Ireland 2015 Eurovision Qualification Mandela Effect Fact Check

Ireland have qualified for the Eurovision final for the first time since 2018. Sweden, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK are guaranteed places in the final, so do not compete in either semi-final.

During the period when RTÉ would ordinarily be showing the Eurovision grand final, it will instead air Father Ted's Eurovision-themed episode A Song for Europe. The episode, which originally aired in 1996 not long after Ireland won three contests in a row, sees the main characters' novelty song My Lovely Horse selected to represent Ireland as organisers attempt to scupper any chance of a win and having to once again pay to host Eurovision.

Radio Éireann (RÉ) in 1965 and 1966, Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ) between 1967 and 2009, and Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) since 2010, have been consecutively full members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), thus eligible to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest. They have participated representing Ireland since RTÉ's first entry in the tenth edition of the contest in 1965. RTÉ broadcasts the semi-finals on RTÉ2, and the final on RTÉ One.

The Irish entry in 2014, "Heartbeat" performed by Can-linn featuring Kasey Smith, failed to qualify to the final. The Irish national broadcaster, Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), broadcasts the event within Ireland and organises the selection process for the nation's entry.

Eleven Eurovision winning songs (alongside three non-winners) were featured at the special concert Congratulations: 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2005, in which "Waterloo" by ABBA was voted the most popular song of the contest's first fifty years. Ireland and Sweden have won seven times, more than any other country.

This Mandela Effect would have only been made worse during Ireland’s Repeal the 8th Referendum, when politicians, activists and journalists repeatedly presented the ‘babies in a septic tank’ story as fact, for political purposes.