Talk:Republic of Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest
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[edit] Article Renaming
Could the name of this article be renamed to 'Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest' as the current title of 'Republic of Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest' is inaccurate because not only is the country's name Ireland, but it also implies the Irish entry represents only the 26 counties, when this is not the case, and the Irish entry has been an all-Ireland entry for decades now. --Éire32 13:41, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Regardless of any claims of how much of the island is represented, the name of the country is Ireland and this should be reflected in the title.
"A popular urban myth arising from this is that the national broadcaster RTÉ was in huge financial difficulty as a result of having to host the contest four times in the space of five years (as Ireland also won in 1996 and thus had to host the contest in 1997). This myth is however unconfirmed by anyone including RTE - although now the financial burden to host the Contest is much lower, since the late 1990s, when a decision was taken to secure a very large proportion of the budget directly from EBU revenues (including televoting) and the Big 4. The myth also suggested that Ireland intentionally threw the 1995 entry."
Is it the function of Wikipedia to quote unconfirmed myths? (If so, is there any evidence that such a myth was indeed popular or that it even existed?)
- No, all quotes must be cited. For unsourced quotes, add the following tag : {{fact}} Think outside the box 11:10, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Winners
"Dana started the ball rolling for Ireland when she won the contest in 1970. Just 18 years-old and still at school she beat her more experienced rivals with a song that was soon to become a million-seller."
Can we leave out the cliches and just state facts? How about deleting the reference to a rolling ball? What does "just 18 years-old" mean (and why the hyphen?) ? Was it her birthday the day/week before the contest? If so, is this relevant? If not, why use "just"? As for her "more experience rivals" - what experience did they have? Was the girl who sang for Yugoslavia or Monaco, for example, really more experienced? How is this defined, measured? How is it relevant? She sang the winning song, she was 18, the record sold over a million copies. The facts speak for themselves - no need to hype it up.
"Then came Johnny Logan."
"Then"meaning 10 years later? Why not say "10 years later" or "in 1980"?
"This man was involved THREE times with a winning entry: once as a singer in 1980, then as a singer-songwriter in 1987, and then if that wasn't enough, he wrote the winning song for Linda Martin in 1992."
Why sensationalise? This isn't a tabloid newspaper - it's an encyclopedia. Can we lose the unnecessary capital letters "THREE"? Can we lose the unnecessary hype? ("and then as if that wasn't enough")
"No other artist has done the same thing" Of course not - it would be noteworthy if another artist had "done the same thing"
