Ireland's Bambie Thug has placed sixth at the Eurovision Song Contest in a drama-filled night that saw Switzerland win the competition in Sweden.
Bambie Thug's "Doomsday Blue" earned a combined 278 points from jury and public voting to finish in sixth place at Saturday's grand final, Ireland's highest finish at the competition in 24 years.
Non-binary Swiss artist Nemo was crowned winner of the 2024 Song Contest for their song "The Code", marking the third time that Switzerland has won Eurovision.
Nemo entered the competition as third-favorite in the bookmakers behind frontrunners Croatia and Israel but was the runaway leader following the jury vote and held onto first place after a tense public vote.
Croatia's Rim Tim Tagi Dim finished in second place with the hugely popular entry "Baby Lasagne".
Taoiseach Simon Harris praised Bambie Thug for their performance in Saturday's grand final, describing the Cork artist as a "tour de force".
"They performed with passion, stopped us in our tracks, and did us proud. The eruption of applause in the stadium at the end of Ireland's performance spoke for itself," Harris said following Saturday's grand final.
"Congratulations to Switzerland on the win and well done to Sweden for hosting another showstopper. Thank you to our closest musical ally in Europe – Australia – for our only douze points.
"It’s Bambie Thug’s night as far as we’re concerned."
However, Saturday's grand final was steeped in controversy after Dutch artist Joost Klein was disqualified by organizers following an incident between the singer and a camerawoman.
Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS condemned the decision to disqualify Joost, describing it as "very heavy and disproportionate". The broadcaster subsequently declined to announce the points awarded by its jury during the voting part of Saturday night's show.
Controversy also centered around Israel's Eden Golan, who was heavily booed during her performance. Golan finished fifth in Saturday's grand final after receiving significant support in the public vote.
The question of whether Israel should be allowed to compete in Eurovision due to the ongoing conflict in Gaza dominated the build-up to the competition. Pro-Palestinian activists called for participants from other countries to boycott the event, while a number of people held a demonstration outside the Malmo Arena as the contest took place on Saturday night.
The European Broadcasting Union cleared Golan to compete at Eurovision in March after changing some of the lyrics to her entry "Hurricane", a song about the Hamas attacks on October 7 last year. The song was originally entitled "October Rain".
About 30 people were detained by police during demonstrations on Saturday night.
The Eurovision jury spokesperson for Israel was also booed as they announced that Israel had given 12 points to Luxembourg.
The EBU has come under fire in the week leading up to Saturday's grand final, with Alessandra Mele of Norway and Kaarija of Finland refusing to announce the jury vote, with Mele citing the "genocide" in the Middle East. They were subsequently replaced for Saturday's grand final.
As rumors about the reasons for Klein's disqualification escalated, Bambie Thug failed to appear at the final dress rehearsal before Saturday's final, sparking rumors that they were set to pull out of the competition.
In a statement, Bambie said their absence was due to a separate issue with the EBU related to the conduct of Israeli broadcaster Kan during the first semi-final on Tuesday night.
The Irish singer accused the Israeli broadcaster of a rule break and said they were waiting on an official update from the EBU on multiple complaints.
Speaking after Saturday's grand final, Bambie accused the EBU of not supporting them in the row with Kan.
"We brought it [rule break] up to the EBU. They said they would follow up," Bambie said on Saturday night.
"They waited to the last minute, we still haven’t gotten a statement back to us, [they] allowed us to be scapegoats, allowed us to be the spokesperson for standing up for ourselves.
"The broadcaster [Kan] has disobeyed the rules and I hope next year they won’t be able to compete because of that.
"And behind the scenes, you don’t know the amount of pressure and the amount of work that we have been doing to change things and I’m so proud of Nemo for winning,
"I’m so proud that all of us are in the top 10 that have been fighting for this s*** behind the scenes. Because it’s been so hard and I’m so proud of us.
"I just want to say we are what Eurovision, the EBU is not what the Eurovision, the EBU is what makes this, f*** them, the EBU I don’t even care anymore."
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