It’s the nation that issued a call for “accomplished songwriters and performers” in October. But Ireland has been conspicuously quiet ever since. However, following correspondence with the country’s Head of Delegation Michael Kealy, wiwibloggs can confirm that the Eurovision record-holders are almost ready to show their hand for the 2019 contest in Tel Aviv.

The singer and song have been chosen. They are currently working on perfecting the final mix and plan to release both the audio track and music video on Friday 8 March.

This is the culmination of a process which saw over 440 songs submitted to the national broadcaster RTÉ. These were whittled down to a shortlist of almost 70, which was presented to a number of different panels in early January. The selected performer(s) and/or the song may not have been among these numbers. When opening the submission window in the autumn, the TV network reserved the absolute right to approach established acts and songwriters and to select a song and/or a performer(s) at its sole discretion from outside the process.

Who will represent Ireland at Eurovision 2019?

RTÉ, by its own admission, has been tight-lipped this year. But that hasn’t stopped the rumour mill from spinning. In January it went into overdrive when the Irish Mirror allegedly published a piece claiming that ex-One Direction star Niall Horan was in the mix. This proved to be a false alarm caused by a fake screenshot. Although, Kealy claimed that “it’s a bit early to rule anything in or out definitively!”.

Back in the real world, The Irish Mail On Sunday wrote that Una Healy from The Saturdays was apparently interested. An unnamed RTÉ source told the paper that “Una would be a great choice for Ireland’s Eurovision entry… She has an amazing voice and has years of experience performing in front of thousands of people so nerves wouldn’t be a problem for her.” That was reported back in December.

More recently, one-time The X Factor contestant Janet Devlin both started and ended speculation that she could be Ireland’s Eurovision 2019 representative. When a fan shared a “rumour” that Janet could be singing for Ireland she tweeted a cheeky reply – “Shh no one can know”. After her record label jumped on the bandwagon she was forced to tweet a denial.

Shh no one can know ? https://t.co/xcF19oJqwn — Janet Devlin (@JanetJealousy) February 22, 2019

Too far guys ???? https://t.co/EExOFyMHh6 — Janet Devlin (@JanetJealousy) February 24, 2019

There has also been social media theories surrounding two up-and-coming male artists — Ryan Mack and FLYNN. This arose from cryptic social media posts. The former’s teasing turned out to be about concert dates, the latter was collaborating with Lost Frequencies.

What do you think? Who could be Ireland’s Eurovision 2019 representative? Are you excited to hear the song? Let us know in the comments.