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We got the first confirmed Eurovision entry early this time, before even the list of participating countries: “Mon amour” for France. It’s a nice song that blends classic and modern styles, but its score will come down to how well it’s staged.
Also, I’m telling you in advance: the contests from 2004 onwards will get two posts each. One for the semifinals, where I review the non-qualifiers and the presentation of the semifinals, and one for the final.
Introduction
I was originally going to call this post “ireland op plz nerf” before I settled on something less ridiculous. After being the fourth country to win Eurovision twice in a row, Ireland became the first to host twice in a row and put on Eurovision 1994 in Dublin. When the contest ended, Ireland became the only country to win three times in a row and the first to win six times.
Despite the repetition in the contest’s winners, the lineup of countries was way different from last time. This was the first Eurovision to use a relegation system to limit the number of participants: the seven lowest-scoring countries from last year were locked out to make way for newcomers, at least in theory. Cyprus, the seventh lowest-scoring country, got lucky because Italy willfully quit the contest. This means that seven countries didn’t return from 1993 (Belgium, Denmark, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Turkey) and seven joined for the first time (Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia).
The relegation system doesn’t seem fair to me and I’m guessing it’s what drove Italy and Luxembourg away from Eurovision. It also broke Belgium’s perfect attendance, leaving only Switzerland and Germany as having attended every year… for now. The newcomers were a lot more successful than last year; Poland even got second place, by far their best result to date. On the other hand, Lithuania’s first entry got zero points and they didn’t return until 1999.
An interesting fact about one of the hosts: Cynthia Ní Mhurchú originally worked as an Irish language teacher. It shows with how confidently she spoke Irish on stage, and because she looks like a teacher. A sad fact about the other host: Gerry Ryan died in 2010, at only 53 years old, to the shock of his entire country.
The most famous thing part of this contest was actually the interval act. It was a folk dance performance called “Riverdance” and it’s perhaps the best known Eurovision interval act, rivaled only by “Love Love Peace Peace” in 2016. I’m quite excited for it! Oh yeah, I watched the contest with British commentary.
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