Great news for Irish Eurovision hopes today

Our chances for qualifying for the Eurovision final has just been boosted ten-fold today as it's emerged that the UK and Australia will be able to vote for Ireland in our semi-final.

The allocation draw for the semi-finals took place in Stockholm this morning where Ireland was drawn first out of the pot, getting a place in the second semi-final of the competition on Thursday 12th of May.

Later on, Australia were also drawn to compete in a place for the final on the 12th of May too. The Aussies were brought into the competition for the first time last year to mark Eurovision's 60th anniversary.

The UK automatically gets a place in the final as they are one of the five biggest financial contributors to the competition, however as part of that deal, they get voting rights to one of the semi-finals, which lucky for us, will be the show on the 12th.

Considering the amount of ex-pats we have wandering around those countries, it would be fair to assume that Nicky Byrne has a much stronger chance of qualifying for the final on the 14th May... sure we could win it yet lads.