THE OFFER by the taoiseach’s department of a Eurovision reception for 300 people in Iveagh House was considered so small it would “merely create lasting bad feeling on the part of the visiting delegates”, according to files in the 1981 State papers.
RTÉ and the department of posts and telegraphs raised their concerns at the “unthinkable” suggestion in discussions with the Department of the Taoiseach a month before the broadcaster hosted the song contest in Dublin on April 4th.
The offer arose after RTÉ had requested a State reception at Dublin Castle for the international delegates.
RTÉ “would not be interested in availing of the State apartment on those conditions”, the broadcaster told members of the taoiseach’s protocol section.
Minister for posts and telegraphs Albert Reynolds considered the “only feasible option to be a State reception with around 800 guests in the State Apartments”, a letter to the taoiseach’s office said.
Haughey agreed to an 800- person party at Dublin Castle, but a report in The Irish Timessaid there were more than 1,000 present.
A note by a civil servant in the taoiseach’s office said “there is much ballyhoo” about the contest but that it was a “valuable and popular public forum” for the taoiseach or a minister, with “wide media coverage”.
Haughey was unable to attend because of a Fianna Fáil dinner in Galway hosted by then TD Máire Geoghegan-Quinn. According to a civil servant’s note, Geoghegan-Quinn said that the dinner could go ahead on Eurovision night (with or without him) as “the people who would be attending would not be very interested in the song contest”.
Reynolds went to the contest in Haughey’s place.
The Eurovision Song Contest was won by Britain's entry, Bucks Fizz, singing Making Your Mind Upwith its now infamous ripping-off-skirt dance routine.
