[2][3] Originally from Derry, Northern Ireland, Robert moved his family to London to seek employment opportunities after World War II.

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.

"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.

Despite her inability to fully promote "Fairytale", a disco number written by Paul Greedus and produced by Barry Blue, it became a UK #13 hit on Christmas Day, and was also her biggest international success since "All Kinds of Everything".

[8] 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.

[9] 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.

[11][12] 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".

[citation needed] 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.

Scallon also performed extensively in cabaret venues and was voted Top Female Vocalist at the National Club Acts Awards in 1979.

[citation needed] 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.

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 #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".

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 #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.

Scallon starred in a West End production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, staged at the Phoenix Theatre during the 1983 Christmas and New Year pantomime season.

At the same time as her book launch came the release of her fifties tribute album If I Give My Heart to You, featuring her last UK chart entry "Little Things Mean a Lot", #92 on 13 July 1985.

Her break was interrupted by a request to fly to Irondale, Alabama and make a guest appearance at Eternal Word Television Network's (EWTN) tenth anniversary show.

Polling day was 31 October, and Scallon received 175,458 of the first-preference votes (13.8%), coming third to Fianna Fáil's candidate and eventual winner Mary McAleese.

Scallon is opposed to abortion in all cases, In 2013 she said "there is no legal or constitutional obligation for politicians to legislate for the deliberate killing of an unborn child and there is no medical evidence to support this radical change to how we treat our mothers and their children and the taking of an innocent and defenceless human life can never be justified".

Scallon also had public disagreements at the time with the Catholic hierarchy (notably with Cardinal Desmond Connell), the latter wishing instead to negotiate a consensus solution.

[clarification needed][19] As an independent she unsuccessfully contested a seat in Galway West in the 2002 Irish general election, scoring just 3.5% of the first preference vote.

[20] Returning to the world of entertainment in 2005, she spent seven weeks on the RTÉ television series The Afternoon Show, where she did a fitness routine with a trainer and lost fifteen pounds in weight in time for her eldest daughter's wedding.

[21] One of the first albums released was Totus Tuus, a compilation of songs dedicated to the memory of Pope John Paul II and issued on the anniversary of his death.

[24] She was a contestant in the fourth series of the reality television programme, Celebrity Bainisteoir, in 2011, but was forced to withdraw by RTÉ when she announced she would run for the Irish presidency again.

[citation needed] In 2023, Scallon released a new version of her hit ‘Fairytale’ and gave a series of interviews including UTV Live, Good Morning Britain and GB News.

[27] On 19 September 2011, at the Fitzwilliam Hotel on St Stephen's Green, Scallon announced she would be seeking a nomination to enter the following month's Irish presidential election.

In the first debate, held on RTÉ Radio 1's News at One, independent candidate Scallon explained she had delayed her entry into the race due to numerous family bereavements.

When asked by Ryan Tubridy if she would refuse to sign any bill threatening Bunreacht na hÉireann, she responded by saying, "You bet your boots I would".

[40] It later transpired that the statement referred to her brother, John Brown, who had been accused in 2008, in the course of litigation in the US among family members, of having sexually abused his niece.