On the Mooney Show today on Radio One there was more reaction to the Jedward appearance at Croke Park during the interval in the double header when Dublin took on football champions Cork and hurling champions Tipperary. Despite the 35,000 fans who showed up for the new format day out, there are those who are grumbling that it is not what the GAA is about.

Well what is the GAA about, if not the business of attracting young people to watch big games, and hopefully to play them too? Jedward have been Dublin GAA fans for years, and were the perfect attraction for the Dublin County Board whose clever marketing strategy achieved its goal – it got bums on seats.

The terrible twins from Lucan are a class act, and who cares if they are not vocally perfect.  They are the most energetic, athletic and entertaining performers to come this way in years, and they deserve all the success they are enjoying.

The snootiness around sending them to the Eurovision is just ridiculous. It is a long time since the Eurovision was a serious song contest.  These days it is the most dramatic, or the most outrageous, or even the most funky act that manages to break through the block voting system that has dominated the contest since European enlargement.

Last year we sent Niamh Kavanagh to represent us with an amazing song that I still find myself humming, It’s For You. She was head and shoulders above the other contestants with her absolute ownership of the stage and the cameras; a true diva with a brilliant voice and presence. And she came third last. 

So we were fooling ourselves if we thought that any of the other four songs in the national final this year were going to get noticed.  They were mundane, ordinary and just not good enough.  Thankfully the public voters had the wit to ignore what the over-polite and over-cautious judges said on the night, and gave their votes to the one act that is different – Jedward.

The boys are natural entertainers, and will bound onto that stage in Dusseldorf on May 14 and do us proud. And with all the training and vocal coaching they will have in the meantime, they might even sound good too, as if that counts for anything. The voice is a muscle like any other – it improves with exercise.

And speaking of Mooney, does anyone remember what he sounded like when he began broadcasting first?  Pretty darned awful, actually, but somebody in Montrose believed in him, and let him stay at it, and now he has enough flying hours under his belt to allow him sound half way decent. Now, what radio programme could we put Jedward on?