It is the end of an era, as for the first time in 12 years, Micheal Kealy will no longer lead the broadcaster\u2019s Eurovision team as head of delegation.<\/p>\n
An RT\u00c9 spokesperson said Mr Kealy \u201chas moved on from the role to co-executive produce The Late Late Show\u201d.<\/p>\n
Instead, Alan Tyler, who joined RT\u00c9 in May 2022 as group head of entertainment and music, will act as head of delegation at the 2026 Eurovision.<\/p>\n
This is the first time that Ireland\u2019s delegation has ever been led by the head of the department.<\/p>\n
Mr Kealy had led the delegation since 2013, taking over from Julian Vignoles.<\/p>\n
During Mr Kealy\u2019s time Ireland has qualified for the Eurovision grand \u00adfinal a total of three times. In 2013 with Ryan Dolan\u2019s Only Love Survives which came 26th, receiving just five points.<\/p>\n
Ryan O\u2019Shaughnessy came 16th in 2018 with the song Together, and in 2024, Bambie Thug delivered our strongest performance in years with their ouija-pop song, Doomsday Blue, ranking sixth.<\/p>\n
Last year, RT\u00c9 announced that Clare Hughes was the new co-head of delegation but this year she will executive produce The Late Late Toy Show.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, RT\u00c9 entertainment and music editor, Katherine Drohan, will become RT\u00c9\u2019s Eurovision deputy head of delegation. She was one of the co-creators of RT\u00c9\u2019s disastrous Toy Show The Musical, which recorded losses of \u20ac2.2m.<\/p>\n
In recent years, there have been \u00adongoing calls for a change to the Irish Eurovision selection process.<\/p>\n
Fans are keen for the national finals to be moved off The Late Late Show\u2019s Eurosong special. There have been calls for a standalone programme.<\/p>\n
In the past, Mr Kealy said he would like to take this route.<\/p>\n
When asked if the Eurovision selection process will continue to take place in the Late Late Show studio, the broadcaster said it \u201cwill publish details of the approach to selection for the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest in due course\u201d.<\/p>\n
\nYou wouldn\u2019t want to have too thin a skin<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
During his time as head of delegation, Mr Kealy received some criticism from song contest fans regarding Ireland\u2019s dismal track record in recent years.<\/p>\n
In 2022, he told the Irish Eurovision podcast, \u00c9irevision, that no \u201cother producer in RT\u00c9 has to put up with the abuse I get\u201d and that \u201cyou wouldn\u2019t want to have too thin a skin\u201d to take on the role of Eurovision head of delegation.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople write to the director general [then Dee Forbes] telling her to fire me, they don\u2019t just write to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He told the podcast: \u201cI will do it for as long as people in here are happy for me to do it, and for as long as I feel I have got something to bring to it\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Alan Tyler previously worked at the BBC as executive editor of entertainment commissioning, and was associated with prominent shows including Strictly Come Dancing, All Round to Mrs Brown\u2019s and Comic Relief.<\/p>\n
In 2023, there were reports of backstage tensions between Mr Tyler and some of the production team on The Late Late Show.<\/p>\n
Last year, the Irish Eurovision entrant Emmy did not make it to the grand \u00adfinal in Basel, Switzerland.<\/p>\n
Her song Laika Party, about an alternative reality where the Soviet space dog participated in an intergalactic disco, failed to make a lasting impression.<\/p>\n
Last year, the European Broadcasting Union said 166 million people watched the Song Contest.<\/p>\n
The Eurovision was first established in Lugano, Switzerland, in 1956, in the wake of World War II. The aim was to bring Europe, devastated by war, together in a celebration of music.<\/p>\n
Since then, only one contest has not gone ahead, the 2020 edition, which was cancelled due to the Covid pandemic.<\/p>\n
*This article was amended at 8.25pm, on September 2, 2025, to clarify that the 2026 Eurovision will be the 70th anniversary contest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is the end of an era, as for the first time in 12 years, Micheal Kealy will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[30166,18,117,10893,19,17,2119,1181,30168,30167,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-39344","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-bambie-thug","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-eurovision","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-kirsty-blake-knox","15":"tag-rte","16":"tag-the-late-late-show","17":"tag-toy-show-the-musical","18":"tag-tv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}