May 15, 1993 Ireland hosted - and won - Eurovision once again. What makes 1993 different that it wasn't Dublin but Millstreet. A town of 1.500 inhabitants in the middle of nowhere. The town needed a new rail tracks and biggest station and Green Glens Arena's floor was dug out to make the ceiling higher. Sounds crazy, ha? Anyways, a new record of participants arrived: 25. For the first (and only) time a preselection was held in Ljubljana for the new countries willing to participate. Out of seven three ex-Yugoslavian countries made it to Millstreet: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia and Croatia. The Bosnian team literally escaped under fire during the night from Sarajevo. The new thing was that the last placed countries had to skip the next edition and give place to new countries. Luxembourg, Turkey, Denmark, Slovenia, Israel and Belgium had therefor extra sad night. Tony Wegas was there, so where Katri Helena and Tommy Seebach, both ESC 1979 veterans. UK sent Sonia who has scored a lot of hits with Stock-Aitken-Waterman's hit factory and France Patrick Fiori who would become very big a bit later. But it was Ireland's Niamh Kavanagh who took a clear victory beating UK again to second place...May 15, 1993 Ireland hosted - and won - Eurovision once again. What makes 1993 different that it wasn't Dublin but Millstreet. A town of 1.500 inhabitants in the middle of nowhere. The town needed a new rail tracks and biggest station and Green Glens Arena's floor was dug out to make the ceiling higher. Sounds crazy, ha? Anyways, a new record of participants arrived: 25. For the first (and only) time a preselection was held in Ljubljana for the new countries willing to participate. Out of seven three ex-Yugoslavian countries made it to Millstreet: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia and Croatia. The Bosnian team literally escaped under fire during the night from Sarajevo. The new thing was that the last placed countries had to skip the next edition and give place to new countries. Luxembourg, Turkey, Denmark, Slovenia, Israel and Belgium had therefor extra sad night. Tony Wegas was there, so where Katri Helena and Tommy Seebach, both ESC 1979 veterans. UK sent Sonia who has scored a lot of hits with Stock-Aitken-Waterman's hit factory and France Patrick Fiori who would become very big a bit later. But it was Ireland's Niamh Kavanagh who took a clear victory beating UK again to second place...
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