‘Still time to do the right thing’ – calls for RTÉ to boycott Eurovision at Donnybrook headquarters

Organised by campaign group Uplift, the demonstration saw a mobile billboard parked at the main entrance to the Donnybrook campus which read: “RTÉ boycott Eurovision, don’t let Israel artwash genocide”.

Israel denies it is carrying out a genocide in Gaza.

Uplift campaigner Patrick Kelleher said the national broadcaster has ignored calls to boycott the contest “for months”.

“We’ve already been asking RTÉ to boycott the Eurovision Song Contest for months and until now they’ve ignored us,” Mr Kelleher said.

"The Eurovision’s already started, at this point it is too late really for RTÉ to boycott. There’s still three days before the final, RTÉ still has time to do the right thing, it probably is too late but we still wanted to make sure RTÉ heard the message from us that they can’t ignore us.”

‘It’s like an out of body experience’ – Bambie Thug

Three representatives of Uplift were met by RTÉ staff and delivered a petition signed by 17,000 people. Director general Kevin Bakhurst will be informed about the petition.

Other petitions have called for Irish act Bambie Thug to withdraw from the contest, however this campaign has focused specifically on RTÉ.

"We’ve decided to focus on the broadcaster and we think the broadcasters are the ones with the most power here to actually enact change at Eurovision and get the European Broadcasting Union to kick Israel out.

"In the case of Bambie Thug, they’re an incredibly talented musician, they’re an amazing songwriter. Any other year I think we’d all be jumping up and down rooting for them.

"It’s a really tough position they’ve been put in. They’re an unmanaged artist, an independent artist, they’re in a very difficult position.”

Mr Kelleher said bigger artists competing at Eurovision this year “would be better placed” to take the hit of boycotting the contest.

"Broadcasters like RTÉ by taking part, they legitimise having Israel in the contest given what’s happening in Gaza,” he said.

Swedish former Eurovision contestant Eric Saade wore a keffiyeh on his arm during his opening performance at Tuesday’s semi-final, while Bambie Thug said they removed the words ‘Ceasefire’ and ‘Freedom for Palestine’ written in Ogham from their body following an order from the EBU.

The EBU said it regretted that Saade “chose to compromise the non-political nature of the event” by wearing the keffiyeh, a pro-Palestine symbol, on stage.

Mr Kelleher said the EBU’s response to both Bambie Thug and Saade was “disgraceful”.

"It’s hypocritical. I think the European Broadcasting Union has been incredibly inconsistent when it comes to deciding what is political and what is not political.

"A couple of years ago they made the decision to expel Russia from the Eurovision Song Contest because of the invasion of Ukraine. They have refused to do the same when it comes to Israel despite the fact more than 34,000 people have been killed since October in Gaza.

"I know there’s a lot of different views on how to proceed with something like this but to even argue the Eurovision Song Contest isn’t political is a bit of a fallacy at this point.

"Of course Eurovision’s political, everybody knows it’s political. The European Broadcasting Union is just getting to call the shots on what they consider to be political and what is not considered political and it’s not good enough.”

RTÉ declined to comment.