The Organisation des Amateurs de l’Eurovision, or OGAE for short, is the largest Eurovision Song Contest fan network in the world. Founded in Finland in 1984, the network now includes more than 40 national clubs across Europe and beyond, with over 18,000 individual members.
Get to know us
OGAE Ireland is the Irish national club, and with over 500 individual members, we are one of the fastest-growing national clubs within the OGAE network. Proportionally we are the largest club in Europe.
OGAE Ireland was born out of an idea in the early 1990s. That idea was to create a group where like-minded people could share their love and enthusiasm for the Eurovision Song Contest.
- The club was set up by Eurovision fan Johnnie Walsh and, in the beginning, had just a handful of members.
- Charles Meagher took over in 1997
- In 2004, Charles stepped down, and Diarmuid Furlong was elected the new President.
- When Diarmuid took over the presidency, the Fan Club had 19 members, and by 2022 it had 250 members.
- In April 2022, an election was held amongst members to select a new president, which in turn saw Frank Dermody elected as the new incoming president for OGAE Ireland.
Each year, our annual meetups allow members to get together and meet special guests linked to the contest, all followed by the obligatory Eurovision disco.
OGAE Ireland has a very strong working relationship with RTE, our national television station, and the previous president, Diarmuid, has been on the judging panel for the past number of years to pick the Irish entries for EuroSong, our National final.
We of course, go to the festival every May as it is the highlight of the year! We try to get as many members to go, it really is the best time when we can all get together for the thing we love the most!
Our umbrella organisation, OGAE International, works closely with the EBU and each year’s host broadcaster to try to secure member access to special fan ticket packages. Access to tickets depends very much on each year’s contest organisers and both prices and availability vary accordingly. Demand from members is usually very high indeed and we only receive a limited allocation of ticket packages, so OGAE Ireland uses a ballot system to determine which members are able to buy the tickets on offer. Please remember that such packages are a bonus and not a right, and that membership of our club is about a lot more than getting access to Eurovision tickets.
We offer “sole” memberships for one individual and “joint” memberships for two people living at the same address. Membership rights are identical for both categories, except that joint members only receive one copy of any publication we make. Residents on the Island of Ireland should select the appropriate Irish membership, residents of all other countries should select the appropriate Overseas membership.
