Irish Songwriters snubbed by Eurovision?

The six finalists have just been announced and while there are previous finalists and You're A Star entrants among the songwriting hopefuls, only Niall Mooney's name will ring any bells for the vast majority of Eurovision watchers.

The song contest was open to songwriters from outside of Ireland and a jury chaired by Eurovision winner Linda Martin chose six songs from almost 300 entries received from both home and abroad. Bizarrely, there are two entries written by songwriters in Latvia – something which is bound to raise the ire of Irish songwriters.

"I have no idea where this notion came from, that a specific national competition had to be open to people from anywhere in the world," one industry source said to Hot Press. "A song by an American writer has been chosen. What is that all about? I can see that there might be some notion that you couldn't discriminate in a European context because of labour laws – although that has to be utterly ridiculous too. The whole thing has descended even further into farce."

The six songs selected, which will be performed live on The Late Late Show Eurosong Special 2009 on Friday February 20, are:

“Flying” performed by M.N.A and composed by Ronan McCormack
“Out of Control” performed by Laura-Jayne Hunter and composed by Derry O’Donovan.
“So What” performed by Lee Bradshaw and composed by Billy Larkin and Kevin Breathnach.
“Amazing” performed by Johnny Brady and composed by Tony Adams Rosa.
“I Wish I Could Pretend” performed by Kristina Zaharova and composed by Lauris Reiniks. .
“Et Cetera” performed by Sinead Mulvey & Black Daisy. Composed by Niall Mooney, Jonas Gladnikoff, Daniele Moretti & Christina Schilling.

(For more on the finalists, click here)

The songs will be performed in the order above, as drawn by independent auditor Michael O’Neill of Price Waterhouse Coopers.

The 2009 winner will be decided by 50% regional jury vote and 50% public televote. This mirrors the changes made to the voting procedure for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest Final in Moscow, when national juries will once again have a say in the outcome of the contest, sharing the decision equally with the televote.

The final six songs were chosen by a judging panel chaired by Eurovision winner Linda Martin and included MD, Universal Music Ireland, Mark Crossingham, showbiz agent/choreographer Julian Benson, RTÉ 2FM DJ and Eurovision Commentator, Larry Gogan, and Diarmuid Furlong, who is the head of the Official Eurovision Fan Club of Ireland.

The winner will be announced at the end of The Late Late Show Eurosong Special on Friday February 20.

Two Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals will take place, on Tuesday May 12 and Thursday 14. All countries barring the UK, Spain, Germany, France, and last year’s winner Russia, must compete in one of them in order to win a place at the final, which takes place on Saturday May 16, 2009. Ireland will compete in the second semi-final on Thursday May 14. The semi-final and the final will be televised live on RTÉ Television.