It is considered one of the funniest episodes of a beloved sitcom, but the Father Ted storyline about Eurovision has been dragged into the row over Israel’s participation in this week’s song contest.
Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTÉ, which is boycotting the competition in protest against Israel’s inclusion, will instead broadcast the 1996 episode A Song for Europe, in which the characters Father Ted and Father Dougal perform their song My Lovely Horse and earn nul points.
The decision prompted condemnation on Tuesday from Graham Linehan, one of the show’s creators, who accused RTÉ of using the show as “a tool of antisemitic harassment” and said it was an “act of pointed, gleeful counter-programming”. He demanded the resignation of the broadcaster’s director-general, Kevin Bakhurst.
The Irish news site Extra.ie, however, hailed the move as “genius trolling” and referred to it as “my lovely boycott”.
Spain, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Iceland have also declined to send competitors to Austria, where singers and bands from 35 countries will compete under the motto “united by music”. Instead of the grand final, Slovenia’s broadcaster will air documentaries under the theme Voices of Palestine. Spain’s broadcaster will run a music programme called The House of Music.
The boycott followed calls for the European Broadcasting Union to change rules to deter countries from organising voting campaigns after concerns over the Israeli singer Yuval Raphael receiving the largest number of votes from the public last year and coming second overall.
The Father Ted Eurovision satire is one of the best-known episodes of the series, a show about wayward priests and their housekeeper on the fictional Craggy Island. It ran on Channel 4 from 1995 to 1998 and won several awards.
In A Song for Europe, Ted and Dougal represent Ireland with a tuneless paean to a horse – a song selected because it is considered so dreadful that it will surely avert the risk of Ireland winning and thus footing the bill for hosting the next edition of Eurovision.
The plot reflected a widespread myth that, after winning in 1992 and 1993, Ireland selected a purportedly weak entry, Rock ’n’ Roll Kids, in 1994 with the intention of losing. However, it won. In the Father Ted episode, the ruse prevails – the priests earn zero points.
Ireland’s Eurovision streak culminated in 1996 with a seventh win, a record matched only by Sweden. Some observers have blamed Ireland’s subsequent defeats partly on the decision in 2008 to enter Dustin the Turkey, a children’s puppet that sang Irelande Douze Pointe from a shopping trolley.