WHAT’S THE STORY?

TWENTY-FIVE years ago today, a phenomenon burst upon our television screens. The first showing of Father Ted on Channel 4 brought us the strange and very, very funny world of Craggy Island and its trio of priests with their housekeeper.

Produced by a British company but with Irish writers and actors, Father Ted was a risky venture – the Catholic Church was still a powerful force, not just in Ireland, and a series about three disgraced priests stuck in an island parish with a woman obsessed with tea was nobody’s idea of a successful sitcom.

It should never have worked but it did. Father Ted was originally conceived as a one-off “mockumentary” as part of a series about Irish humour called Irish Lives. A former BBC comedy writer and producer Geoffrey Perkins spotted the comedy gold and his company Hat Trick Productions sold the show to Channel 4.

On April 21, 1995, Father Ted launched to an audience who didn’t know what to expect but who soon came to love it.

WHAT WAS THE BASIC PLOT?

FATHER Ted Crilly, Father Dougal McGuire and Father Jack Hackett have all been sent to Craggy Island by their Bishop Len Brennan. Father Ted has had money and gambling problems, Father Dougal had caused problems at a nunnery, and Father Jack is both a drunkard and a womaniser - his catchphrase was “drink, feck, girls”.

They are cared for in the parish house by Mrs Doyle, their eccentric housekeeper who endlessly tries to ply them with tea, sandwiches and cake. We never do find out her first name, as anyone appearing to say it is drowned out by special sound effects.

Written down like that it doesn’t seem like much of a situation for a comedy, but brilliant acting and writing created a world where insanity was normal and laugh out loud moments featured regularly in every one of the 25 episodes that were broadcast from April 21, 1995, to May 1, 1998.

WHO CREATED IT?

WRITERS Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan were friends from their days working together on a Dublin magazine when they both moved to London and began writing for television comedy shows such as The Fast Show and Alas Smith and Jones. Back in Ireland, Linehan had invented a character called Father Ted played by Mathews for an Irish sketch show and he resurrected the name for the new comedy he and Mathews started to write.

Linehan once told the Guardian: “Every time I wrote Ted in the early days, I’d hear Arthur’s voice. Ted was this very bland character who’d never curse except for saying a very quiet ‘feck’ to himself. That panic and turmoil under the surface defined Ted before we even started writing him. Years later, when we did, it was just like pressing ‘play’ on a tape recorder.”

He continued: “One thing I’m really proud of is that Ted replaced the old, hackneyed Irish joke with Irish humour, which is a very different thing.”

WHO WERE THE MAIN STARS?

THE casting of the four main stars was inspired. Dermot Morgan was a former teacher turned full-time comedy actor who had starred in several hit television shows in Ireland. He lobbied hard to get the part of Father Ted and sadly it was his last as he died of a heart attack in 1998.

Ardal O’Hanlon, who played Father Dougal, was a renowned stand-up comedian in Dublin when Linehan persuaded him to take the role. He later played DI Jack Mooney in Death in Paradise. Father Jack was played by veteran Irish comedy actor Frank Kelly, also a renowned stage actor. He died in 2016.

Pauline McLynn was only 32 when she tested for the role of Mrs Doyle, but make up and brilliant acting turned her into a much older woman. The four played in an ensemble of hilarious lunacy.

WHO GUEST STARRED?

A LONG list of Irish actors and a few Brits played a variety of characters.

The great Jim Norton played Bishop Len Brennan and got his backside kicked; Maurice O’Donoghue played Ted’s rival Father Dick Byrne; Graham Norton of chat show fame played Father Noel Furlong.

Brendan Grace played the appalling Father Fintan Stack while Scottish actor Kevin McKidd played Father Deegan. Richard Wilson played himself, driven mad by Ted shouting “I don’t believe it”. Clare Grogan played pop singer Niamh Connolly.

WHAT WERE THE BEST LINES?

FATHER Ted: “Sure the money was just resting in my account.”

Father Dougal: “Careful now.”

Father Jack: “Drink, Feck.”

Mrs Doyle: “Ah go on, go on.”

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