Brendan Murray didn’t make it through for Ireland (Picture: Getty Images)

The Netherlands and Austria have been announced as the final countries to make it through to the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest after the second semi final on Thursday night.

After 18 performances from 18 hopefuls, a public vote added to the previous jury vote saw only ten countries qualify for Saturday’s grand final, while the last eight will be sadly taking early flights home.

One of those packing his bags is Ireland’s Brendan Murray, who was reportedly picked by Louis Walsh.

Sadly he failed to make it through to the final; last year’s entry, former boyband member Nicky Byrne, also failed to make it to the finals.




Bulgaria were announced as the first country to go through, just hours after they were cleared to compete earlier following media media reports that Kristian Kostov, who performed Beautiful Mess for the country, had performed in Crimea after Russia annexed the territory from Ukraine.

Kostov is only 17 and is bidding to become the first Eurovision winner born in this millennium.

The ten countries to go through to the Eurovision finals Bulgaria Belarus Croatia Hungary Denmark Israel Romania Norway Netherlands Austria

Belarus and Hungary both bought the folk factor to the ceremony, while Israel’s heartthrob Imri went through – possibly the country’s final time in the annual singing contest.

Like Australia, Israel’s public broadcaster is a member of the European Broadcasting Union and that’s the qualification for being able to compet, however Israel’s public broadcasting channel IBA closed down this week and will be replaced by a new station next week – and the problem is, it won’t be airing news content, making it ineligible to be a member of the European Broadcasting Union.

imri of Israel (Picture: Ronen Akerman)

The results are collated from televoting by each country and jury votes by country.

The juries voted during the second dress rehearsal on Monday nigh but the individual scores are kept secret until after Saturday’s Eurovision final to prevent tactical voting or betting market issues.

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