{"id":38686,"date":"2026-05-11T20:10:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T20:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/38686\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T20:10:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T20:10:18","slug":"rte-to-air-father-ted-eurovision-episode-as-it-boycotts-song-contest-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/38686\/","title":{"rendered":"RTE to air Father Ted Eurovision episode as it boycotts song contest \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland\u2019s national broadcaster will show an episode of the comedy Father Ted in place of the final of the 2026 Eurovision song contest.<\/p>\n

On Saturday night, RTE 2 will air the Irish sitcom\u2019s Eurovision-themed episode A Song For Europe, where priests Ted and Dougal perform My Lovely Horse, as part of its boycott of the contest over Israel\u2019s participation.<\/p>\n

Ireland, Spain and Slovenia have not sent competitor to the 70th iteration of the song competition in protest against Israel\u2019s war in Gaza, and will not broadcast the final.<\/p>\n

Read more: Look Mum No Computer says people can express opinions about Israel at Eurovision<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Michelle<\/a><\/p>\n

The Netherlands and Iceland are also not sending acts to compete in Eurovision but will be air the final.<\/p>\n

Russia was banned from Eurovision after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 but Israel has continued to compete.<\/p>\n

The Hamas-run health ministry estimates that 72,300 Palestinians have been killed during Israel\u2019s war in Gaza following the Hamas attack on October 7 2023.<\/p>\n

The boycott came about after members attended a European Broadcasting Union (EBU) general assembly in Geneva to vote on changes, which included new rules to deter countries from organising campaigns for their acts following concerns around the number of public votes Israel received in 2025.<\/p>\n

\"IrelandIreland joins Spain and Slovenia, where broadcasters are also boycotting the contest in protest against Israel\u2019s war in Gaza. PICTURE: PA <\/p>\n

Israeli singer Yuval Raphael received the largest number of votes from the public last May, ultimately finishing as runner-up after the jury votes were taken into account.<\/p>\n

After the 2025 competition, RTE requested a breakdown in voting numbers from the EBU while Spain\u2019s public broadcaster, Radio Television Espanola (RTVE), called for a \u201ccomplete review\u201d of the voting system to avoid \u201cexternal interference\u201d.<\/p>\n

Alternative programming will also be shown on RTE2 during the semi-finals on Tuesday and Thursday.<\/p>\n

The Slovenian broadcaster will air a series of documentaries on the Middle East under the theme Voices of Palestine.<\/p>\n

Ireland has won the Eurovision Song Contest seven times \u2013 a joint record with Sweden \u2013 with Eimear Quinn in 1996 the last Irish winner with her song The Voice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s national broadcaster will show an episode of the comedy Father Ted in place of the final of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20858],"tags":[20859,20860,25031,25062,145,25063,23758,23496,381],"class_list":{"0":"post-38686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eurovision","8":"tag-eurovision","9":"tag-eurovision-song-contest-2026","10":"tag-father-ted","11":"tag-irish","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-republic-of-ireland","14":"tag-rte","15":"tag-showbiz","16":"tag-uk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}