Ireland has participated in the
Eurovision Song Contest 49 times since making its debut at the
1965 Contest in
Naples. Since then, they have missed only two contests, in
1983 in
Munich and
2002 in
Tallinn. Ireland is the most successful country in the contest, with a total of seven wins.
Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) is Ireland's representative broadcaster at the contest, the semi-finals are broadcast on
RTÉ Two and the final on
RTÉ One. All of the Irish entries have been performed in
English with the exception of the
1972 entry, "
Ceol an Ghrá", which was sung in
Irish. Ireland have hosted the contest on seven occasions, all but one of these in the capital
Dublin, while the
1993 Eurovision Song Contest was staged in
Millstreet, a town in north-west
County Cork with a population of 1,500 people.