RTE, the Irish national broadcaster has confirmed to ESCToday that Ireland will participate at the forthcoming 2017 Eurovision Song Contest in Portugal.

The Irish national broadcaster is yet to determine the mechanism it will use to select its Eurovision entry and act for the upcoming competition.

Will they come up with the winning formula again and bring the nation back to the good old glorious days when Ireland reigned the Eurovision world. RTE is yet to decide if it will go internal or revert back to a national final in order to select the 2018 Irish Eurovision hopeful.

Ireland holds many a record when it comes to our beloved contest: the country has won the competition a total of 7 times (1970, 1980, 1988, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996). The Emerald Isle is the only country to have won the event 3 times in a row (1992, 1993, 1994), whilst Dublin retains the record of being the only city to have hosted the event twice in a row ( 1994, 1995). In fact the 90’s were Ireland’s golden years in Eurovision, the country welcomed the Eurovision bandwagon 4 times in a span of 5 years ( 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1997) with Dublin hosting the event thrice.

Lady luck doesn’t seem to be on their side lately, as the country has failed to qualify to the grand final 4 years in a row ( 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017).

In 2017 Brendan Murray represented Ireland with Dying to try, but failed to qualify to the Grand Final.

The dates and host city of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest in Portugal will be confirmed and announced in due course.