Louis Walsh has spoken about Ireland at Eurovision,saying how he may get involved in the country’s selection process again.
When speaking to the Irish newspaper Sunday World, Louis who has managed a number of artists including two Eurovision winners Johnny Logan and Linda Martin said:
“If I got the right song and the right artist I’d definitely get involved. It’s getting both that is the key. I still love music. I still watch the charts, I still read up on everything. I watch all the TV music shows. I watched Harry Styles on the BBC the other night. I follow everything. I’m like Elton John who loves the game. He loves the music and there’s nothing he doesn’t know about it.
Louis adds:
“England hadn’t done well in recent years, but they sent a great song and a great singer to the Eurovision this year and they nearly won, and that’s what (Ireland) have to do,”
Speaking on how Ireland could turn things around at the contest, Louis adds:
“I think Ireland has to forget about the past and just get a great song. We need a great song and a great singer, and the performance is key. It wasn’t cool for a lot of people to do Eurovision in the past, but I think the Italian group, Måneskin, changed all that after they won. They’re now a hugely successful worldwide act thanks to Eurovision.
“So the power is there if you’ve got the right song and the right artist. We cannot be sending amateurs. RTE has a new head of entertainment and music called Alan Tyler and I know that he’s got plans for it. Both him and Michael Kealy [executive producer] are bound to come up with something great. They are already talking about it.
Speaking about the Irish music scene, Louis adds:
“We have great bands and artists in Ireland today. It’s fantastic to see home grown groups such as Kodaline and Picture This selling out big gigs. Picture This I admire greatly. I think they’re great writers. I like Steven [Garrigan] from Kodaline a lot. I think his songs are brilliant and I want him to write songs for my new band. He’s very understated and very underrated.”
The last time Louis worked on sending a song to Eurovision was back in 2017, when Brendan Murray performed ‘Dying to try’, co-composed by fellow Eurovision alumni James Newman, however the song failed to qualify, finishing in 13th place in the 2nd Semi Final.
Despite still being the country that’s won Eurovision the most amount of times, Ireland has struggled at the contest recently, only qualifying once since 2013.
You can see the country’s entry this year with Brooke’s ‘That’s Rich’ below:
How do you think Ireland could turn things around at Eurovision? Let us know in the comments section below!
