Ireland in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2019

Prior to the 2019 contest, Ireland had participated in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest four 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]In the 2018 contest, Taylor Hynes represented country in Minsk, Belarus with the song "IOU". He ended 15th out of 20 entries with 48 points.

The participants in heat 1 were revealed on 26 August 2019, with the episode airing on 1 September.^[3]

Anna Kearney and Aoife McNelis both advanced to the final duel stage and performed their covers a second time. After their second performances, the jury members selected Anna as the winner of this episode, while Arabella was selected to advance to the semi-final.^[4]

The participants for heat 2 were revealed on 7 September 2019.^[5]

Caoimhe McBride and Katie Healy both advanced to the final duel stage and performed their covers a second time. After their second performances, the jury members selected Caoimhe as the winner of this episode, while Alison was selected to advance to the semi-final.^[6]

The participants for heat 3 were revealed on 13 September 2019.^[7]

Seisear Séieseach and Isabelle Moore both advanced to the final duel stage and performed their covers a second time. After their second performances, the jury members selected Seisear as the winner of this episode, while Savannah was selected to advance to the semi-final.^[8]

The participants for heat 4 were revealed on 22 September 2019.^[9]

Skye Murphy Darrer and Rebecca Cronin both advanced to the final duel stage and performed their covers a second time. After their second performances, the jury members selected Skye as the winner of this episode, while Orla was selected to advance to the semi-final.^[10]

The semi-final aired on 29 September 2019.

Anna Kearney and Savannah Phoenix-Munroe were announced as the first two finalists. Alison McGrath and Orla McDermott both advanced to the final duel stage and performed their covers a second time. After their second performances, the jury members selected Orla as the last finalist.^[11]

The final aired on 6 October 2019.

Final Duel

Anna Kearney
Background information
Born	(2006-01-30) 30 January 2006 (age 18) Dublin, Ireland
Genres	Pop
Occupation(s)	Singer
Instrument(s)	Vocals

"Banshee"
Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2019 entry
Country	Ireland
Artist(s)	Anna Kearney
Language	Irish
Composer(s)	Cyprian Cassar Jonas Gladnikoff Niall Mooney Daniel Caruana
Lyricist(s)	Niall Mooney Fiachna Ó Braonáin Anna Banks Anna Kearney
Finals performance
Final result	12th
Final points	73
Entry chronology
◄ "IOU" (2018)
"Saor" (2021) ►

Anna Kearney (born 30 January 2006) is an Irish child singer. She represented Ireland at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2019 with the song "Banshee".^[12] She was born in Dublin, but she currently lives in Foxrock. Her mother, Eileen, was a performer in the Eurovision Song Contest 1994 as part of the interval act Riverdance. Shortly after the contest, Kearney opened the 2019 Late Late Toy Show.

"Banshee" is a song by Irish singer Anna Kearney. It represented Ireland at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2019. After Anna Kearney had been selected to represent Ireland, TG4 contacted Niall Mooney and Jonas Gladnikoff, who had previously been responsible for the 2015 and 2018 Irish Junior Eurovision entries, to write the song. The song was also co-written by Cyprian Cassar and Daniel Caruana, with lyrics by Anna Banks, Fiachna Ó Braonáin as well as Anna Kearney.

During the opening ceremony and the running order draw which both took place on 18 November 2019, Ireland was drawn to perform twelfth on 24 November 2019, following Poland and preceding Ukraine.^[13]

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.^[14]

The online voting consisted of two phases. The first phase of the online voting began on 22 November 2019 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 24 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.^[15] 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^[16]

Score	Country
12 points	Italy
10 points	North Macedonia
8 points	Spain
7 points	Belarus
6 points	Netherlands
5 points	France
4 points	Poland
3 points	Serbia
2 points	Kazakhstan
1 point	Australia

Detailed voting results from Ireland^[16]

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