THEY SAY that what’s seldom is wonderful, and it’s for that reason that Christmas miracles are considered so special… but sadly there’s no Christmas miracle for the Rubberbandits this year, with the news that they’ve been beaten to the Christmas Number One spot by Matt Cardle.
The official IRMA charts, compiled by ChartTrack and released this morning, ranked the Limerick duo at number two for the second running, sitting behind Matt Cardle whose single ‘When We Collide’ remained top of the sales charts.
The Bandits did, however, beat Rihanna into third spot; she had come second to Cardle in the UK’s Christmas chart announced last Sunday.
There is some consolation for the Munstermen, however; the unlikely festive hit ‘Horse Outside’ remains top of the iTunes download charts, where it has outranked Cardle for well over a week.
Cardle’s victory means that the winner of the various X Factor series has been top of the Irish Christmas charts for every year since 2006, continuing a chain that that was broken in the UK last year when Joe McElderry failed to grab the top spot.
The last time a non-X Factor song topped the Christmas charts in Ireland was Mario Rosenstock, whose Roy Keane-style ‘Leave Right Now’ was top in 2005, defeating Shayne Ward.
Take That stand top of the album charts with their album ‘Progress’, again defeating Rihanna.
