Eurovision endeavour for Gaelic choir

Gaelic choir Alba's Eurovision dreams for 2019 are over but they still did Scotland proud.

 

Scotland's Eurovision Choir hopefuls made their first appearance in the major competition in Gothenburg, Sweden, on Saturday but failed to make it to the top three. However, they did make lots of new friends and showcased the Gaelic language on a European stage in front of millions of TV viewers.

 

Taynuilt’s Davy and Audrey Paterson were among Alba's voices, with the men wearing kilts from a new tartan made specially for the occasion.

 

Mr Paterson said: 'We had a  blast. We're not too disappointed we didn't win because we did our best and did Scotland proud. It's the first time Scotland has been represented and we hope it won't be the last.

 

'It was a wonderful experience and we've already been invited to go and visit some of the other choirs to sing in their countries. They were all a great bunch of people. We hope Alba will continue to sing together as a choir now and perform at other events in the future.'

 

Alba's members were all handpicked by choir leader Joy Dunlop, herself from Connel, a Mòd winner and BBC weather presenter.

 

Out of 35 choristers in the choir, seven others also came from Argyll. They were Donna Dugdale and Riona Whyte from Mull, Sileas Sinclair from Connel, Nicola Pearson from Oban, Fiona Munro from Ardrishaig, Ainsley Hamill from Cardross, and Hector Mackechnie from Lochaline.

 

There were nine other countries taking part in the hard-fought contest but in the end it was all between Denmark, Latvia and Slovenia - Denmark won.