She was unveiled as Ireland’s singer for Eurovision 2019 on Friday. And on Sunday, Sarah McTernan hit the Dancing With The Stars dancefloor for the first live performance of her song for Tel Aviv, “22”.
Wearing a dazzling pink bodycon sequinned dress, Sarah joined the in-house dance troupe for a 1950s-inspired stage show. Replete with jukebox motifs and a mini-diner, McTernan stood centre stage while the professional dancers whizzed around her.
Her performance formed the centrepiece of a Eurovision-themed special. But rather than being the star of show she became overshadowed by what came before her. Johnny Logan opened proceedings with a note-perfect rendition of “Hold Me Know”, Niamh Kavannagh looked on from the audience, while local celebrities danced to classics such as “Euphoria”, “Rise Like A Phoenix” and “All Kinds Of Everything”.
At moments the blonde songstress looked lost amid the melee, possibly due to nerves. She delivered an adequate vocal, but failed to live up to the studio cut or past performances on The Voice.
Watch: Sarah McTernan “22” live on Dancing With The Stars Ireland.
The performance starts at 4.20. The clip may be blocked to viewers watching from outside Ireland.
A bootleg copy has also been uploaded to YouTube.
Responses on Twitter were mixed.
Not a bad song at all !!! Like it
— Ms V marie (@veragearon) March 10, 2019
The vocals were a serve!! pic.twitter.com/Qz8cvdivKc
— ????David???? (@France_For_Life) March 10, 2019
Don't think that's gonna win sorry ???????????
— Elainehanly (@Elainehanly2) March 10, 2019
@Sarah_McTernan sang love her @Eurovision song ?? on DWTS tonight #BornReady Goodluck to her in May ??? pic.twitter.com/jU7j80QmSp
— DWTSIrelandFans (@Dwtsireireland) March 10, 2019
Ireland’s entry for #eurovision is ridiculous. Send #Dustin back pls, 22… points is about all we’ll get. #DWTSIRL
— Barry O’Donovan (@BOD80) March 10, 2019
Sarah McTernan’s Eurovision 2019 staging
Fans of “22” need not panic just yet. In a series of interviews on Friday, Sarah and Irish Head of Delegation Michael Kealy dropped some hints about the planned staging for Tel Aviv.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio One, the pair revealed that she will most likely be alone on stage with no dancers. Later, on RTE 2FM, Sarah confirmed that she planned to take inspiration from Ryan O’Shaughnessy and Molly Sterling. Both brought relatively simple stage shows to Eurovision.
Cliona Hagan for Eurovision 2020?
While Sarah is preparing to jet off to film her Eurovision postcard tomorrow, there is another Irish singer with an eye to participating in a future contest. Country music starlet Cliona Hagan is one of the favourites to win the Irish take on Strictly Come Dancing.
After she danced a charleston to Sandie Shaw’s “Puppet On A String”, host and Eurovision 2016 singer Nicky Byrne asked if she would ever represent Ireland. Cliona answered in the affirmative, saying that she would love to do it.
What do you think of Sarah’s performance? Are you excited to see “22” in May? And should Ireland send Cliona Hagan next year? Let us know in the comments.
Chief, this ain’t it
Youtube link? This is a good feel song and she looks pretty but lacks of experience. I hope they prepare a nice staging for her.
Not bad at all! If she gets her number 22 part right she’ll be perfect! The song leaves on such a good note that I think the viewer won’t forget the song! Looking forward to Eurovision this year.
Poor girl. Bad performance and absolutely terrible song.
Terrible song.
Boring song from Southern Ireland
Southern Ireland? What country is this?
Unless county Cork is sending it’s own Eurovision entry these days.
Southern Ireland is a country that does not exist. This was sent by the Republic of Ireland who has possession of the most Northern part of the island (Inishowen Peninsula in county Donegal). Please get your geography in order. This a particularly sore point of issue in Ireland as it feels UK people who just call us Southern Ireland are denying us our own sovereignity
So nobody will post anything about Albania’s revamp? You haven’t posted for Albania since january :\
the link to the rté player doesn’t work
Do you live in Ireland? If not it won’t work in many countries.
she looks like Khloe Khardashian
Unless there are some external factors (e.g. a ban by China), this will have an uphill battle.
Ah, nice. Would you choreograph a lesbian romance this time to prop it up? 😉
Or just show off some tattoos?
This song is underrated. I think Ireland has a real shot at qualifying again
I love this song. It’s currently my #7.
If this song was sent by a country like Norway or Denmark, people would go crazy about it.
ppl aren’t going crazy over denmark’s song wyd
No one’s saying anything about Denmark’s song here you dimwit.
Not this one I’m afraid – it just doesn’t go anywhere. But it’s not bad by any stretch of the imagination.
The song is nice, similar to 2018.
I am not sure if she needs to have a simple staging though. She doesn’t look very confident on stage and she would need something that grabs your attention on stage as the song is cute but not memorable and it will be overshadowed by other entries.
Ireland should have tried their luck with a more experienced singer. I don’t get why it is so difficult for them to find one.
They don’t want to do it. That’s the thing.
Una Healy, Imelda May, Gavin James, Hozier, Kodaline, Niall Horan would smash the ESC stage.
To be fair, this is the first time she’s sang the song in front of anyone.
She’s gonna do it a lot more times between now and May, so she has the time for improvement.
I still don’t know how I feel about “22”.
The performance wasn’t bad at all. She was a tad awkward in her movements but this was her very first performance of it anywhere. I wouldn’t read too much in criticism of her, people are almost determined to find fault with everything.
Indeed Ron. What matters is the eurovision performance. I think she could surprise. Its a lovely song, but i’d like to see a very sweet performance of her in esc. Come on Ireland!
Her styling was great here. The pink dress and pink background worked well…..there’s no reason she can’t improve leaps and bounds in the next two months.
Agreed!
Sorry Ireland will not make the final this year ..
She is not a seasoned performer like Ryan was last year and has just been given a song and had no artistic input ..
Just not good enough RTE . Kept people waiting for this sub par entry ..
She’s in the toughest semifinal. Ireland stands no chance.
Want to put 25 euro on it ?
You’ll lose – listen to the story in the song and then decide – how many naff songs on Eurovision have a story ? Nil
If the song sounds like an album filler of an amateur singer the message does nothing.
This was absolutely terrible. The song is flat, bland and dull as it is and this performance is the icing on the cake.
Don’t expect Ireland to qualify this year, maybe 18th place with 22 points in the semi-final (the song is called “22” after all)
It wasn’t great but you can’t really judge her in this setting. The pro dancers were distracting. Still plenty of time to work on it and build her confidence for May but it is a nice song
I didn’t see it but I’ve heard bad things about the performance, so I am not at all confident about Sarah’s chances in May if that’s true. Really, “22” is not a bad song but it’s inauthentic. It’s obvious that this song was handed to Sarah. Jurors and viewers alike can sense inauthenticity from a mile away. Also, when esteemed foreign songwriters send songs to other countries, they’re not sending their best songs. They’re mostly sending B-sides that won’t stand a chance at Eurovision. Why does Malta struggle every year? They import ready-made, manufactured & soulless B-sides from Sweden. The… Read more »
The issue everyone is forgetting is Israel hosting, there was already rumours that the song writing camp, the nucleus, were going to boycott the contest this year, even if they didn’t RTE still aren’t going to receive the best they have to offer.