Ireland have put in their bid for Eurovision Song Contest glory with their youngest ever contestant, Molly Sterling.

The singer is just 17 years old and performed Playing With Numbers at the second semi-final of the competition in hopes of winning a place at the grand final in Vienna on Saturday.

She played the piano and was accompanied by musicians on strings as she sang the Irish entry for this year’s competition, the second act of the night to appear on stage.

Eurovision Ireland
Team Molly backstage (Eurovision/EBU/Elena Volotova)

Like Tuesday’s semi-final, tonight’s takes place at Vienna’s Wiener Stadthalle and is hosted again by last year’s winning Austrian act, Conchita Wurst.

Ireland is Eurovision’s most successful country, having won the contest seven times, but with their last win in 1996 Molly will be hoping to claw their record back if she makes it through to the weekend’s final.

Viewers tweeted their support for Molly.

Acts already guaranteed a place include the “Big Five” of the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy who are the competition’s biggest financial contributors, this year’s special guests Australia and defending champions Austria.

Going through from the first semi-final are Armenia, Belgium, Greece, Estonia, Serbia, Hungary, Russia, Albania, Romania and Georgia.