Cratloe support for Eurovision hopeful

A former You’re A Star winner hopes her strong Clare links will help her win enough votes to represent Ireland in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo.

Leanne Moore, who hails from Corbally, just inside the Limerick/Clare border, will be supported by two of her Cratloe relatives when she appears on the Late Late Show this Friday night.
Ms Moore, who won the You’re A Star competition in 2008, stays with her aunt and uncle, Mary and Tommy Joyce, in Cratloe during the weekends. Their son Jamie is the current Clare U-21 football goalkeeper.
Ms Moore also loves West Clare and cites Kilkee as her favourite haunt during the summer months.
She is completing a course in journalism and radio studies in Dublin, having earlier completed a degree in Theology and Philosophy at the University of Limerick.
Ms Moore told The Clare Champion that she needs all the votes she can muster to have a chance of fulfilling her dream to sing in the Eurovision Song Contest.
The talented 25-year-old singer is thrilled at the chance to compete to represent Ireland. “I can’t wait to get going. I love the song. It says something that I feel very deeply about the idea that this existence is just one phase of our journey.
“It’s kind of speculating about whether Heaven could be much better than the best bits down here! But probably more important, it’s a great pop song and I think perfect for Eurovision. When I heard the song I could immediately see it as a winner in Oslo,” she said.
The song, Does Heaven Need Much More? written by Tommy Moran and John Waters is one of the five qualifying entries in the final of Eurosong 2010 this Friday night. The song was chosen by a select panel of judges from 288 songs. John Waters, Irish Times journalist, said that the duo were blessed and thrilled to have Leanne sing the song.
“When people hear what she does with our song, I think our last song in Helsinki will be the last thing on anyone’s mind,” he said.
“When I saw her in You’re a Star, I saw a quality that you very rarely encounter. She can sing beautifully. She possesses a song and breathes herself into it and, of course, she looks amazing. But beyond that she has this instant likeability. You just want her to go wherever she wants to go,” he added.
Leanne is the daughter of the late Chris Deedigan Moore, who tragically died of cancer in 1993 aged just 33, when Leanne was just eight-years-old. Chris appeared on the Gerry Ryan Show in late 1992 to tell her story and said one of her ambitions had been to make a record. With the support of the show, she recorded two songs, Life Without You and This Time, which went to number one in the Irish charts on the day she died and held the number one slot for five weeks after her death.