Fr Ray Kelly – ‘I could win the Eurovision’

Singing and dancing priest Fr Ray Kelly said if he was chosen for the Eurovision the song he entered could be a winner for Ireland.

Fifty years on from Irish singer Dana Rosemary Scallon’s win with the song ‘All Kinds of Everything’ in 1970, Meath-based Fr Kelly said he would be “shocked and amazed” to be chosen.

“I have had a great interest in the show, I’ve watched it from my early teens from going back to Johnny Logan in 1980 and even before, I was in school when Dana won it,” Fr Kelly said.

The song, written for him by two musicians, is called ‘Hallelujah Day’ and will be on the priest’s new album set to be released by Easter.

‘Unreal
 song’

Asked whether he thought the song could win the song contest he said: “Personally I think it could, I’d be biased though.

“It’s an unreal song, it’s fabulous. It’s a Gospel song with a country-western flavour to it. I think it would go down brilliantly, the chorus is so simple I could just see the whole auditorium joining in.”

Fr Ray prefaced his comments saying: “My first love first of all is my priesthood, and that’s number one in my life.”

As this paper was going to press, RTÉ did not confirm whether the Eurovision contestant had already been chosen, but told this paper it will be revealed in the “next three to four weeks”.

Fr Ray said that even if someone else had been chosen: “I would still love to, that doesn’t stop me from having that desire to, I would have loved to have gone to Rotterdam this year and to represent Ireland would have been such a great privilege.”

Currently the priest, who is based in Oldcastle, is competing in Dancing with the Stars and has stayed in the competition by popular vote despite receiving low scores from the judges.

Popular
 vote

Fr Kelly said he would be happy whether knocked out or not. He said: “It looks like I’m getting a popular vote from the people of Ireland at the moment.

“And it’s not particularly for my dancing but maybe for my entertainment or my popularity in other ways, or maybe the Hallelujah story resonated with a lot of people as well, there’s a lot of things going on there.”

“My logic is that it’s bringing happiness and liveliness to people’s lives for an hour or two, and if I can do that maybe not with my dancing but with my popularity and the fact that I’m a bit of an entertainer, then bring it on.”

Fr Ray will be competing for a fifth time this Saturday.