The Eurovision Song Contest 1993 was the 38th Eurovision Song Contest and was held on May 15, 1993 in Millstreet, County Cork, Republic of Ireland. The presenter was Fionnuala Sweeney. Niamh Kavanagh was the winner of this Eurovision for Ireland with the song, "In Your Eyes." This was Ireland's fifth victory, and equalled the tally of five Eurovision victories achieved by France in 1977 and Luxembourg in 1983.
The location for this years edition of the contest was unique, in that Millstreet, with a population at the time of just 1500 people, was the smallest host town ever chosen for Eurovision, and indeed was the most remote. However, the venue, a large indoor well- equipped equestrian centre was deemed more than suitable as the location by RTÉ. With huge support from local and national authorities, plus several businesses in the region, the town's infrastructure was greatly enhanced in order to accommodate an event of this scale. It was also the largest outside broadcast ever attempted by state broadcaster RTÉ and was deemed a technical triumph for all involved. The stage was created by Alan Farquharson, who was also chief production designer two years later in Dublin.
| Draw | Country | Language | Artist | Song | English Translation | Place | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Italian | Enrico Ruggeri | Sole d'Europa | Sun Of Europe | 12 | 45 | |
| 2 | Turkish | Burak Aydos | Esmer Yarim | My Darling Brunette | 21 | 10 | |
| 3 | German | Münchener Freiheit | Viel Zu Weit | Much Too Far | 18 | 18 | |
| 4 | French | Annie Cotton | Moi, Tout Simplement | Quite Simply Myself | 3 | 148 | |
| 5 | Danish | Tommy Seebach Band | Under Stjernerne På Himlen | Under The Stars Of The Sky | 22 | 9 | |
| 6 | Greek | Katerina Garbi | Ellada, Chora Tou Fotos (Ελλάδα, χώρα του φωτός) | Greece, Country of Light | 9 | 64 | |
| 7 | Dutch | Barbara Dex | Iemand Als Jij | Someone Like You | 25 | 3 | |
| 8 | English | William Mangion | This Time | - | 8 | 69 | |
| 9 | Icelandic | Inga | Þá veistu svarið | Then You'll Know The Answer | 13 | 42 | |
| 10 | German | Tony Wegas | Maria Magdalena | Mary Magdalene | 14 | 32 | |
| 11 | Portuguese | Anabela | A Cidade (Até Der Dia) | The City (Until Dawn) | 10 | 60 | |
| 12 | French, Corsican | Patrick Fiori | Mama Corsica | Mama Corsica | 4 | 121 | |
| 13 | Swedish | Arvingarna | Eloise | Eloise | 7 | 89 | |
| 14 | English | Niamh Kavanagh | In Your Eyes | - | 1 | 187 | |
| 15 | French, Luxembourgish | Modern Times | Donne-Moi Une Chance | Give Me A Chance | 20 | 11 | |
| 16 | Slovenian | 1X Band | Tih deževen dan | A Quiet Rainy Day | 22 | 9 | |
| 17 | Finnish | Katri Helena | Tule luo | Come To Me | 17 | 20 | |
| 18 | Bosnian | Fazla | Sva bol svijeta | All The Pain In The World | 16 | 27 | |
| 19 | English | Sonia | Better The Devil You Know | - | 2 | 164 | |
| 20 | Dutch | Ruth Jacott | Vrede | Peace | 6 | 92 | |
| 21 | Croatian, English | Put | Don't Ever Cry | - | 15 | 31 | |
| 22 | Spanish | Eva Santamaría | Hombres | Men | 11 | 58 | |
| 23 | Greek | Zimboulakis & Van Beke | Mi Stamatas (Μη σταματάς) | Don't Stop | 19 | 17 | |
| 24 | Hebrew, English | Sarah'le Sharon & The Shiru Group | Shiru (שירו) | Sing | 24 | 4 | |
| 25 | Norwegian | Silje Vige | Alle Mine Tankar | All My Thoughts | 5 | 120 |
The voting required a jury to deliberate in the midst of the on-going war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Warm applause rang round the hall as a voice on a crackling phone line was heard to deliver the familiar greeting, "Hello Millstreet, Sarajevo calling".
It looked to be a lost cause for second-placed Sonia of the UK after the penultimate jury voted and left her eleven points behind Niamh Kavanagh. An expectant Irish crowd waited to hear the final jury award anything between one and ten points to either the UK or Ireland, any of which would have made it arithmetically impossible for Ireland to be caught. However, the name of neither country came up, with the ten points instead being rather eccentrically awarded to Luxembourg. This of course meant that either the UK or Ireland must have failed to pick up any points from the final jury, and if it was Sonia that received the maximum twelve points, the seemingly impossible would have happened and the UK would snatch a single-point victory at the death. Instead it was Ireland that were awarded the final points of the evening, finishing with what looked in retrospect a comfortable twenty-three point victory. The audience burst into a spontaneous chant of "ole ole", leaving the unflappable Fionnuala Sweeney to declare with due formality, but with a discernible glint in her eye, that "we have a winner..."
Technical difficulties meant that the Maltese jury gave their votes last.
During the announcement of the scores by the Dutch jury, Sweeney got carried away with the audience's cheers and declared Ireland 12 points when they had only been awarded 10.
| Results | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Italy | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Turkey | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Germany | 8 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Switzerland | 10 | 0 | 12 | 10 | 7 | 8 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 1 | 12 | 6 | 7 | 12 | 8 | 4 | 0 | 10 | 8 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 3 | ||
| Denmark | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Greece | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 8 | 12 | 7 | 7 | ||
| Belgium | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Malta | 7 | 5 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 6 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 0 | ||
| Iceland | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | ||
| Austria | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Portugal | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 12 | 0 | 12 | 3 | 0 | 5 | ||
| France | 0 | 7 | 0 | 4 | 12 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 7 | 12 | 8 | 10 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 8 | 0 | 10 | 8 | 6 | ||
| Sweden | 0 | 0 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 7 | 10 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 | ||
| Ireland | 12 | 1 | 5 | 12 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 12 | 3 | 8 | 6 | 10 | 12 | 7 | 12 | 3 | 8 | 12 | 10 | 6 | 10 | 7 | 5 | 12 | ||
| Luxembourg | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Slovenia | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Finland | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Bosnia-Herzegovina | 3 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| United Kingdom | 1 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 8 | 0 | 12 | 0 | 12 | 12 | 7 | 6 | 10 | 8 | 8 | 10 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 10 | 5 | 4 | 12 | 8 | ||
| Netherlands | 6 | 6 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 12 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 10 | ||
| Croatia | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 4 | ||
| Spain | 5 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 8 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 5 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Cyprus | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Israel | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Norway | 0 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 12 | 6 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 12 | 7 | 0 | 6 | 12 | 0 | 8 | 0 | ||
| N. | Recipient nation | Voting nation |
|---|---|---|
| 7 | Ireland | Italy, Malta, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom |
| 4 | United Kingdom | Austria, Belgium, Iceland, Israel |
| 3 | Norway | Croatia, Finland, Greece |
| Switzerland | France, Germany, Luxembourg | |
| 2 | France | Denmark, Portugal |
| Portugal | Netherlands, Spain | |
| 1 | Austria | Bosnia and Herzegovina |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | Turkey | |
| Greece | Cyprus | |
| Netherlands | Ireland | |