Dana Rosemary Scallon (born Rosemary Brown; 30 August 1950Dana Rosemary SCALLON, entry at the Website of the European Parliament . European Parliament. Retrieved 2022-12-30.The Guardian List of birthdays 29 August 2026), known professionally as Dana (), is an Irish singer, songwriter and politician. While still a schoolgirl she won the Eurovision Song Contest 1970 with "All Kinds of Everything". It became a worldwide million-seller and launched her music career.
She entered politics in 1997, as Dana Rosemary Scallon, running unsuccessfully in the Irish presidential election, but later being elected as an MEP for Connacht–Ulster in 1999. Scallon was again an independent candidate in the Irish 2011 presidential election, but was eliminated on the first count. Scallon served as a politician as a Member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2004.
Background Scallon was born Rosemary Brown in Islington, London, England, one of seven children. Her father Robert Brown worked as a porter at nearby King's Cross station, in addition to being a barber and trumpeter. Originally from Derry, Northern Ireland, Robert moved his family to London to seek employment opportunities after World War II. Her mother was Sheila née Sheerin, also from Derry, and a talented musician. When Rosemary was five, she moved with her family back to Derry, where she grew up in the Creggan housing estate and Bogside.
At age six, Scallon won her first talent contest. Other children in her community nicknamed her "Dana" (Irish for bold or mischievous) because Scallon would practice judo moves. Scallon later attended Thornhill College, a girls' Catholic school in Derry. When she was 14, Scallon worked a summer job at the Bazooka chewing gum factory in Essex.
Shortly before turning 16 and with the help of teacher and music promoter Tony Johnston, Scallon signed with the Decca Records subsidiary label Rex Records. Performing as Dana, Scallon debuted with the single "Sixteen" written by Tony Johnston, while the B-side, "Little Girl Blue", was her own composition. Now studying A-level music and English, she became popular in Dublin's cabaret and folk clubs at weekends, and was crowned Queen of Cabaret at Clontarf Castle in 1968. Rex Records' secretary Phil Mitton suggested she audition for the Irish National Song Contest, due to take place in February 1969 – a victory would see her represent Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest. With mixed feelings due to nerves she made it through to the final in Dublin where she sang "Look Around" by Michael Reade, later released as her fourth single. Shown live on Irish television, Scallon came second to Muriel Day and "Wages of Love", also written by Reade.
1970s – Eurovision victory and pop career
In December 1969 Tom McGrath, producer of the Irish National Song Contest, invited Scallon to try again next year, feeling that one of the entered songs, the ballad "All Kinds of Everything", would suit her. Her second attempt to win the Irish contest was a success. Then on Saturday 21 March 1970, the nineteen-year-old schoolgirl performed the song at the Eurovision finals held in the Amsterdam RAI Exhibition and Convention Centre, before an estimated viewing audience of two hundred million. Perched on a stool while wearing an embroidered white mini-dress, she was the last of twelve contestants to perform that night. After the voting had finished she was declared the winner with 32 points, beating the favourite, UK's Mary Hopkin, with 26 and Germany's Katja Ebstein with 12. Spain's Julio Iglesias came equal fourth with Guy Bonnet of France and Henri Dès of Switzerland. This was Ireland's first of a total of seven successes in the contest.
The winning song was composed by two Dublin printworkers, Derry Lindsay and Jackie Smith. The single was produced by Ray Horricks and arranged by Phil Coulter. Released on 14 March, it shot to No. 1 in the Irish singles chart before the contest began and stayed there for nine weeks. It also spent two weeks at the top of the UK singles chart on 18 and 25 April. It was also successful in Australia, Austria, Germany, Israel, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland and Yugoslavia. The song went on to sell more than two million units.
Scallon's debut album All Kinds of Everything, recorded at Decca Studios in West Hampstead, London, on the weekend of 25 April 1970, was released in June and included four tracks co-written by the singer, as well as a new recording of the album's title track. Her follow-up single was issued in September, but Jerry Lordan's "I Will Follow You" failed to chart. The song that put an end to her one-hit wonder status was found on the album Barry Ryan 3. "Who Put the Lights Out", written by Paul Ryan for his twin brother, was offered to her by their stepfather Harold Davison, the business partner of her agent Dick Katz. Her version, cut with Barry Ryan's producer Bill Landis, proved a strong comeback vehicle reaching No. 5 in Ireland. In the UK it became a No. 14 hit on 13 March 1971. There then followed three years of unsuccessful singles broken only by the Irish chart showing of "Sunday Monday Tuesday", a No. 4 hit in December 1973. This lack of success caused her agent to recommend she join the former head of Bell Records Dick Leahy on his new label, GTO Records.
She debuted on GTO with "Please Tell Him That I Said Hello", written by Mike Shepstone and Peter Dibbens. Within a month of its release in October 1974 it was No. 7 in Ireland. It took until the new year before making its UK chart debut in January. Boosted by Top of the Pops performances on 6 February and 13 March, it climbed to No. 8 on 15 March 1975. This UK success gave the track a resurgence of popularity in Ireland where it rose to No. 7 again, this time in February. She also recorded a German version of the song. "Spiel nicht mit mir und meinem Glück" was a No. 27 hit in that country the same year. Scallon made a number of foreign singles, such as "Wenn ein Mädchen verliebt ist" (German, 1971), "Tu Me Dis I Love You" (French, 1975), and a Japanese version of "It's Gonna be a Cold Cold Christmas" in 1976.
Her next single, "Are You Still Mad at Me", a Geoff Stephens/Roger Greenaway composition, missed the chart. They then wrote another song for her. "It's Gonna be a Cold Cold Christmas" was released four weeks prior to Christmas and gave her her second-highest UK chart position when it reached No. 4 on 27 December 1975. In Ireland it made No. 3, and the following year No. 12. At the end of the year Scallon collected two awards – Best Female Singer in Britain from the NME, and Best Female Singer from the TV Times. The success continued into 1976, with a cover of Eric Carmen's "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again" becoming a UK No. 31 hit on 13 March. In September however, while promoting her new single, "Fairytale", she lost her voice. Her left vocal cord, which had been cauterized the year before, required urgent surgery to remove what turned out to be a non-malignant growth, as well as a small part of the cord itself. This caused some newspapers to report on the possibility that she might never sing again. Despite her inability to fully promote "Fairytale", a disco number written by Paul Greedus and produced by Barry Blue, it became a UK No. 13 hit at Christmas, and was also her biggest international success since "All Kinds of Everything". But having failed to regain her singing voice after the operation, she contacted Florence Wiese Norberg, a respected singing teacher. With her help she resumed live performances with a week-long engagement at Caesar's Palace in Luton in December 1977.
Barry Blue started work on her fifth album soon after finishing work on Heatwave's second album, released in April 1978. Her final session at Utopia Studios in London ended two weeks before her wedding day in October. Issued in April 1979, The Girl is Back was the first LP she made that contained no cover versions, and the track that rocked the most, "Something's Cookin' in the Kitchen" by Dave Jordan, became its only UK hit single, reaching No. 44 on 14 April. A disappointing result after a marketing campaign that included a new look for Scallon, a music video, life-size posters in major cities, and retailers receiving bonus flexi discs. In Ireland it made No. 22. The album's title track was also released, followed by "I Can't Get Over Getting Over You", which she sang live on Top of the Pops in October, her final appearance on the show. The sad and reflective track "Thieves of Paris", written by Barry Blue and Lynsey de Paul, has been rated one of the "stand out tracks" on the album. They also wrote her 1972 single, "Crossword Puzzle", a No. 2 hit in Thailand.page 56, Billboard, 2 September 1972
A new phase in her career began after Pope John Paul II came to Ireland in September 1979, inspiring her to write with her husband the Irish chart-topper, "Totus Tuus".
Outside her chart career, Scallon had remained a popular personality since her 1970 Eurovision win. She had played the part of a tinker girl in Flight of the Doves (1971), a children's adventure film starring Ron Moody and Jack Wild and directed by Ralph Nelson. She also performed in summer seasons at resorts and seasonal pantomimes as well as performing at venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal Festival Hall and a week of sell-out shows at the London Palladium. Scallon also performed extensively in cabaret venues and was voted Top Female Vocalist at the National Club Acts Awards in 1979. BBC Television gave her two shows of her own: a series of A Day with Dana in 1974 and four series of Wake Up Sunday in 1979. For BBC Radio she presented a series of I Believe in Music in 1977.
1980s – Catholic music Having scored an Irish number one in January 1980 with the song that was based on the Pope's motto: Totus Tuus, Latin for Totally Yours, the much larger American Christian market became a possible outlet for her music. Not long after returning home from a promotional visit to the National Religious Broadcasters conference in Washington, opened by US President Jimmy Carter, she was contacted by award-winning songwriter Kurt Kaiser, vice president of Word Records. He invited her back to the USA where she was offered a recording contract. Meanwhile, Warwick Records issued Everything is Beautiful in late 1980. Recorded in September at Pye Studios in London, the LP subtitled 20 Inspirational Songs was advertised on TV and became her biggest-selling album in the UK, reaching No. 43 in the chart on 10 January 1981. It was followed later that year by Totally Yours, her first Christian album for Word Records; the songs "Praise the Lord", "The Soft Rain" and "Totus Tuus" were credited to "Dana and Damien Scallon". As was "Little Baby (Grace's Song)", written while she was pregnant with their first child.
She was soon back in the studios again to make Magic in 1982, a pop album for Lite Records made at Morgan Studios and Maison Rouge Studios in London. It included four songs by her younger brothers John and Gerald Brown, as well as the single "I Feel Love Comin' On", written by Barry White, which peaked at No. 66 in the UK on 22 May. Collaborating with her younger brothers they wrote the official Northern Ireland 1982 FIFA World Cup song "Yer Man", and she recorded it with the full squad before they headed to Spain for the finals. Following this, her second album for Word was completed; Let There Be Love contained up-tempo Christian pop, jazz, ballads, and an old Irish hymn sung in Gaelic called Ag Criost an Siol.