Ryan O'Shaughnessy to represent Ireland in Lisbon!

Ireland's search for its Eurovision 2018 has been going on since last summer. In August last year, RTÉ held a Eurovision Song Contest Forum and invited key industry professionals, songwriters and performers to come to RTÉ to gain a deeper insight into the present day contest from international Eurovision experts and key RTÉ decision makers. 

Over 300 songs were submitted to RTÉ for consideration for Eurovision 2018 before the November deadline. The song Together was chosen after being selected by a panel of music industry professionals who listened to and judged the shortlisted final entries. 

Together was purposefully written for the Eurovision Song Contest by writers working in The Nucleus, a new Irish songwriting team and hub, founded by Hamlet Sweeney, that brings the international model of collaborative songwriting to Ireland. The song will be released in the coming weeks.

Ryan said, "As one of three songwriters on Together, I’m delighted it has been chosen to represent Ireland in Eurovision 2018, and on top of that, to be asked to perform for my country is an absolute honour. I plan on doing Ireland proud by bringing a song and performance to Eurovision that we haven’t seen since the days of Rock and Roll Kids. I can’t wait to get onto that stage and perform an honest piece for millions of people." 

About Ryan

Ryan O’Shaughnessy was born in 1992 into a musical family, and became a student of Billy Barrie at the age of 4. When  he was 8 years old an opportunity arose for Ryan to play the character Mark Halpin in RTÉ’s Fair City, a role he played for almost a decade. He matured as Damien Halpin’s younger brother and spent his teen years on the Irish screens. By the age of 17, music had become a priority for the North County Dublin native, and he left Fair City to pursue a career in music. 

While studying at BIMM Dublin as a songwriter in 2012, Ryan penned his first collection of songs. Prior to the release of these songs, Ryan appeared on the finals of both The Voice of Ireland and Britain’s Got Talent in the same year. In his opening audition on Britain’s Got Talent, Ryan performed his now well known, self-penned song No Name which has had over 45 million hits on YouTube. He also recorded his own video:

Ryan returned to the semi finals with another self penned song First Kiss. Ryan was signed to Sony UK under Colin Barlow. While there, he worked on his EP which reached No.1 in Ireland for three consecutive weeks and reached No.9 in the UK charts. During this time Ryan toured the length and breadth of the UK and Ireland.   

In July 2013, it was announced that Ryan would be one of the artists taking part in the new Irish songwriting competition The Hit, going up against his former The Voice of Ireland coach Brian Kennedy.  O'Shaughnessy chose to release Who Do You Love? to enter the chart battle against Kennedy and won the battle with the single charting at No.3 in the Irish single charts.   

Being placed on the global songwriting map at a young age, Ryan has had the pleasure of travelling and writing with some of the world’s greatest, including, Julia Fordham, Grammy Award winner Joy Williams, Mark Nevin, and multi platinum selling songwriter Kimmie Rhodes, as well as writing and working for different publishing companies and studios. 

In the last three years O’Shaughnessy has toured the USA and Canada. His love for songwriting and producing has seen him release music for himself and other artists through his recording label and studio Bayview. Ryan plays guitar, piano and saxophone and released his latest album Back to Square One, last year.