Free Baby You're a Star by Kathy Foley Page B

what I like. I always have been like that. I’ve always done what I wanted to do.”

    When Louis stopped managing Johnny Logan, the two had agreed to regroup if the opportunity arose. No one thought Logan would ever consider participating again in the Eurovision, which had caused him so much grief in the past. Though he was scorched by the Eurovision experience, he still had a deep desire to succeed. The attraction of fame and popular acclaim proved a strong incentive. In 1992, when Louis approached Logan once more and urged him to write a song for Linda Martin, he agreed.
    “To win the Eurovision Song Contest was a big thing. You were literally catapulted into superstardom all over Europe,” explains Linda Martin.
    “I’m not a singer/songwriter, so we reckoned we would clinch a very lucrative career if we could win the Eurovision. So Louis went off and did what he usually does, looking for songs and writers and all sorts of things. Johnny Logan had been a pal of ours for many years. Johnny had came up the song in 1984 and we came second that year. So we thought, ‘that was close, let’s go again’.”
    Logan wrote a song called Why Me? for Martin to perform. If nothing else, he had extensive experience of the Eurovision and he was satisfied that Why Me? was a possible contender for the National Song Contest.
    It was Martin’s ninth time entering the Contest. Since 1984, she had entered on another two occasions, in 1989; when she came sixth and in 1990; when she came second. Her luck had to change eventually. In 1992, Martin won the Irish Contest.
    “It’s called perseverance,” says Louis of the effort. “It’s called trying, trying, trying. I thought Chips were perfect for the Eurovision. The boys and the girls, like Brotherhood of Man or Bucks Fizz. I thought they were great, but the Irish public always voted for the wrong song. She wanted it so badly. But Why Me? was the perfect ballad. We were out to win, totally, totally.“
    The 1992 Contest was held in the Swedish city of Malmo. Competition was quite stiff that year, par-ticularly as the UK had sent musical heavyweight Michael Ball, who was at the peak of his fame as a singer. Ball had fame on his side, but Martin gave a better performance on the night. She won the Euro-vision with 155 points to Ball’s 137. It wasn’t just a Eurovision win, it was vindication for her, for Logan, and for Louis; that they had been right to persevere with the Eurovision.
    The night was even more special for Louis, as he had always stood by Martin and she was one of the few close friends he had in the music business. The 1992 contest also marked a landmark for Johnny Logan. With his ambition of a third win fulfilled, he finally stepped away from the Eurovision. “I will never take part in the Eurovision again. This is the last time you will see me here,” he vowed to reporters. True to his word, he never did enter another song into the Contest.

    Martin arrived home in Ireland to acclaim but not to adulation. Her Eurovision win was overshadowed by far bigger news. On the same weekend, Bishop Eamonn Casey, one of the better known and most outspoken members of the Irish clergy, had admitted that he had a lengthy relationship with a woman named Annie Murphy, fathered her son, and “borrowed” £70,000 from diocesan funds to make maintenance payments. Ireland was gripped by the story, the first of many scandals to rock the Irish Catholic Church. Page after page of the newspapers and hour after hour of air-time was devoted to the subject, leaving little media space for Louis to exploit.
    “At that stage the Eurovision had sort of plummeted and, although certainly career-wise it was a wonderful thing that happened and I still live off it to a certain extent, it just wasn’t the monumental thing that it was in years gone by,” says Martin.
    “We kind of knew that the Eurovision wasn’t as big as it was but it was still guaranteed to work and guaranteed to raise your