Ireland in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2018

Prior to the 2018 Contest, Ireland had participated in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest three times since its debut in 2015.^[1] TG4 previously attempted to participate at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2014, but required funding from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI), which was rejected.^[2]

The Irish broadcaster was included in the final list of participants of the EBU, which revealed that they would be participating at Junior Eurovision for the third time in their history. The mechanism for selecting their entrant and song was through the national selection show Junior Eurovision Éire, like in their three other appearances.^[3] The selection process is scheduled to take place every Sunday starting on 14 October, where thirty-two participants competed, and culminated into a final which took place on 11 November 2018.^[4][5]

Jury members

Junior Eurovision Éire

Semi Final 1

The first semi final was broadcast on 14 October 2018, in which Ryan O'Shaughnessy was the guest judge and the opening act.

Saibh Skelly and Jessica Doolan both advanced to the final duel stage and performed their songs for the second time. After their second performances, the jury members selected Jessica Doolan as the winner of this semi-final and she advanced to the grand final on 11 November.

Semi Final 2

The second semi final was broadcast on 21 October 2018, in which Linda Martin was the guest judge and Aimee Banks was the opening act.

Sarah Kenny and Kerry Ann Mc Creery advanced to the final duel stage and performed their songs for the second time. After their second performances, the jury members selected Kerry Ann McCreery as the winner of this semi-final, making her advance to the grand final on 11 November.

Semi Final 3

The third semi-final was broadcast on 28 October 2018, in which Brian Kennedy was the guest judge and Zena Donnelly was the opening act.

Anna and Ava and Cora Harkin advanced to the final duel stage and performed their songs for the second time. After their second performances, the jury members selected Cora Harkin as the winner of this semi-final, making her advance to the grand final on 11 November.

Semi Final 4

The fourth semi-final was broadcast on 4 November, in which Dustin the Turkey was the guest judge and Muireann McDonnell was the opening act.

Taylor Hynes and Shaniah Llane Rollo advanced to the final duel of the show. After performing for a second time, the judges decided that Shaniah would advance to the final.

Final

The grand final was broadcast on 11 November. Niamh Kavanagh was the guest judge for this round. For the final, a sing-off was introduced between the top two contenders.

Taylor Hynes
Background information
Born	(2004-02-07) 7 February 2004 (age 20)
Origin	Dublin, Ireland
Genres	Pop
Occupation(s)	Singer
Instrument(s)	Vocals
Years active	2016-present

"IOU"
Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2018 entry
Country	Ireland
Artist(s)	Taylor Hynes
Language	Irish
Composer(s)	Niall Mooney Jonas Gladnikoff Taylor Hynes
Lyricist(s)	Niall Mooney Jonas Gladnikoff Taylor Hynes
Finals performance
Final result	15th
Final points	48
Entry chronology
◄ "Súile Glasa" (2017)
"Banshee" (2019) ►

Taylor Hynes

Taylor Hynes (born 7 February 2004) is an Irish child singer. He represented Ireland in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2018 with the song "IOU". He previously entered Junior Eurovision Eire in 2016, where he failed to make the final. He returned to the selection in 2018 and came second in his heat, however a day after his heat was broadcast, he was leaked by Belarusian TV as Ireland's Junior Eurovision entrant. He was born in Dublin, but currently lives in Clonee.

IOU

IOU is a song by Irish child singer Taylor Hynes. It represented Ireland at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2018. The music video clip features Hynes alongside Eurovision winner Niamh Kavanagh and 2018 Irish entrant Ryan O'Shaughnessy.

During the opening ceremony and the running order draw which both took place on 19 November 2018, Ireland was drawn to perform ninth on 25 November 2018, following Belarus and preceding Serbia.^[6]

Voting

The same voting system that was introduced in the 2017 edition was used, where the results were determined by 50% online voting and 50% jury voting. Every country had a national jury that consisted of three music industry professionals and two children aged between 10 and 15 who were citizens of the country they represented. The rankings of those jurors were combined to make an overall top ten.^[7]

The online voting consisted of two phases. The first phase of the online voting began on 23 November 2018 when a recap of all the rehearsal performances was shown on the contest's website Junioreurovision.tv before the viewers could vote. After this, voters also had the option to watch longer one-minute clips from each participant's rehearsal. This first round of voting ended on Sunday 25 November at 15:59 CET. The second phase of the online voting took place during the live show and began right after the last performance and was open for 15 minutes. International viewers were able vote for a minimum of three and a maximum of five songs.^[8] They were also able to vote for their own country's song. These votes were then turned into points which were determined by the percentage of votes received. For example, if a song received 10% of the votes, it received 10% of the available points.

Points awarded by Ireland^[9]

Score	Country
12 points	Georgia
10 points	Italy
8 points	Malta
7 points	Australia
6 points	France
5 points	Ukraine
4 points	Kazakhstan
3 points	Azerbaijan
2 points	Belarus
1 point	Albania

Detailed voting results

Detailed voting results from Ireland^[9]

Draw	Country	Juror A	Juror B	Juror C	Juror D	Juror E	Average Rank	Points Awarded
01	Ukraine	3	6	2	12	6	6	5
02	Portugal	17	12	11	11	12	15
03	Kazakhstan	7	7	13	3	3	7	4
04	Albania	16	16	17	6	5	10	1
05	Russia	8	8	12	17	18	14
06	Netherlands	18	19	16	18	13	18
07	Azerbaijan	10	5	5	13	11	8	3
08	Belarus	6	10	9	14	10	9	2
09	Ireland
10	Serbia	15	15	14	8	7	11
11	Italy	2	2	3	7	8	2	10
12	Australia	11	4	7	4	1	4	7
13	Georgia	1	3	1	1	4	1	12
14	Israel	12	13	10	19	19	16
15	France	5	9	4	5	2	5	6
16	Macedonia	14	14	15	9	9	12
17	Armenia	9	17	18	16	17	17
18	Wales	19	18	19	10	14	19
19	Malta	4	1	6	2	16	3	8
20	Poland	13	11	8	15	15	13