Irish band Wild Youth is set to represent Ireland at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.
The decision was made on the Eurosong special of the Late Late Show hosted by Ryan Tubridy where the band – consisting of David Whelan, Ed Porter, Conor O'Donohoe and Callum McAdam - were chosen from six acts, including John Lydon and his band Public Image Ltd.
Speaking about being chosen to fly the flag for Ireland at the 67th Eurovision Song Contest, Wild Youth frontman Conor O'Donohoe described it as a huge honour.
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He said: "We hope everyone gets behind the song and we hope everyone gets behind us.
"We have been around for a while and we wanted to take a risk. Everyone who performed tonight has a great future ahead of them."
The band’s song We Are One will hopefully be a hit in Liverpool at the song contest in May.
They beat off competition from John Lydon and Public Image Ltd, Andrew Carr (also known as ADGY), Jennifer Connolly, Leila Jane, and the duo K Muni & ND, made up of Kofi Appiah and Nevlonne Dampare.
Jennifer Connolly finished second in the overall vote with her song, Midnight Summer Night. Connolly won the international jury votes but Wild Youth won the public vote and national jury vote to claim their spot on the plane to Liverpool.
Speaking about why Wild Youth have put themselves forward to represent Ireland, Conor said: “I’ve always been a big fan of the Eurovision, but covid and having time off gave me a lot of time to think.”
“It just gave me time to think about taking risks and trying different things, and this kind of came up and I thought it would be quite a cool thing for us to do.”
Revealing whether he thinks Wild Youth can emulate the success of 2021’s winners Måneskin, the songwriter said: “I mean it would be very cool for sure.”
“I think right now we’re just focusing on the Eurosong, we’re focusing on – if we get to it – the Eurovision, and just taking it step by step.”
“We’re just going to enjoy the whole experience, touching back on what I said about going through Covid and everything – it’s about being more present in situations and enjoying all the opportunities that this crazy job has been able to give us.”
John Lydon missed out on a chance to represent Ireland after a heavy campaign in the run up to the Late Late Show special.
Lydon was visibly nervous ahead of his performance as the hopefuls gathered in the RTE studio on Thursday ahead of last night’s show.
He said before the show began: “This is something that I watched when I was young with my parents.
“I remember Johnny Logan, I remember Cliff Richard, I remember Sandy Shaw – and now Johnny.
“It’s as good as any other way of listening to music, I don’t have any prejudices about things like that.”
He added that he chose Ireland “because I’m as much Irish as anybody else by blood”.
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