May 21, 2008 10:39

Ireland's Dustin The Turkey fails to make Eurovision final

Puppet knocked out in the semi-finals

Ireland will not be competing at the Eurovision Song Contest final on Saturday (May 24) after its entrant, a turkey puppet named Dustin, got knocked out at the semi-final stage yesterday (May 20).

The likes of Greece, Romania, Norway and Azerbaijan qualified from the heat to proceed to the final, but the unfortunate puppet will now have to head back to Ireland without the chance to represent his country, reports BBC News.

Dustin - a fixture on Irish television - sang 'Irelande Douze Pointe' at the heat in Serbia. He had previously released six albums of material.

Keith Mills of the Irish Eurovision website said: "It was a three-minute joke that wasn't especially funny, didn't work for an international audience and looked very messy on screen."