An Xtra Happy Birthday; Week 51

December 18th

Today there are five Eurovision singers that celebrate their birthday today! Including an Irish winner; Eimear Quinn.

Liliane St Pierre, 70

Liliane represented Belgium at the 1987 Eurovision Song Contest. She performed the song “Soldiers of Love”, finishing in 11th place. This was not Liliane’s first attempt at representing her country in the contest. In 1981, she performed “Brussel” in the Belgian final, being rumored to have finished second. No one really knows for sure, though, since only the winner was announced. She didn’t however only try her luck for Belgium. Already in 1978 she participated in Luxembourg’s pre-selection with the song “Mélodie“, finishing 4th in a final of five.

Eimear Quinn, 46

Eimear Quinn represented Ireland at the 1996 Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo. She performed the song “The Voice”, winning by a small landslide. She received 162 points, almost 50 points more than host nation Norway in second place. This was Ireland’s 7th and for now, last Eurovision victory.

Xandee, 40

Like Liliane St Pierre, Xandee represented Belgium in Eurovision. She performed the song “1 Life” at the 2004 contest in Istanbul. Due to the country’s good result the year before, Xandee was directly qualified for the final. There, however, she finished in 22nd place out of 24 participating countries.

Rui Drumond, 38

In 2005 Portugal selected the duo “2B”, which consisted of Rui and
Luciana Abreu.  They therefore got to go to Kiyv, to perform the song “Amar”. Which was bilingual, both sang in english and in Portuguese. Despite getting the few 12 points at the semi final, the song did not make it to the final.

Natalia Kelly, 21

The youngest of today’s birthday girls is Austria’s Natalia Kelly. She represented her country at the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö. She performed the song Shine, finishing in a rather disappointing 14th place in the first semi, thus not qualifying for the final.