- Music
- 21 Aug 17
The X Factor judge has revealed that many leading players in the Irish music scene "don't want to touch" the Eurovision Song Contest because they're "afraid of not doing well".
Speaking to Miriam O'Callaghan on her TV show 'Saturday Night with Miriam', Louis Walsh has said that he's been disappointed by how many Irish songwriters turned down requests to get involved in the cause. "They didn't want to know," he revealed.
He added: "And some of the singers they don't want to touch it because they're afraid of not doing well at it."
Regardless, he believes Ireland will eventually come good again "by just sticking at it". He reckons we can revisit our glory days in Eurovision by not getting disillusioned and simply taking all the semi-final defeats on the chin.
And he said that he was surprised that this year's entry Brendan Murray didn't manage to reach the final in Ukraine, as he was convinced that he was going to "sail through".
"He sang so well," said Walsh.
"I picked a ballad this year because we always won with ballads - Johnny Logan and Linda [Martin] and Niamh Kavanagh and stuff. So, I thought we were going to do really, really well. I still think RTÉ should do it."
He added, "I still think we should stick at it."