1971

There were some interesting changes to the first contest to be held in Ireland. It was the first contest to be introduced in Gaelic, the first time Irish folk dancing had been seen, and there was a new voting system in place. The new system comprised of two jurors from each nation, who awarded between 1-5 points to each song. This method also had its flaws, as once a mark had been given, it could not be changed, so jurors who gave an early song 5 points, could not give a later song (even if they thought it was better) more points. An example is France who gave in total 107 points (an average of 6.3 per song), and Luxembourg who awarded only 42 points ( an average of only 2.4 points per song).