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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Entertainment
Sandra Mallon

Wild Youth break silence on Eurovision heartbreak - 'We're sorry we couldn’t get through to final'

Wild Youth have broken their silence since crashing out of the Eurovision Song Contest.

The band were sent home after they failed to impress jurors in Liverpool on Tuesday night during the semi-final with their song, We Are One.

The group have now broken their silence, admitting their disappointment saying, “we tried our best”.

Taking to Instagram on Thursday, Wild Youth penned: “We’ve taken a minute to just breath after Tuesday. But we just wanna say thank you.

READ MORE: RTE Late Late Show Eurovision selection method under scrutiny after Wild Youth's disappointing result

“Thank you everyone who supported us, thank you to all our team. Michael, Evan, Frielo, Deirdre, Helen Mollie, Jennifer. It’s a journey we will never forget.

“The beautiful cities we played – Madrid, Tel Aviv, Warsaw, Barcelona, London, Amsterdam. Thank you for nights we won’t forget. We can’t wait to come back.

“Our family, friends, girlfriends who have been by our side through highs and lows. I’m sorry we couldn’t get through to the final. But we tried our best, thanks to the @eurovision for this opportunity.”

The band added: “We love you all. Le grá, Wild Youth.”

Irish band Wild Youth failed to qualify in the first of the two semi-finals ahead of Saturday's grand final (Getty)

It comes after lead singer Conor O’Donohoe was spotting storming out of the Liverpool Arena moments after the top ten acts were revealed on stage.

He then took to Instagram to vent his anger, before removing the post on Wednesday morning.

He said in the now deleted post: “We did everything we could. Michael Kealy [RTE’s Eurovision Head of Delegation] was amazing,” he wrote. “But the truth is they never give Ireland a chance, sorry if we let you down. We tried our best.”

On Wednesday, RTE’s Eurovision Irish Head of Delegation Michael Kealy blamed the station for being “underfunded” when selecting acts to represent us.

“One of the things I always say and I’m not going to win any popularity contest is that RTE has been chronically underfunded for decades and it shows particularly when it comes to us putting on entertainment shows.

“I think we do news and current affairs and dramas very well but when it comes to entertainment you need scale to make it look as impressive as a show you would see in other European countries.

“Our facilities in RTE aren’t sufficient for shows like that.”

He said other smaller countries have much more “modern facilities” when it comes to broadcasting these types of shows.

Asked if he thought RTE will separate the selection process from the Late Late Show next year, he said: “I honestly don’t know at the moment because that’ll be a conversation to have with heads in the entertainment department in RTE and with the incoming Late Late Show team so I don’t know.”

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