Following Bambie Thug's victory in last night’s Late Late Show Eurosong Special, a Eurovision expert has said that the right song has been selected but that RTÉ will have to do more work in its production and promotion.
The 30-year-old Cork native, whose real name is Bambie Ray Robinson, will represent Ireland with their genre-shifting track Doomsday Blue in Malmö, Sweden this May.
The singer was chosen by the combined votes of the public phone vote, an international jury and a national jury.
Commenting on Ireland’s choice for Eurovision, Dr. Dónal Mulligan of the School of Communications and Media, DCU, said, "I think it defies genre, which might be a good thing. I think that the entry was probably the most interesting of the ones that happened last night.
"I was happy to see that that’s what we chose because I think recently the Eurovision has become as much about spectacle and about representation as it has about the song.
"The work is on RTÉ in a way to get the promotion of this out in advance, to make sure the video that people see and then tune into vote in the semi-finals and the finals is interesting enough. It was a little bit too sombre last night, perhaps."
Non-binary artist Bambie Thug’s music has been described by critics as electro-rap, confrontational performance art and effervescent, late-night goth pop.
Ireland last made the Eurovision grand final in 2018 and has only advanced that far once in the past decade.
Irelands last Eurovision win was 28 years ago when Emer Quinn’s The Voice took first place in 1996.
That was Ireland's third time in the 1990s alone to win the competition and brought to seven the total number of times the country had topped the competition, a Eurovision record which was matched by Sweden last year.
The Eurovision Song Contest 2024 semi-finals will take place on 7 and 9 May, with the grand final following on 11 May.
