By Eamonn Keyes

Father Ted is a firm TV family favourite even almost thirty years after it was made.

It came out of nowhere, this series set around a funny but accurate story of smalltown Ireland where simple country folk are living with a waning Catholicism influencing every area of their lives, and with the religion being represented by a trio of exiled clerical misfits. Within its weekly half-hour format it hid a scathing satire on the relationship between state and religion in Ireland, managing to cover homosexuality, celibacy, corruption, nepotism, racism, alcoholism and even hinting at the then-emerging stories of paedophilia. One of the most well-known episodes is ‘A Song For Europe”.

Ted is goaded by Father Dick Byrne into attempting to write a song for “Eurosong 96” (a spoof of the Eurovision Song Contest). Ireland’s fear of winning the contest yet again and therefore having to fund the following year’s edition plays into Ted and Dougal’s hands.

They lose badly as their song is literally a monotone, so Ireland lose the contest and Ted and Dougal are humiliated by the loss to Dick Byrne.

In real life at that time Ireland had won Eurovision three times in a row, in 1992, 1993 and 1994, and the rumour was that Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTE, did not want another win in 1995 because of the huge staging costs of the competition for another year. A story has since emerged that it was decided that RTE ‘throw’ the contest by entering a song that would have no chance of winning the competition, and the similarities between this story and the ensuing 1996 Father Ted episode are quite remarkable.

The song was called Dreamin’ and the songwriters, Barry Woods and Richard Abbott submitted it for acceptance as the Irish entry. The song was instantly mired in controversy as it was accused of plagiarism, sounding remarkably similar to Julie Felix’s song Moonlight.

However, despite this RTE allowed it to go through, with some claiming that they were delighted with the negative publicity as few of the Eurovision juries would vote for it, even further reducing its chances. But first they had to get a singer for the song, and this is where my connection comes in.

I was a regular at the Regency Hotel in Belfast’s Botanic Avenue, particularly on a Sunday night. There were two reasons for this, the first being that I was usually gigging on Friday and Saturday nights, so it was a good way to wind down the weekend. The second was because they had a very talented pianist and singer there on Sundays, and I thought he was great. His name was Eddie Friel, and he did a lot of lesser known material that I liked.

He had a wonderful singing voice, a mixture of warm honey and gravel very reminiscent of Chris Rea, and he sang songs like Walking in Memphis by Marc Cohn, I Can’t Make You Love Me by Bonnie Raitt and many others. He had real musical gravitas and presence, with a very jazzy approach to the grand piano he played. It was a truly relaxing, cosy session.

I got to be quite friendly with Eddie over time, we’d talk about our influences and he’d tell me about the solo album of his own songs he had been working on for quite a while, we’d have a few drinks and I’d sing along softly from my chair.

It was with great surprise that I heard he was going to be singing one of the songs going forward to be chosen for Ireland’s Eurovision song entry. I imagined it must be a fairly formidable song, given my knowledge of the man and his music.

I soon learned it wasn’t one of Eddie’s own songs, but had been put together by two Irish songwriters, Barry Woods and Richard Abbott. When I heard it had won and would be Ireland’s chosen entry, I was glad for Eddie, as it would put him on a much bigger stage and give millions a chance to recognise the real talent that he certainly was.

I heard the song would be played on TV prior to the competition and, intent on hearing it, I managed to catch Eddie’s performance.

Eddie came on looking very uncomfortable, with no piano, and just a stool to sit on Dave Allen style whilst singing what was described by my more direct Scottish friends as three minutes of the purest pish. Accompanied by an accordion player- a klaxon warning in itself- a dreadfully clichéd song slithered around the stage, layered with a gooey topping of clinically dead female backing vocals and a string and woodwinds orchestra that would easily make Andre Rieu sound like Napalm Death.

I could almost feel the enamel on my teeth liquify under the syrupy assault. I was stunned. What was Eddie doing? Where was his musical integrity?

Somewhere down the line Eddie decided that he had to take this opportunity and ended up going off on a complete weekend bender of poisoned chalice doubles with hemlock chasers.

Come the night of the Eurovision competition I watched as Eddie came on like a condemned man being led to the scaffold, resigned to his fate, and sang that wretched song for what was thankfully bound to be the last time ever. I was astonished when the song managed to come 14^th in a field of 23, which surpassed my wildest expectations.

Norway won the contest with a song that nobody remembers called ‘Nocturne’, whilst Ireland lost for the first time in four years with a song from Hell I cannot ever forget because of its sheer awfulness. The Devil certainly does not have all the best music.

Along with many others I spoke to at the time, our fervent hope was that every record, tape and CD of the song would be confiscated and burned in an attempt to atone for this complete travesty, and that the writers would be chased throughout the land by a crazed, drunken mob with flaming torches, pitchforks and starved wild dogs until they were finally hunted down for some truly awful mediaeval punishment.        But I digress.

I never saw Eddie again. unfortunately. After spending time playing piano in Van Morrison’s touring band, enough of a purgatory of sorts in itself, Eddie seems to have vanished off to Austria, where he still plays and sings in luxury ski resorts. He may just have confused ‘ostracised’ with ‘Austria-cised’.  That said, I’d give anything for another one of those excellent nights in his company, listening to him sing wonderful songs in his wonderful way.

When I saw the episode of Father Ted less than a year after these events, saw the plot about losing Eurovision deliberately, a song sounding very similar to another already existing and unsuspecting entrants being used to lose the contest, it rang a bell for me.

To make things worse someone important had obviously had a word in the ear of those concerned at RTE because the next year……. Ireland won again.

‘Dreamin’ by Eddie Friel 

‘Moonlight’ by Julie Felix https://youtu.be/cNFgScRasAQ?si=KjqxWb9AuKqYxVZn