Following her whirlwind success in the Eurovision Song Contest, Dana was thrust into the public eye but departed from her musical career to become an MEP in 1999. However, she has now decided to return to her roots and record a new album.

Although Dana was only a schoolgirl in Derry when she was chosen to represent Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1970, music has always been in her blood. Growing up, she had been surrounded by music as "everybody in town was involved in some music or could play some instrument". As a child, she sang harmonies with her family and it was then that she decided that she wanted to make a career out of her vocal talent.

In her mid-teens, she won a talent contest which enabled her to record her first single. However, the single was met with a lukewarm response and follow up singles also failed to light up the charts. But Dana was not ready to give up and when RT? auditioned for Eurovision singers in 1969, she hopped on a bus to Dublin to throw her hat into the ring. She came second in the competition and decided to give the singing a break while she concentrate on her studies.

But fate intervened and the following year, she received a call from Tom McGrath that would change her life forever.

"I got a call from Tom McGrath and he said he had noticed me in the RTE competition the year before. He said he had a song to enter and wanted to know if I would sing it. That song was 'All Kinds of Everything'," she says.

'All Kinds of Everything' went on to win the Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland for the first time ever, beating off stiff competition from seasoned performers including Julio Iglasias. She became an overnight celebrity and launched a singing career that would last for decades to come.

"The response after I won the competition was incredible, there was no going back! I had TV crews bombarding me and there were crowds everywhere. It was an amazing opportunity for me to show a different side of Derry to the world."

Dana went on to release numerous albums, enjoying great success all over the world. However, in the back of her mind she was thinking of taking a departure from her musical career and, in 1997, she secured a nomination to run in the Irish Presidential election.

"I had a lot of people coming to me and telling me about the difficulties they were facing. They thought that I could help them get their views heard and it opened my eyes to the injustice in the world. I saw the divided wealth and the west of the country being hammered and I decided to do something about it.

"I was very shocked to get the nomination because I hadn't planned on that, especially since it was the first time an independent candidate had been successful. I received a lot of support from local county councillors and I was very thankful for that."