Ireland 2014 - Billy McGuinness v Linda Martin v Louis Walsh

The Irish Eurosong contest is always crowbarred into the middle of the achingly parochial talkshop The Late Late Show. The five songs on offer this year were to a unit pretty unremarkable tunes, but one thing made this national final stand head and shoulders above all other this year - fight night!

Four songs had already dredged alone politely before Billy McGuinness, the mentor for song number five kicked straight into a bitter tirade about Louis Walsh's validity as a panel member - linked as he was to a couple of the acts.

And boy did he go. Whether he's a naturally angry man, or had started on the pop a bit earlier than everyone else, he ripped into Louis Walsh before slightly apologetically announcing his charge Laura O'Neill's tune. But it was after her almost overlooked performance that things really got interesting, as Slugger Martin stood up and tottered right into McGuinness's face like an angry drag queen made out of an old leather sofa.

The rest is magic that you'll have to watch for yourself. You can only feel for Poor Laura. The song might be the kind of thing you normally see sung in a holiday bar in Malta, but she didn't deserve that, bless her.

Oh, and here's her song, just in case you're interested. But the events that surrounded her performance certainly overshadowed the song itself.

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