying that I have no hope nor expectations. We’re a joke these days and RTE doesn’t care. The audience for this won’t be Eurovision fans it’ll be people living in the 90s.
Off the topic, but when is allocation draw for semifinals?
25th january
January 25th
Some broadcasters are so organized and others seem to improvise everything all the time. How do you build expectation for a selection if you announce Sunday morning that 2 songs will be released the day after, give no information about when we’ll be getting to know the other 4 or when the actual selection will take place? More important than that: how do you convince serious artists that working with them is the right step on their carreers? Hoping for the best though.
But Sabrina don’t be angry, all is explained here, the 4 remaining songs will be revealed one per day from this Tuesday. I know what you want to mean, but sometimes too much “hype” before a NF or an internal selection is really not the best solution, it creates high hopes, and then high disappointment. Ireland has already experimented that with Leslie saying that she had a song even better than Euphoria or saying that they are going to do something never done on stage etc…, unfortunately the eurofans reactions and the results show that it was totally unproductive so… Read more »
So it’s similar to how Finland is revealing its songs, for UMK.
Exactly, one discovery per day, it’s cool, Norway did the same weekly too the last years, Sweden does it every year weekly, France did it too (but not anymore unfortunately) each day with their snippets of the Destination Eurovision acts. Imo it’s a good way to present the acts it gives to each one the attention they deserve instead of being lost in a bunch of acts when everything and everybody is revealed at the same time, on the other hand this way it’s a good way to see which songs stand out the most if presented with many other… Read more »
only older people watch the late late show… dont have high hopes
Dunno why your downvoted.
It’s true!
The people who RTÉ will be aiming for with the song don’t watch the LLS while most of the LLS viewers would have zero interest in Eurovision also.
that or they’ll say the same old crap like “we need another Linda Martin Niamh Kavanagh, Johnny Logan. I dont wanna hear any ed Sheeran stuff, no pop rock Katy Perry stuff, no Irish frigging dancing background dancers. there are hundreds of independent Irish artist I hear day in day out on RTE 2fm they waffle on about them enough. let some variety on the line up.
I mean, they are premiering songs on the radio…
that’s sad, they won’t increase the interest for the song contest if they promote it on this old-ass TV show that young generation does not watch. I hope they do a campaign on TikTok or something
I’m dreading this. The Late Late Show national final has always been shambolic, I doubt this will be any different. The same Eurovision winners from 30 years ago will be on show!
I really don’t wanna sound mean, but sometimes I forget Ireland participates in ESC. Like for real
Ireland is definitely not the queen of ESC, they made no impact in the last 22 years and their victories in the 90s are forgettable and suspicious.
The biggest question that I have regarding LLS being used again is ….
Who will win the goddam Johnny Jacket?!
Ireland really needs its lucky clover, as it was underappreciated several times in the last decade. Even if semi 1 of 2021 was indeed one of the strongest ever, and even if, admittedly, Lesley’s live wasn’t perfect, she should have qualified as a borderline, or at least finish in a higher position (11th-12th). It’s a really good song. Brendan Murray also should have qualified. Ballads, aside from top 2, in general underperformed in 2017. Not to mention that Molly Sterling had one of my absolute favorites in 2015. Despite being in a strong semi, that should have sailed through with… Read more »
Agree re Molly and Lesley but not Trying To Die
this is so true u completely understand the irish eurofans’ mindset
I really loved Molly Sterling’s performance but I do think Lesley’s was painful to watch.
Honestly have zero interest in whatever nonsense we send.
RTÉ has learned nothing so pretty sure this will be the same old same old.
Mid-tempo pop-rock incoming.
6 songs? Hardly much choice and Late Late Sh!t Show again….oh yeah bring it on.
Depends on the 6 songs, I guess. See what UMK and ESCZ do with 6-7 songs! Just fantastic formats! 🙂 However, if this is going to be 3 runner-ups of former The Voice contest, and 3 used-to-be popular local stars who all bring songs that are ”tailored to win” in 2002, then I guess you might be right. Time will tell. I hope for the best, you guys deserve it!
Pretty sure your examples will be pretty much how our participation will play out this year.
Obviously I hope I’m wrong, but I’m 99% sure that I’m not wrong.
Of course, someone needs to stay in the semi, but really hope it’s not Ireland this time. 🙂 At least what I hope is that the NF songs will be released with official videos (at least lyric videos) in a finished form. There’s little that oozes laziness from the broadcaster as when many of the songs are said to be ”having a potential with a revamp”. The selection is supposed to be the competition on its own, and any potential revamps should be done as an afterthought, if that. So, yeah, I wish that Ireland doesn’t follow Latvia and Romania… Read more »
It sucks Maps ranked last. In studio it sounds great, it was the live performance what killed the song. Too much effort for Lesley.
please put on some traditional Celtic songs or send Eimear Quinn and it will be good!!
I hope the songs will be good because I love this country, its culture and I don’t want to be disappointed by the Emerald Isle again…
I don’t trust people who shortlisted these 6 songs. For Ireland it would be good to have their own Pabandom Is Naujo with 50+ songs.
Pabandom has only 36 songs (34, since two of the were withdrawn).
As an Irish ESC fan, I have to say my expectations are quite low. I remember watching the selections back when Jedward were selected with lipstick and waterline up to Molly Sterling’s Playing with numbers. Those selections weren’t particularly strong but I would hope that the quality of songs in this years selection is better. Fingers crossed ?.
If I’ve learned anything about Ireland in past ten years ( RTE to be specific) its to have low expectations. Expect poorly produced void
I want Ireland to win sooner than Sweden.
Ain’t going to happen.
We are basically handing the crown to Sweden at this point.
The inevitable will happen soon enough I’m sure.
You never know. Ireland knows to stage very well, they just need both right song and right artist. They had a song in 2021, but Lesley could not perform the song very well live. Ireland sent many good songs in previous decade and many times they were very underrated.
I don’t think Sweden is going to win anytime soon. All their latest entries have been bland.
i don’t know about you guys but I can’t keep up with all the national finals. what a time to be alive for an esc fan
I still keep my expectations low
Brooke Scullion from The Voice UK 2020 is one of the rumoured finalists with a song called “That’s Rich”.
Even if the quality of the 6 songs isn’t great, it’s only up from here for Ireland.
After placing last the past 2 years, they simply can’t do worse in Turin.
God, wouldn’t it be awful if they finished last again in the semi finals. Hopefully, Ireland can finisher higher than that, whether they make it to the final or not.
Personally, I think coming last in the SF would ultimately be good for Ireland. I believe it would be the final straw for RTE and the Irish HoD would be replaced. Ireland simply needs a fresh mindset and perspective for Eurovision. Times change, and unfortunately, some HoD’s can’t keep up.
Unfortunately @apollo RTÉ don’t care.
We don’t have a full time HoD, so he’s not going to get a slap on the wrist from the big wigs if we fail (again).
Kealy is involved in any overseas competition for Ireland. I saw he was in Tokyo for the Olympics too as HoD for RTE’s Olympics coverage.
Think he’s just in it for the holidays if I’m honest.
They didn’t place last in 2021. Latvia and Georgia were below them.
Ireland placed last within the first semi final but you’re right, Ireland wasn’t last overall when you rank all the entries together. Still, it’s very embarrassing to finish last in the semi finals twice in a row and it better serve as a wake up call to do better next year (well, this year).
True, but we were dead last in 2019 and last in our semi in 2021.
It’s really not fair to combine both semis’ points, though. An entirely separate group of countries voted in each; we have no real way to know how they’d have received the other half, and things would have ranked up totally differently if they’d all competed directly.
Well they could do a Newman and “score” a double zero. But I think that is very unlikely. And can someone please forewarn me if Jedward are trotted out again?
The British also said that after ESC 2019. But in the end… they did worse.
Finally, the songs for the Irish national final are getting released! So the final will be in February? I would have it would be this weekend or next in January, but I guess they want us to get used to the songs first before they can be voted on. I have low expectations for Ireland, but I hope the songs can be good enough to make the final at least.
Since its part of the late late show, it will be on a Friday night and they’ve already confirmed pretty much that it won’t be this upcoming Friday as they have other guests on.
Harrington, Martin and the usual crew probably need more time to “rehearse” Love Shine A Light and Waterloo.
Oh god I know, I do like them songs but I’m sick of them waffling on about how we won a lot 30 years ago and Johnny Logan walking in like he’s the messiah. What Spain are doing this year is what RTE need to do to show they’re giving variety in songs and not just ridiculous mediocre ballads or pop/rock.
True, you never know, we might get an Azucar Moreno moment in the form of Dickie Rock or Muriel Day.
Azucar Moreno looked old 30 years ago when they stormed off the ESC stage in Zagreb, I don’t even want to think about what they might look like now, no amount of botox and filler could save them.
Exactly!
Honest to god, wait till you hear all about our wins in the 80s and 90s . Like I get it, it was quite the achievement to win that many times but it’s time we tried to focus on doing well now instead of constantly talking about the “good old days”.
last year was embarrassing, bunch of old winners bragging about their winning songs that we have heard a million times over. I swear if Linda Martin steps foot in that studio so help me god….