National Song Contest Competing entries RTÉ opened a submission period for composers to submit songs between 6 November 1968 and 1 January 1969. Composers had to be Irish-born or live in Ireland and could only submit a maximum of two songs each. RTÉ received 560 submissions and selected 8 songs from the received submissions and then assigned artists to those songs.
Final The fifth National Song Contest was held on Sunday 16 February 1969 from the RTÉ studios in
Dublin and was broadcast on RTÉ Television, and hosted by
Brendan O'Reilly. The winning song was decided by 10 regional juries throughout
Ireland. The fifth National Song Contest is notable for featuring all four of Ireland's previous representatives (
Butch Moore,
Dickie Rock,
Sean Dunphy, and
Pat McGeegan), as well as the 1969 representative (
Muriel Day) and the future 1970 representative (
Dana). ==At Eurovision==