Ireland is the joint-most successful country in the history of the Eurovision Song Contest – but it isn’t taking part in the competition this year or broadcasting it.
Viewers tuning in to RTÉ this Saturday night at 8pm will notice that the annual mid-May staple is absent from the listings.
Earlier this week, it was announced that the Irish broadcaster will instead air a Eurovision-themed episode of Father Ted.
Read more: RTÉ to air Father Ted Eurovision episode as it boycotts song contest
Boycotts
Ireland is one of five countries which refused to take part in the 70th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna this year.
A boycott protest at RTE Studios in Dublin last year PICTURE: BRIAN LAWLESS/PA
Alongside Iceland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain, Ireland has refused to send an entry to the contest over Israel being allowed to compete.
In September, RTÉ said that its participation would be “unconscionable” given the “ongoing and appalling loss of lives in Gaza” if Israel were to be included in the lineup.
They added that they were “deeply concerned” by the “targeted killing of journalists in Gaza, and the denial of access to international journalists to the territory, and the plight of the remaining hostages.”
There have been calls for both the BBC and RTÉ to withdraw from the contest in recent years due to Israel’s participation.
Israel finished runner-up in the 2025 contest and received 10 points from the Irish televote, although campaigners believe that the Irish vote share came following sponsored ads – with some social media posts alleging that people voted multiple times.
The 70th Eurovision Song Contest is taking place in Vienna this week PICTURE: THOMAS FAULL/ALAMY/PA
In December, organising body the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) announced that all broadcasters, including Israeli network KAN, would be allowed to compete after its members backed changes to the voting system to “reinforce trust, transparency and the neutrality of the event”.
The changes included reducing the maximum votes per payment method from 20 to 10 and forbidding broadcasters or artists from “directly engaging with or supporting campaigns by third parties – including governments or their agencies – that could distort the vote”.
Last week, on May 9, the EBU announced that it had “issued a formal warning letter to KAN” and that it will “continue to monitor any promotional activities carefully and take appropriate action where needed”.
This comes after videos with an “on-screen instruction to vote ten times for Israel had been published and released” by the artist competing for Israel.
The EBU said that its promotion rules are “primarily directed at discouraging large scale funded third-party campaigns” and that it was “satisfied that this video did not form part of such a campaign”.
The EBU announced changes to its voting rules ahead of this year’s contest which it said would mean that all broadcasters could compete PICTURE: PA/ALAMY
“However, employing a direct call to action to vote ten times for one artist or song is also not in line with our rules nor the spirit of the competition,” they added.
“The scale of our vote means that such activity cannot affect the overall result and 50 % of all votes this year are supplied through professional juries.”
Broadcasts
RTÉ’s boycott of the competition over Israel’s participation means that in addition to not sending an entry this year, it also decided against broadcasting the mid-week semi-finals and Saturday’s grand final.
It joins RTVE in Spain and RTVSLO in Slovenia in not showing the contest on its network.
However, public broadcaster NPO in the Netherlands and RÚV in Iceland decided to broadcast the competition despite refusing to take part.
Father Ted
This week, it was confirmed that Ireland’s national broadcaster will show an episode of comedy series Father Ted in place of the final of the 2026 Eurovision final.
On Saturday night, RTÉ 2 will air the Irish sitcom’s 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’s participation.
Alternative programming was be shown this week during the semi-finals on Tuesday and Thursday night.