The battle to represent Ireland at Eurovision 2022 is set to take place on Friday, February 4th on The Late Late Show Eurovision Special on RTÉ One.
Six performers will compete head-to-head in a bid to represent the nation at the semi-finals in Turin later this year. The winner will be elected through a voting system comprised of televoting, a national jury, and an international jury. This is an updated format by RTÉ, as previous years saw the Irish representative for the competition chosen internally by the national broadcaster.
This year saw hundreds of entries, which have been whittled down to six performers. The hopeful artists competing for a shot at Eurovision are Rachel Goode, Brendan Murphy, Janet Grogan, Brooke Scullion, Patrick O’Sullivan and Miles Graham.
One thing all six have in common is performing in front of large audiences. Some have taken part on music competition shows in Ireland and the UK. RTÉ’s submission guidelines for artists this year recommended experience “performing in public to large crowds”. Understandably so, as the winner will go on to perform in front of 200 million people on the Eurovision grand stage.
Who are the performers?
Janet Grogan
Janet Grogan studied popular music at Ballyfermot College of Further Education. She continued her education at the prestigious Popakademie Baden-Württemberg in Mannheim, Germany as a foreign exchange student in 2008. On TV, she made it as far as Sharon Osbourne’s house in The X Factor in 2016. No stranger to the Eurovision stage, she performed backing vocals for Nicky Byrne in 2016 and Ryan O’Shaughnessy again in 2018. Her song, “Ashes (Of Yesterday)”, is written by Aidan O Connor, John Emil and Sandra Wikström.
Brooke Scullion
Brooke Scullion dazzled audiences when she appeared on The Voice UK in 2020. Her impressive range carried her all the way to the finals, with Grammy award-winner Meghan Trainor coaching her on the show. Her song, “That’s Rich” already seems to be a front-runner based on polls conducted by the largest Eurovision fan site, wiwibloggs.com. She is currently in first place with 44.65% of the total vote. The song is written by Brooke Scullion, Izzy Warner and Karl Zine.
Patrick O’Sullivan
Patrick O’Sullivan hails from Cork and is the recent winner of RTÉ’s Last Singer Standing. The accomplished musician studied Musical Theatre from The Arts Educational Schools in London on a full scholarship awarded by Andrew Lloyd-Webber. Since then, he has performed in several West End shows including the Book of Mormon. His song, “One Night, One Kiss, One Promise” is written by Nicky Byrne, Danny O’Reilly and Lar Kaye.
Brendan Murphy
The Galwegian singer-songwriter previously represented Ireland at the Eurovision in 2017 when he was chosen internally by RTÉ. The following year he came fifth in The X Factor UK. This year he will perform “Real Love”, which he co-wrote with Darrell Coyle.
Miles Graham
Miles Graham hails from Dublin. He wrote his entry, “Yeah, We’re Gonna Get Out of It”, during lockdown last year. Graham has had previous success on radio, when the late Terry Wogan invited him to perform on his BBC radio show. One of the things he is most proud of is having his own children sing on the track, which he co-wrote with Justin Broad and Paul Herman.
The competition to represent Ireland at Eurovision 2022 will take place on The Late Late Show Eurosong Special on RTÉ One on Friday, February 4th. Programming starts at 21:35.
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