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RTÉ to Air Father Ted Eurovision Episode as Israel Boycott Splits the Contest
RTÉ will air Father Ted instead of the Eurovision final amid boycotts over Israel, drawing anger from Graham Linehan.
RTÉ is replacing this year’s Eurovision Song Contest final with an episode of Father Ted, turning one of Irish television’s most familiar comedy relics into an argument about the contest’s politics.
The 70th Eurovision will take place in Vienna on Saturday, May 16, but the field has already been splintered by boycotts from Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain over Israel’s inclusion. The Netherlands and Iceland are not sending acts to compete either, though both countries will still screen the final. RTÉ’s response is to air Father Ted’s Eurovision episode, A Song For Europe, in which priests Ted and Dougal perform “My Lovely Horse.” It is a pointed bit of counter-programming, and one that lands in the middle of a much larger row over what participation now signifies.
That choice has angered Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan, who used X to call for the resignation of RTÉ Director General Kevin Bakhurst, accusing the broadcaster of using “Father Ted as a tool of antisemitic harassment.” In another post, he said he was “disgusted” that the show was being used “as a fig leaf to cover RTE’s disgraceful antisemitism.”
Please join me in demanding the resignation of RTE’s Director General for using Father Ted as a tool of antisemitic harassment https://t.co/DyWXC9YsED pic.twitter.com/NL6JyRGKS1
— Graham Linehan (@Glinner) May 11, 2026
I am disgusted that Father Ted is being used as a fig leaf to cover RTE’s disgraceful antisemitism. https://t.co/5KvGnLQLL4
— Graham Linehan (@Glinner) May 11, 2026
Linehan has also launched a petition on the issue, arguing that RTÉ’s boycott of the 2026 contest “solely because Israel is participating” is “not a principled humanitarian stand” but “antisemitism.” He wrote that singling out Israel while not applying the same standard to other countries amounted to discrimination, and pointed specifically to Russia, Belarus and Azerbaijan as examples of nations RTÉ has not boycotted. He also objected to Father Ted being used, in his words, “as a prop in an antisemitic political gesture,” saying he had not given permission for the episode to be used that way.
He continued: “This is not the Ireland I know. This is not the Ireland that gave Father Ted to the world.”
RTÉ has not yet publicly responded to Linehan’s comments.
The broadcaster’s decision arrives amid fresh scrutiny of Eurovision’s relationship with Israel. On Monday, May 11, an investigation by The New York Times said Israel’s government had run a “well-organised campaign” to use Eurovision as a “soft power” platform. The report said the country had carried out a state-backed influence effort in previous editions, feeding wider suspicion that the contest’s voting and results have not always existed in a political vacuum.
Those questions were already hanging over the European Broadcasting Union, which runs Eurovision. At its general assembly last December, members did not hold a vote on Israel’s participation. The EBU said in a statement that a “large majority” of members felt there was no need for another vote and that Eurovision 2026 should go ahead as planned, with extra safeguards in place.
RTÉ was blunt in its own response at the time, saying via The Guardian that Ireland’s participation had become “unconscionable” given the civilian death toll in Gaza and the ongoing humanitarian crisis there.
The pressure campaign has also come from outside broadcasting circles. No Music For Genocide issued an open letter on April 21, signed by more than 1,100 cultural workers and artists, urging fans to boycott Eurovision unless Israel was banned from the competition. The list includes Brian Eno, Massive Attack, Paloma Faith, Paul Weller, Kneecap, Hot Chip, Of Monsters and Men, IDLES, Primal Scream, Sigur Rós, Young Fathers, Mogwai, Black Country New Road, Erika de Casier, Nadine Shah, Dry Cleaning, Ólafur Arnalds, David Holmes, Nemahsis, Macklemore, Roger Waters, Peter Gabriel and Vacations, alongside Smerz, several former Eurovision finalists and others.
For a contest that has always mixed camp spectacle with geopolitics, this year’s fallout feels less like an interruption than an exposed fault line. RTÉ’s Father Ted decision simply makes that split visible in prime time.
