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Suffered physical and verbal abuse
Ireland : Joe McCaul left broken inside after Eurovision
Fresh out of RTE's Failte Towers programme, the bubbly young singer described how he was spat at on the street and regularly suffered physical and verbal abuse as a result of his poor placement in the song contest. The 20-year-old Athlone man also said he regrets taking part in the song contest because of the hassle it caused for him and his family afterwards. Speaking as he embarked on a career re-launch that will see him feature in the role of Tickles in The Sleeping Beauty pantomime in the Helix this November, Mr McCaul said: If I'd known what the Eurovision was going to bring, I wouldn't have gone, not in a million years. It wasn't worth the hassle afterwards. I went over thinking it was great. I was only 17 years old and I had the world at my feet and I thought nothing could go wrong, but boy, was I wrong." "I've had people spit on me. I'd be walking by and they'd spit on my shoe or on the ground beside me and I'd have to kind of hold myself up. My friends were very loyal and they used to end up in fights trying to protect me from physical and verbal abuse. I was broken, broken inside.
He continued: It was quite tough, especially on my family. It got very personal. I would literally be walking down the street in my home town afterwards and people would be roaring nasty things out the window, saying: 'You were f**king sh**e', not only in Athlone but in other towns as well. "They'd be saying: 'Oh there's that pair from the Eurovision, they disgraced the country'. And it was constant. There used to be times when I used to go out and say: 'If I didn't do that bloody contest I could just go up the town and get drunk and go home', but it didn't happen that way. "I can think of a few low points but I don't want to go into it right now. It's something I'm trying to forget.
However, Joe McCaul moved to rubbish reports that he attempted suicide last year when he had to be pulled out of a stretch of the river Shannon near his home. It was nice out that evening and I decided to have a few drinks. Myself and my friends were out on a jetty by the water and we weren't messing or anything. I was sitting on the jetty and I literally just fell in, I don't know how it happened but I can't swim. I had to be brought to hospital for hypothermia. I could've drowned but thank God I didn't.
He also described how he believes entering the competition led to both him and his sister being taken advantage of, while at the same time he feels it stunted his education. I think I was taken advantage of in certain aspects. I don't know how much money people made from us; we didn't see much of it anyway. In total I think we made about €15,000 each. I think we should have gotten more but we didn't. Speaking about his regret at putting his singing career before his education, he said: I didn't get to finish my Leaving Cert either because I had to drop out of school. I was five months out of my final year because there was so much hype around the competition; we had to be up five days a week. I feel annoyed about not finishing school. I would have liked to have gone to college to do psychotherapy and counselling or musical theatre. But who knows, maybe in the future.
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Molly
There's a difference between a funny looking act and just instantly dismissing a song as a joke entry. That places it in the same crowd as Dustin and Rodolfo and it just doesn't belong there. And I used Diana as an example of how useless Terry Wogan is as a commentator - i mean, if you don't even tell your viewers that then what are you doing in the booth?! The whole point of having a commentator is that you don't have to figure these things out for yourself..
As for NOS, well that is exactly what i'm talking about. With 'enthusiastic about Eurovision' i mean that I find it amazing that noone has decided to stop participation yet, because under the current voting system there are few countries as disadvantaged and Europe doesn't seem to give a sh*t about any music we send. It's been coming for years. Belgium is a different country altogether.
Muireanne
Oh yes I was there. There was an Irish-Icelandic party. You've never seen the likes. Even the Irish delegation thought he was a tit (singing and er dancing on the table and generally thinking he was the bee's knees). When they left the hotel after the contest, even Donna looked like she had more than enough. Ireland deserves much better than him and the turkey - it's God's country. I love you Ireland! Who'd have thought it - Dana National was right all along! Bring back the Mullans.
Finn P
She was hanging out the washing on the line looking like Cleo Rocos in 1983. If that isn't supposed to be funny then you Dutch are a serious crowd, and no mistake. And if you didn't spot that Diana Gurtskaya was at the very least extremely short sighted wearing those spot welding glasses then what did you think she was doing? Shielding her eyes from the blazing 11pm Belgrade sun? Plus it's the first I've heard that NOS was enthusiastic about Eurovision. They have even stopped hosting the parties at Eurovision Song Contests where they hand out hundreds of pieces of Edam on sticks and decorate some pub with purple tulips. But maybe that's not altogether a bad thing. I am still waiting for a Belgian Eurovision promotion show. The last one was Sergio in 2002 only nobody went, but the evening was quite fab.
@Molly
Did you actually bother to read the part of my post that said but that there were a lot of small references to Balkan customs and songs in the song and that that explained how it looked..? It wasn't a very long post. surely you must have noticed.
I would stop watching the NOS if they fired Cornald Maas. He's a very dedicated and professional commentator and contrary to people like mr wogan, he deigns to tell the viewers things about the singers (such as Diana Gurtskaya being blind) rather than slur and drool over the postcard vids.
I'm quite convinced he's influential in keeping NOS enthusiastic about the ESC, because even unlike myself, he has always been a very good sport regarding the results.
I doubt that people were spitting at him in the street because they didn't qualify from the semi-final. Nobody here would care enough to get that angry about it. As wrong as it is that he went through it, Donna & Joe were never taken seriously in Ireland as a legitimate music act and were easy targets for yobs that want to be tough and stupid.
2005 was a great year, i managed to watch it live. Joe wasn't that bad on stage - he sounded better than portugal and belarus. But poor him about the abuse
Well he was only 17 and it's not nice that he is spat on in the street. But believe me in Kiev he behaved like a complete tit for an entire week.
You've seen him there? Poor you... I do not approve the spitting on him (or his sister), but he is a twit... and that's something we don't like much here in Ireland.
Further on about Ireland 2008... just one thing for those who blame the turkey not being as funny as Verka.
A rich mans' joke is always funny isn't it?
true fantasy
fair enough but I think the grilled turkey joke has been done to death now. And the BBQ one.
Finn P
Your commentator went to great lengths to explain that Bosnia wasn't a joke entry? They should fire him. I think the correct expression is that he was pissing into a very strong headwind.
Re: Joe McCaul
Well he was only 17 and it's not nice that he is spat on in the street. But believe me in Kiev he behaved like a complete tit for an entire week.
Disgraceful. No other words for it. Esc history is filled with failed experiments, but without these entries nothing new would ever get written. I applaud them for trying this format, shame it didnt work.
By the way, our commentator went to great lengths to explain that Bosnia was not a joke entry, but that there were a lot of small references to Balkan customs and songs in the song and that that explained how it looked. How come everyone here says its a joke entry?
I've started listening to 'love' again, and I 
it! 
@ dark magix
don't say that it not nice 
so what they didn't go the finals at least they didn't get 0 points at the esc and that Dustin the turkey song geting so boring that i can't geting out of head.
poor guy.
"give the senior a chance"....
if it comforts him Dustin was even worst.
on Joe people maybe spit. but Dustin?....my oh my....if i were Dustin i would be afraid to walk the street. always can have the chance to be hunted and to be on the BBQ or Grill.
:-)
I'm very sorry to read this. That song wasn't that bad at all, on the contrary, it should have qualified. In fact, that's my favourite Irish entry after 1998. Unlike most other Irish entries last years (being often among the most boring ones), the melodious song "Love?'" definitely didn't bring shame upon Ireland (in spite of the modest score). And the performers looked so simple, nice and open-hearted, they made the impression of somebody taking part at ESC with their whole heart.
The song was abysmal but poor Joe
I hated the Irish entry in 2006 and he was certainly not very graceful for the performance, but at least he was in tune! Anyway violence should never be used.
These "people" who attacked the singers should be confined to a cage, which they could share with an anaconda, for example. Awful idiots.
OK back to the real subject of this article!!
I just watched their performance again and I can confirm I loved it! It was great, everything was great, there was a well choreographed dance routine (loving the riverdance interlude btw!), its incredibly catchy (i'll probably be whilsting it for weeks now), i'm proud we gave them 12 points and the best thing . . . those backing dancers have got it going on!! !
Although I do wonder why Donna made a really high pitched squeal just before the riverdance part started . . . . . maybe one of the camera-men gave her a wedgie or something lol!?!??!? 
why dont you all take a valium and stop talking about Dustin or whatever?
stupid queens !
lol! despite this nice linguistic analisis of the masterpiece of Dustin i still think this entry did not make any point or a useful contribution to the contemporary state of the contest.
I am more concerned about the main content of the articleI i agree with Stehen on this). I menn am i the only one here to find all this dragging into the dirt a former irish contestant, just becuase his entry failed to deliver a good score so blatantly unashamed, berbaric and totally inapropriate? I am still shocked and moved by the shallowness and the cruelty and the insanity of those irish people who made the life of this young man and artist almost ahell. and this comes from the country which boostes off t call itself "the spiritual home of the contest.Are these the value and the idea behind the contest? to "throw stones" to the participants who did not deliver? I ahv never ever heard such a bad and strong and unacceptably bad reaction against any participant who even came last in any other ESC country. I am wondering what kind oof values some people in this specific country have, i really do..
If you want to complain about Dustin, complain about how Greece objected to Dustin mentioning "Macedonia" in the song, and Ireland forced Dustin to remove it from the lyrics.
Noone was complaining about anything, we were just talking. And that comment was totally irrelevant.
Please! Enough about Dustin!!! This article was about a previous Irish entry, not Ireland's ESC 2008 entry! If you want to complain about Dustin, complain about how Greece objected to Dustin mentioning "Macedonia" in the song, and Ireland forced Dustin to remove it from the lyrics.
I wonder if Sweden would have voted for Ireland had we been in the same semi. Personally I liked Dustin
Yes, Muireanne but you added everyone who cares about what's happening to the ESC nowadays would read it as "why did we come up with this piece of sh*t now, did it all come to this? and I don't see what's the connection with 'what's happening to ESC nowadays'...has a joke entry ever won Eurovision? Even in televoting years? How many joke entries go to Eurovision anyway? Very, very few. So...how would someone make the connection with what's happening to eurovision???
Suggestion Mina: read that first line again (the actual line from the song).
Doesn't he say: ...that KNOWS...? Mean, we still know how to write a good no? Otherwise he would have said "that KNEW"
And now I'm teaching English already... God, no! Just stop this discussion ok.
Ok, let me tell you what I thought he meant.
I took that to mean 'we used to write good songs and we used to win, now we don't do well anymore because we don't write good songs...what's wrong with us?'
I never even thought that that phrase was about Eurovision in general..I only thought of Ireland and the fact that they don't write good songs anymore.
First translation no? Isn't this: "why did we come up with this piece of sh*t now, if we useually are much better", exactly the same Mina?
Very first words of the song: "I come from a nation that knows how to write a song, oh Europe where did it all go wrong"
You would see this as "why did we come up with this piece of sh*t now, if we useually are much better"... everyone wh cares about what's happening to the ESC nowadays would read it as "why did we come up with this piece of sh*t now, did it all come to this?
Ok, let me tell you what I thought he meant.
I took that to mean 'we used to write good songs and we used to win, now we don't do well anymore because we don't write good songs...what's wrong with us?'
I never even thought that that phrase was about Eurovision in general..I only thought of Ireland and the fact that they don't write good songs anymore.
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