After a few years of internal selections, Ireland held a snap national selection with six acts during their ever-popular talk show The Late Late Show. The winner ended being being “That’s Rich” by Brooke (Scullion). In a voting system where an international jury, a national jury, and the televote had 33% of the votes each, she won the televote and international jury. Bizarrely, the national jury placed her second last.

Going into this, my preferred song was “One Night, One Kiss, One Promise” by Patrick O’Sullivan, but “That’s Rich” was probably my second choice. Once I saw the performances, it was clear to me that Brooke was the deserved winner. She was fully in control of her staging and presented her song exceptionally well, bringing to life the sassy, confident persona of her song’s character. Others didn’t move enough or moved about awkwardly. Her vocals could have been better, but a sound stage at a talk show is not the same as Eurovision stage, so I’m going to assume she’ll be able to bring it with the kind of high-quality equipment she’ll have access to at the contest.

I still have some concerns about the music: it could really use a bit more “oomph” here and there, especially in the chorus: give it bigger beats, make it more just than a small step up from the verse. The last thirty seconds remain an anti-climax, and Brooke’s attempts at a mixing up the refrain “bye bye fool” aren’t landing from my perspective. Perhaps make the song a bit shorter? A finish that stops all the music, leaving Brooke with a final “bye bye fool” or even better, a sarcastic “that’s rich” would be a cleaner, more effective ending than what they have now.