Starting off the week with a surprise, the official Junior Eurovision Song Contest website has announced that Ireland will make their debut at the contest at the end of this year. The exact location of the contest, as said in the article, will be revelead in two days.

The broadcaster in charge of the project won’t be RTE as for the adult version of the contest, but TG4, with the aim of bringing a song in Irish back to the Eurovision stage, after the 1972 entry from Sandie Jones called “Ceol an Ghra”.+

The broadcaster has opened their call for performers nationwide, with the contestants being between 10 and 15. The venues were this auditions will be held will be announced soon, in the meantime, all the artists interested in taking part can start filling out this form.

Last year, Slovenia, Montenegro and Italy debuted at the contest, with Italy winning the competition with “Tu, primo grande amore”, sang by Vincenzo Cantiello