Israel decisively won the 63rd Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday night, earning 529 votes, with Cyprus second in the voting with 436 votes. The Irish singer Ryan O’Shaughnessy finished 16th in this year’s contest with his ballad Together. Ireland’s act generated a great deal of buzz during the contest week, qualifying against predictions and then climbing as high as three in the bookmakers’ odds. I couldn’t be prouder to be Irish.”“It’s obviously unfortunate that we didn’t get the points we really wanted, but that’s Eurovision,” O’Shaughnessy added. Kealy says he hopes that the strong response to the Irish act “is the start of something, the revival in the Irish Eurovision fortunes.”Israel’s kitschy pop number Toy is a huge favourite with Eurovision fans, and evidently with the European public.

Source: The Irish Times May 12, 2018 18:11 UTC