The plot featured Ted and Dougal trying to write a song for the contest (its name was not mentioned) to settle a rivalry with Father Dick Byrne.
Ted thinks that because the whole band had died in a plane crash, including all the record company staff and everyone involved in the copyright, they would get away with stealing it.
At the Dublin theatre where "A Song for Ireland" is being hosted, Ted and Dougal listen to Dick Byrne's entry, "The Miracle Is Mine".
Despite their dismal performance with what must have been an out-of-tune guitar (Dougal is seen making random adjustments to the tuning before they go on stage[3]), and against the obvious wishes of the audience, the show's producer Charles Hedges selects "My Lovely Horse" as Ireland's entry.
[4] It has been widely claimed that this episode was inspired by real events surrounding Ireland's selection of its entry for the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest.
[5] Faced with the daunting and expensive task of hosting its third consecutive Eurovision, RTÉ were said to have chosen an inferior quality song (Paul Harrington & Charlie McGettigan's "Rock 'n' Roll Kids") over vastly superior ones, in order to prevent the possibility of an unwanted third victory.
A month after this episode was first broadcast, Ireland won the 1996 Eurovision Song Contest to secure the country's fourth victory in five years.
It was produced by Darren Allison and Neil Hannon during sessions for The Divine Comedy's Casanova album and released on CD as a B-side to the band's 1999 single "Gin Soaked Boy".
The climax of the clip features the sudden appearance of the horse's head to the cacophonous wail of a saxophone, surrounded by a typically 1970s-disco-style burst of multi-coloured lights.
In the Father Ted script book, Graham Linehan notes that he initially wanted the scene to run longer, but that it was ultimately cut down to just long enough for people familiar with the out-take to get the reference.
The tragic story of Nin Huugen and the Huugen Notes' deaths in a plane crash could be a reference to similar events with past musician artists such as "The Day the Music Died" (deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper) and the loss of multiple members of Lynyrd Skynyrd in the 1977 Convair CV-240 crash.