1) Pavlo Hrytsak: OGAE has received full requested quota of tickets, in fact number of tickets requested by fan network were returned unsold.

2) Jon Ola Sand: No decision on Russia/Ukraine case until next reference group meeting in June. No decision has been drafted. Decision will be taken based on rules, but also considering special situation. Ukrainian decision to ban entrance to Russian entrant undermines non-political nature of the contest.

3) Second semifinal: Hosts will be playing instruments in the opening act: Vova playing accordion and Alex playing sopilka. Both will play live. Then there is mix of Fairytale/Euphoria/My Number One/ Rise Like a Phoenix rearranged in the Ukrainian style with dance performance

Interval act: Contemporary dance by Apache Crew with 51 dancers.

4) No preliminary dates for 2018 yet, but they will be announced by the end of the week.

5) One minute before the 1st semi show there was broken led element in the floor of the stage, it was replaced with 2 seconds to spare. There were issues with 2 minute loss of connection for Australian commentary.

The Irish singer, Brendan Murray took some time out form his hectic schedule to enjoy a city tour of Kyiv. This very beautiful city is a perfect backdrop for Eurovision and it seemed that Brendan liked the look of the place

Ireland perform in Semi Final Two on Thursday and for all the articles we have prepared so far for this delegation please click the tag at the top of this page "Ireland" or "Brendan Murray"

Thanks to team Ireland, RTE and Rayna Connery for the photos