To Russia with Love

It’s that time again – the annual song and dance fest that is the Eurovision is upon us.

The last few years haven’t been kind to Ireland and the glory days of the 1990s are but a distant memory. Yes, yes, Eurovision may be camper than Oxegen and glitzier than Kylie’s silver boots, but, come on people, national pride is at stake!
This year Ireland’s hopes rest with four relative unknowns from RTÉ’s You’re a Star – singer Sinead Mulvaney and girl group Black Daisy – performing a song by Irish songwriter Niall Mooney and a pan-European team from Sweden, Denmark and Rome.
HP caught up with Sinead and Black Daisy’s Lesley-Ann before they headed off to Moscow for the all-important semis, and the anticipation was running high.
“We’re really excited,” says Sinead. “Just a few more days of preparation and then we head out.”
Lesley-Ann agrees. “My stomach does this crazy plummet thing, but we’re more excited than nervous.”
This year’s song ‘Et Cetera’ was the favourite with the judges and the voters; and if YouTube viewers are any indication of how the voting will go on the night, then the girls certainly have a shot. Hell, even The Oprah Winfrey Show asked for a copy.
“We’re pretty confident,” says Sinead, but she’s not expecting a shoo-in.
“We were over in Amsterdam doing a promo tour and a few of the acts were really very good – Lithuania and Ukraine for instance. But I think our song is different and it’s four girls.”
“Fingers crossed we’ll do well,” says Lesley-Ann. “If we make it to the finals that’ll be good enough for me, but we’ll do our absolute best and try and do Ireland proud.”
The Eurovision tends to be divisive. The entrants are given plenty of support but a fair amount of brickbats as well. The girls are not letting that bother them.
For Sinead, representing Ireland is a long-held ambition. She nearly got the chance when she made it to the national final in 2005 – that’d be the year we sent the ill-fated Donna and Joe McCaul to Kiev!
“I think a lot of people were brought up watching the Eurovision on the telly and it’s great to be able to represent your country,” she says.
Lesley-Ann feels the same. “I’m from Limerick and the Eurovision is huge down the country and so it’s really big for me.”
Both are sanguine about the opportunity it represents as well – a chance to perform for millions of people.
“Because Ireland didn’t do well in the last few years, a lot of people may have given up on it or maybe it became a joke to some. But regardless, it’s still the biggest song competition in the world and it attracts the biggest audience.”
“You can’t get much better than that,” Sinead concurs.
Although Lesley-Ann fronts Black Daisy she’s happy on this occasion to hand the singing duties over to Sinead.
“The songwriters said to me ‘We’ve already got a girl, Sinead, and we’d love her to sing the song, would that be okay with you?’ And I said, no problem at all. I play the bass on the song and sing backing vocals. Sinead’s the one with all the pressure!”
Fair enough – we’ll be blaming her if it all goes horribly wrong. Talking of which, how do the girls feel about following a turkey?
“I think it was really funny but I don’t think the rest of Europe got the humour of it, unfortunately,” says Lesley-Ann. “Dustin is great, you gotta love Dustin. He’s a hard act to follow!”