Irish Eurovision representative Emmy has been sampling food classics like the spice bag and the chicken fillet roll in a bid to become more Irish.
The Norwegian singer/TikToker qualified for the Eurovision on Friday night with her song Laika Party, backed by her brother Erlend on keyboards.
Emmy hadn’t set foot in Ireland before this week and told the Irish Mail on Sunday yesterday that the siblings have been ‘trying to become as Irish as we can by eating a lot of Irish food’ since arriving.
‘The spice bag was my favourite thing I’ve tasted this week – I loved it,’ she said, before admitting she botched her order for deli staple, the chicken fillet roll on another occasion.
‘This is actually hilarious. I didn’t really know how it worked. I didn’t know if I was going to tell her what to put in it or if it was a standard thing, and I asked for no dressing.
‘And then I just got a baguette with chicken and butter and nothing else. I would have gotten salad and tomatoes and corn if I new how it worked.’
The act’s Irishness may be tenuous – singer/ songwriter Larissa Tormey, one of five co-writers, has lived in Co. Westmeath for more than 20 years – but the people emphatically embraced Emmy on Friday night’s Eurosong.
Laika Party was the national jury’s number one pick and topped the public vote too, which meant ‘a lot’ to the 24-year-old, who as ‘concerned’ voters ‘would want me to be Irish’.
‘If we won and the public didn’t give us 12 points, I think I would feel a little sad, even though we won,’ she said. 'Because I really, really wanted the people to want this song to represent them. So I’m so, so grateful for that.’
Expectations were low enough that Emmy had planned to fly back to Norway yesterday afternoon, but will now stay until tomorrow to speak to media and plan the next steps. ‘I just can’t believe that this is happening,’ she enthused. ’
The idea for Laika Party, about the dog sent to space on the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 in 1957, came after the topic came up in a family quiz.
‘That got me thinking about her story, and that story is really, really sad,’ Emmy said. ‘And with my love for animals, I didn’t want that to be true, so I wanted to create a scenario or song where she doesn’t die, but where she lives on and is having her own party in the sky instead.’
The song, in the mould of a 90s/2000s Euro club smash, was co-written with Tormey at a songwriting camp in Norway, whose Eurovision team may yet regret letting it go.
Emmy said the Norwegian delegation ‘had access to all the songs’ at the camp, though doesn’t know for sure that it was heard.
‘With the song being partly Irish, it was very natural for us to send it here, and I’m so glad we did.’
Norway was assisted to its only Eurovision victory by Irish violinist Fionnuala Sherry – who with Rolf Lovland made up the duo Secret Garden – who won in 1995 with Nocturne.
Emmy said she ‘would love’ to return the favour 30 years on. ‘I don’t know if I will, but I will try my very best,’ she promised.
