You have to admire the performers who turn up at our favourite TV show. Some of them travel long distances for minimal results. These days, it must be quite demoralising knowing you’ve spend days heading to the host city, only to end up in semi-final obscurity.
Of course, it was less of a bind when there were no semi-finals. But the singer who held the record for the longest journey to a host city was held for some time by today’s birthday boy Cathal Dunne. The flight(s) from Dublin to Jerusalem must have been onerous for him and his delegation. But maybe it was fate – Cathal had won a Castlebar Song Contest with the song Shalom. Anyway, there can’t have been any jetlag as he gave Ireland its third Top 5 finish in a row. And we all know what happened the following year…
Cathal is 73 today.
Happy birthday/Lá breithe shona duit, a Chathail!