The Irish media has been quick to hit out at the result of the 2005 Eurovision Semifinal, which saw Donna and Joseph McCaul fail to win a place in the contest tonight. But the duo's performance of the song Love failed to attract enough interest from Europe's telephone voters.
The head of the Irish delegation, Julian Vignoles, said the McCauls gave a fantastic performance, but he wasn't convinced that Ireland didn't get through because of a voting block.
After the show, the press in Ireland were quick to call for RTE to scrap televised talent show You�re A Star, which is used to select the Irish representatives.
The brother and sister duo were said to be devastated at the semi-final result . The McCauls received positive feedback, but neighbourly voting was blamed for the poor result. Donna McCaul said, “We just can't beat this block voting, we went out there tonight and did our very best. I hope the people in Ireland are proud of us.� Her brother added: “This isn't the end, we intend on pursuing a singing career and I hope that the people in Ireland aren't too disappointed.”
Karl Broderick, the composer of Love? admitted the whole team were “flabbergasted” at the result. “The guys, they nailed the performance, no one can say Donna and Joseph didn't belong on the stage. The general feeling is that we came to do a job and we couldn't have done the job we had to do, or waved the flag for Ireland, any better!”.
Louis Walsh, who was Johnny Logan's former manager, and now looks after Westlife, said Ireland should never have sent amateurs to a professional event. “The standard was very, very high,” he said. “But other countries are sending their biggest stars, with their best songwriters. We sent two amateurs, that is the real, real problem. Two people that don't know the business as well as they should. They did their very, very best, they didn't let us down. But they weren't good enough and the song was not good enough”.
