VENUE Green Glens Arena, Millstreet		ENTRIES 25
HOST Fionnuala Sweeney		DEBUTS Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia

Ireland looked beyond Dublin and came up the the most unlikely venue ever, even topping 1982's Harrogate. The Green Glens Arena in Millstreet in South-West Ireland near Kilkenny, prompting headlines like "Eurovision to be staged in a cowshed".  The big story was Eurovision opening up to Eastern Europe. The EBU accepted the invitations of all twenty two traditional countries who had competed the year before in Malmo and allocated three places to new countries from the East. Seven countries took part in a televised pre-qualifier in Ljubljana and the Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia gained the three tickets in a tight vote.

There was massive media interest before the contest in the entry from Bosnia-Herzegovina, indeed the fact that they were competing at all in the circumstances. Their entourage had to dodge bullets  to board the plane to Ireland. Their song, "The Whole World's Pain"  was indeed about the war and many commentators believed that they would sweep to victory on a sympathy vote. This looked a possibility when the second jury, Turkey, awarded them 12 points and they took the lead. However, not for the first, or last time, voters ignored political sentiment; Bosnia were only to collect another 12 points all night and finished 16th.

After the preponderance of the English language the year before, a few countries tried to sneak some English into their lyric without breaking the rules: Croatia's entire chorus was in English and the rather alarming Israeli group Shiru broke into English at the climax of their contribution while mother elbowed her way to centre stage.  While the east was saying hello, five time winner Luxembourg said goodbye. At the business end Ireland and the UK were locked in combat once more, and as the year before a competent Irish ballad beat well-performed British bounciness.       

7 songs took part in an "East European" pre-qualifier for countries new to Eurovision. This was staged in Llubljana, Slovenia and the following 4 songs were eliminated:

WINNER: Ireland

IN YOUR EYES by Niamh Kavanagh

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