1995 Eurovision Song Contest
| Eurovision Song Contest 1995 | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Dates | |
| Final | 13 May 1995 |
| Host | |
| Venue |
Point Theatre Dublin, Ireland |
| Presenter(s) | Mary Kennedy |
| Conductor | Noel Kelehan |
| Director | John Comiskey |
| Executive supervisor | Christian Clausen |
| Executive producer | John McHugh |
| Host broadcaster | Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) |
| Opening act | Video montage commemorating the history of the Eurovision Song Contest for its 40th edition. |
| Interval act | Lumen |
| Participants | |
| Number of entries | 23 |
| Debuting countries | None |
| Returning countries |
 Belgium Denmark Israel Slovenia Turkey
|
| Withdrawing countries |
 Estonia Finland Lithuania Netherlands Romania Slovakia Switzerland
|
|
|
| Vote | |
| Voting system | Each country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 point(s) to their 10 favourite songs |
| Nul points | None |
| Winning song |
 Norway"Nocturne" |
The Eurovision Song Contest 1995 was the 40th Eurovision Song Contest and was held on 13 May 1995 in the Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. The presenter was Mary Kennedy. This year's competition was the last with only one host until 18 years later in 2013 in Malmö, Sweden. This contest broke the chain of victories that Ireland enjoyed in 1992, 1993, and 1994. This was Ireland's 3rd year in succession to host the contest - and to mark the 40th show, it was opened with a 4-minute retrospective showing images from the contest's history. The Norwegian group Secret Garden was the winner of this contest with the mostly instrumental song, "Nocturne". Incidentally, Secret Garden's violinist was Fionnuala Sherry, who is Irish.
Two of Ireland's winners attended the contest; Dana, who was Ireland's first winner, winning the contest in 1970 with "All Kinds of Everything", and Mr Eurovision himself, Johnny Logan, winning the contest as a singer in 1980 and 1987 ("What's Another Year?" and "Hold me Now" respectively), and also for writing Linda Martin's 1992 winning song "Why Me?". It was his birthday that night, but according to host Kennedy, "He wouldn't say which one!" Nonetheless, the audience sang "Happy Birthday" for him, assisted by the orchestra.
After winning the 1994 contest, RTÉ were worried about whether they could afford to host a third consecutive contest in 1995. The BBC had offered to take on the responsibility of hosting the contest, and had even proposed that the contest be staged as a joint production in Belfast, capital of Northern Ireland. In the end RTÉ decided to stage the contest on its own. However they did ask the EBU that, should Ireland win once more, that they would not be expected to host the event for a fourth year in a row.
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