My Eurovision trophy’s been stolen, reveals Shay Healy
SHAY Healy has called on the ‘light-fingered jacko’ who took his Eurovision trophy from his home to drop it back on a ‘no questions asked’ basis
The trophy, won by the songwriter in 1980, was recently stolen from his Dublin home.
He received the award for the song What’s Another Year, which was performed by Johnny Logan. It was Ireland’s second Eurovision win.
The gong, which was sitting in his bathroom, accounted for the second out of the record seven times Ireland has won the competition. In his weekly Saturday column with the Irish Daily Mail entertainment section, Healy issues a scathing tirade toward the thief.
He writes: ‘Some low-down, dirty rotten, low-life thug, some audacious, irrelevant, disrespectful and rude ass***e has stolen my Eurovision Trophy which I won in The Hague in Holland in 1980.’
Taking the robbery on the chin, Healy managed to find one positive from the ordeal. ‘Mind you,’ he writes, ‘the light-fingered Jacko who shagged off with my trophy may have solved the problem for me in obviating the need for me to make a decision as to which of my two sons will inherit the plastic geegaw.’
Healy, 74, says the trophy has sentimental value for him but he cannot understand why somebody would have stolen it.
‘Who would steal such a thing?’ he writes. ‘It’s not like it was any great shakes as a piece of art.
‘It was a clear, plastic, multilayered ornament that had a gold coin floating in the interior of it. Is there now some young fellow in his bedroom standing in front of a mirror with a hairbrush in his hand pretending he’s Johnny Logan, while my precious award sits on his mantelpiece forlorn and bereft of its proper home?’
Despite his annoyance, Healy says he just wants the prize back. ‘I’m not that fussed about awards and trophies but I resent somebody screwing with my musical history,’ he said.
‘So, I’ve a message to whoever took my trophy: if you find yourself passing, you can always drop it back. No questions asked.’
Healy presented late-night chat show Nighthawks which ran for four years between 1988 and 1992.
It was on Nighthawks that revelations surrounding the illegal wire-tapping of Irish journalists a decade earlier came to light when Healy interviewed former Fianna Fáil justice minister Seán Doherty. The disclosure led to the resignation of then-taoiseach Charles Haughey.
‘Drop it back, no questions asked’