Eurovision Song Contest 1995


The Eurovision Song Contest 1995 was the 40th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Dublin, Ireland, following Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan's win at the 1994 contest on homesoil with the song "Rock 'n' Roll Kids".
It was held on 13 May 1995 in the Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. The presenter was Mary Kennedy. This year's competition was the last with only one host until 18 years later in 2013 in Malmö, Sweden. This contest broke the chain of victories that Ireland enjoyed in 1992, 1993, and 1994. This was Ireland's 3rd year in succession to host the contest - and to mark the 40th show, it was opened with a 4-minute retrospective showing images from the contest's history. The Norwegian group Secret Garden was the winner of this contest with the mostly instrumental song, "Nocturne". Incidentally, Secret Garden's violinist was Fionnuala Sherry, who is Irish.

Location

After winning the 1994 contest, RTÉ was worried about whether they could afford to host a third consecutive contest in 1995. The BBC had offered to take on the responsibility of hosting the contest, and had even proposed that the contest be staged as a joint production in Belfast, capital of Northern Ireland. In the end, RTÉ decided to stage the contest on its own. However they did ask the EBU that, should Ireland win once more, that they would not be expected to host the event for the fourth year in a row, and eventually, it never happened. Ireland hosted the contest for the sixth time after winning the contest for a 3rd consecutive year and is the only country to have hosted multiple contests in succession; three in a row between 1993 and 1995. Dublin was again chosen to be the host city, making it the fifth time that the Eurovision Song Contest was staged in the Irish capital. For the second consecutive year, the venue for the contest was the Point Theatre located on the North Wall Quay of the River Liffey, amongst the Dublin Docklands.

Contest overview

Two of Ireland's winners attended the contest; Dana, who was Ireland's first winner, winning the contest in 1970 with "All Kinds of Everything", and Mr Eurovision himself, Johnny Logan, winning the contest as a singer in 1980 and 1987, and also for writing Linda Martin's 1992 winning song "Why Me?". It was his birthday that night, but according to host Kennedy, "He wouldn't say which one!" Nonetheless, the audience sang "Happy Birthday" for him, assisted by the orchestra.
Heavy favourites to win the contest, according to bookmakers, were Sweden with the pop-ballad "Se på mig" and Slovenia, represented by Darja Švajger‘s entry “Prisluhni mi”. Other countries in contention for the win were Croatia, Denmark, Israel, Spain, and the eventual winner, Norway. The winning song was something new at Eurovision in that it contained only 24 words accompanied by long violin solos. The United Kingdom contributed a modern rap number, while the previous year's runner-up, Poland, went for something that completely contrasted with their début entry.
After the voting was completed, Norway was the winner with 148 points, followed by Spain's "Vuelve conmigo" with 119 points, and Sweden gaining 100 points.
The stage was designed by Alan Farquharson who also designed the set of the 1993 contest that took place in Millstreet, Ireland. Although it was quite dark and often gloomy in appearance, it did form the basis for a spectacular opening whereby a giant screen rotated to reveal the presenter who descended a stairway which ultimately disappeared to allow for the arrow-shaped stage to come together amid fireworks. The interval act consisted of several well known Irish performers including Clannad, Brian Kennedy and was composed by leading musician Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin.
The EBU decreased the number of participants to 23 to make sure the show would not last longer than three hours. Five of the six countries that were relegated in 1994 returned in 1995.
There was much speculation in Ireland as to whether RTÉ had deliberately chosen a song perceived as not having a good chance of winning in order to avoid hosting the contest for a fourth time in a row - although this was never verified. This rumour did, however, inspire a popular episode of Father Ted. In any event, RTÉ ended up hosting the contest once again in 1997.

Participating countries

Returning artists

Conductors

Each performance had a conductor who conducted the orchestra.

Voting structure

Each country had a jury that awarded 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 point for their top ten songs.

Score sheet

12 points

Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final:
N.ContestantVoting nation
6NorwayGreece, Iceland, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Turkey
3CroatiaMalta, Slovenia, Spain
3SwedenDenmark, Germany, Ireland
2DenmarkNorway, Sweden
2MaltaBosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia
2SpainBelgium, Israel
2United KingdomAustria, France
1CyprusHungary
1GreeceCyprus
1IsraelUnited Kingdom

International broadcasts and voting

Voting and spokespersons

The spokespersons announced the score from their respective country's national jury in running order.
  1. - Jan Chojnacki
  2. - Eileen Dunne
  3. - Carmen Nebel
  4. - Diana Grković-Foretić
  5. - Sverre Christophersen
  6. - Marina Danielian
  7. - Áslaug Dóra Eyjólfsdóttir
  8. - Tilia Herold
  9. - Belén Fernández de Henestrosa
  10. - Ömer Önder
  11. - Daniela Trbović
  12. - Thierry Beccaro
  13. - Katalin Bogyay
  14. - Marie-Françoise Renson "Soda"
  15. - Colin Berry
  16. - Serenella Andrade
  17. - Andreas Iakovidis
  18. - Björn Hedman
  19. -
  20. - Miša Molk
  21. - Daniel Pe'er
  22. - Stephanie Farrugia
  23. - Fotini Giannoulatou

    Commentators

Most countries sent commentators to Dublin or commented from their own country, in order to provide coverage of the contest, such as add insight to the participants.

Participating countries

The participating countries that provided radio broadcasts for the event are listed below.

Participating countries