The Eurovision Song Contest 1993 was the 38th Eurovision Song Contest and was held on May 15, 1993 in Millstreet, County Cork, Republic of Ireland. The presenter was Fionnuala Sweeney. Niamh Kavanagh was the winner of this Eurovision for Ireland with the song, "In Your Eyes." This was Ireland's fifth victory, and equalled the tally of five Eurovision victories achieved by France in 1977 and Luxembourg in 1983. In the run-up to this contest, the European Broadcasting Union finally started to grapple with the explosion in the number of potential participating countries, caused by the dissolution of the Eastern bloc, and also by the disintegration of Yugoslavia, which had traditionally been the only communist country that took part in the contest. For the first time, then, a pre-qualifying round was introduced, but only for countries that had either never participated in the contest at all, or in the case of former republics of Yugoslavia, had not previously competed as nations in their own right. This was, however, merely a 'sticking-plaster' measure that was plainly not a sustainable solution for future years, as it would not be seen as remotely equitable. But in the meantime, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania and Estonia were left to battle it out in a special competition called Kvalifikacija za Millstreet in Ljubljana on April 3rd for the mere three places available at the grand final in Millstreet. After some extremely tight voting, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia edged through. Source: Wikipedia
