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 and Cork, prompting headlines like "Eurovision to be staged in a cowshed". Definitely a "bellows by the fire" venue, but very satisfactory. Two artists from 1979 popped up again, Denmark's Tommy Seebach (now with a band) and Finland's Katri-Helena (now with a hyphen).

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 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.      

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:

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IN THE NEWS THIS WEEK:

The Sri Lankan president is assassinated by a Tamil Tigers suicide bomber.

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