List of Father Ted characters

Father Ted is a sitcom produced by independent production company Hat Trick Productions for British broadcaster Channel 4. Its three series, comprising 25 episodes and a special, originally aired from 21 April 1995 to 1 May 1998. Its main characters, Father Ted Crilly (Dermot Morgan) and his fellow priests Father Dougal McGuire (Ardal O'Hanlon) and Father Jack Hackett (Frank Kelly), were exiled to Craggy Island, where they lived with the fourth main character, housekeeper Mrs Doyle (Pauline McLynn). All four actors appeared from the series' first episode, "Good Luck, Father Ted", to its last, "Going to America". Pauline McLynn also played a nun in the episode "Flight Into Terror", in which Mrs Doyle appears only briefly.
Father Ted Crilly, played by Dermot Morgan, is a morally dubious Roman Catholic priest exiled to Craggy Island under suspicion of stealing money intended to fund a child's pilgrimage to Lourdes and using it, instead, to pay for his own trip to Las Vegas. He is later transferred to a comfortable Dublin parish, only to soon be sent straight back to Craggy Island after a church accountant discovers irregularities in his church expenses claims.
Father Dougal McGuire, played by Ardal O'Hanlon, is a childlike, simple-minded Catholic priest exiled as punishment for "the Blackrock incident". It is unclear how he entered the priesthood, or indeed why he is a priest as he seems to have no religious beliefs whatsoever. (Ted asks him, "Dougal, how did you get into the church? Was it, like, collect 12 crisp packets and become a priest?"). In episode 6 of series 1, we find out that Dougal lost his two parents and his uncle while giving the last rites.
Father Jack Hackett, played by Frank Kelly, is an elderly, foul-mouthed, alcoholic priest whose vocabulary consists largely of the shouted words "feck", "arse", "drink" and "girls". He usually shouts whenever he speaks, although he speaks in a much calmer tone when offered alcohol. He is also capable of identifying a bottle of wine, as well as its vintage, just from the sound of the bottle clinking. While it is never explicitly stated why Bishop Brennan has condemned him to Craggy Island, in the episode "The Passion of Saint Tibulus" it is implied that it has something to do with a wedding ceremony Jack performed in Athlone. In "Tentacles of Doom", with the promise of more "drink", Ted trains Jack to say "That would be an ecumenical matter!" and "Yes!" so that he may convincingly circumvent any questions put to him by a party of visiting bishops. Jack has a fear of nuns; in the episode "Cigarettes and Alcohol and Rollerblading", upon seeing Sister Assumpta and learning that she is a nun, he runs screaming out of the window. He regards the sick and poor with contempt, referring to them as a "shower of bastards". It is later revealed, in his will, that he saved up £500,000, which Ted attributes partly to Jack's "never giving money to charity" and that "he wouldn't wear trousers during the summer".
Jack can be violent. For example, in "The Passion of Saint Tibulus", when Bishop Brennan wakes him up, Jack punches him in the face while shouting "Feck off!", while in the episode "The Mainland", Jack is arrested for punching a man he had met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting earlier that evening, after the man saw him in a bar and tried to stop him from drinking. He is also shown to have a habit of destroying the television by throwing bottles containing alcohol at it and blowing it up, leading to Ted telling Dougal not to turn the television on when Jack is sleeping in the room.
Although Jack is an alcoholic, his drinking is not limited to alcohol; he will drink almost any liquid he can get his hands on, except for water or tea, which he despises. Over the course of the series, he is revealed to have drunk Toilet Duck (which made him hallucinate, seeing pink elephants and the people around him as bizarre oddities), floor polish (which slowed down his metabolism to the point that everyone thought he was dead), brake fluid (which exacerbated his "Hairy Hands Syndrome"), anointing oil, Harpic and Windolene.
Jack has very bad personal hygiene. This is evident from his unkempt hair, scabs near his mouth, stains on his clerical collar and decaying teeth. His chair also has a large stain behind his head. Ted once panicked when he thought that the time of the year for Jack's bath was approaching. Jack also has a variety of smells, including vegetables, which attracted rabbits (which he refers to as "rats" and "hairy Japanese bastards") in the episode "The Plague". Jack once locked Father Jessup in his underpants hamper, where Jessup was tormented by the extreme smell. Mrs Doyle wears a helmet when clipping Jack's nails, as does everyone else in the room.
Jack is usually in his chair, often sleeping, and is rarely active. In the episode "Escape from Victory", it emerges that Jack slept for 14 days straight after drinking a whole bottle of an alcoholic sleeping aid known as "Dreamy Sleepy Nightie Snoozy Snooze", which is banned in most European countries. When he has to be brought out of his chair, he usually has to be put in a wheelchair, which is generally pushed by someone else. He has a walking stick with him when he is in his chair, although he is able to walk (and even run) without it.
Jack is prone to hearing loss caused by a build-up of wax in his ears, which the other priests use to make candles. However, he is shown to be able to hear just fine when Ted offers him a glass of brandy. He also has a cataract in his left eye.
In the episode "Cigarettes and Alcohol and Rollerblading", Ted observes that Jack has not been properly sober for 12 years. When he briefly awakens from his drunken state, Ted having made him give up alcohol for Lent, he is startled to find that Dougal and Ted are the only ones in the room with him, demanding "Where are the other two?", suggesting he usually sees double. Soon afterwards, he realises to his horror that he is "still on that feckin' island".
In "The Craggy Island Parish Magazines" (a book representing a collection of copies of the fictional "Our Parish" parochial magazine), it is stated that Father Jack served as chaplain to the fictional Paraguayan leader General Guillermo Paz for three years in the 1950s, until he left hours before Paz was hanged from a lemon tree by a group of peasants during an uprising. It is also stated that before he became a priest, Hackett had many varied careers, including captaining a ship.
Mrs Doyle, played by Pauline McLynn, is the parish priests' housekeeper. Her first name is not mentioned on the show, but is given as Joan in the draft Competition Time script. Whenever a character speaks her first name, background noise suddenly erupts, masking whatever is being said. This gag was repeated in Tedfest 2007 when Graham Linehan was going to reveal her first name in a transmission but his voice was masked by the sound of breaking glass. In the DVD commentary with Arthur Matthews in the episode Old Grey Whistle Theft Linehan stated that they 'did have a name for Mrs Doyle'.
Mrs Doyle is a hyperactive, repressed and somewhat insane parish housekeeper with an over-the-top zeal for her work. Obsessed with refreshments, she is often to be found preparing copious amounts of tea, cake and sandwiches; she disdained an automated tea-making machine, stating that she "liked the misery" of making tea, and was devastated when Ted bought her one for Christmas. She eventually destroyed it and convinced Ted that she was the right person for making tea. She even stays up all night "just in case one of you needs a cup of tea!" Whenever Ted or somebody else refuses one of her beverages, sandwiches or cake, she urges them on for some time, usually just by repeating "go on, go on", until the offending priest or guest finally agrees just for the sake of some peace. Sometimes, she then denies them the offered item(s). In the episode Hell, when Ted finally gives in, she concludes that she is forcing him to have a cake, and tells him that he should "just say no" (which he had done repeatedly), calling it a "word that Our Lord gave us to use when we didn't want any cake". She then proceeds to have the cakes destroyed.
Aside from simple domestic chores, Mrs Doyle also performs all the other tasks that need completing around the house, such as digging drainage ditches and mending the roof. In this respect, Ted takes advantage of her work ethic and treats her like a general dogsbody. She frequently suffers accidents while attending to these chores, such as falling off the roof, falling down the stairs and especially plummeting head-first out of the large window frame in the front room.
Little or nothing is known about her personal life except that she must have been married at some point and previously spoke of having a sister. She has a dim view of sex, once mentioning how thankful she is that "she never thinks about that sort of thing", and in this respect appears quite conservative. In "And God Created Woman", when she and Ted are discussing the work of novelist Polly Clarke, she laments how much swearing there is in modern fiction and goes on a rant about the amount of sex in Clarke's books. She also becomes spiteful, condescending and visibly jealous whenever another woman comes into the parochial house, especially those who are good-looking or command the attention of the priests. She has women friends on the island who appear sporadically throughout the series, and who all look and dress in a fairly similar fashion to herself and speak in much the same manner.
In the episode "The Mainland", she is arrested for getting into a fight in a tearoom.
Graham Linehan has stated that he always thought Mrs Doyle originally met Father Ted by winning the Lovely Girls competition.
Bishop Leonard "Len" Brennan (played by Jim Norton) appears in three episodes: "The Passion of St Tibulus", "The Plague" and "Kicking Bishop Brennan Up the Arse".
Bishop Brennan is a stern, overbearing, foul-mouthed, lecherous, hypocritical narcissist who despises Ted and frequently casts a shadow over his lowly priest's life. Throughout the series he consistently addresses Ted using his surname: "Crilly", and this reference is one of several traits that symbolises his displeasure of the Fathers' incompetence. He also despises Dougal, whom he refers to as a "cabbage". He does not take kindly to Dougal calling him "Len", and sometimes shouts profanity at him when he does so.
Brennan has also forsaken his vows of celibacy; in "The Passion of Saint Tibulus", it is revealed that he has a secret partner and love child in America. Also, in "The Plague", when Brennan hangs up the phone on Ted, a naked woman joins him in the bath straight after.
He visits the island on three occasions:
In a DVD audio commentary, Graham Linehan said that he considers Bishop Brennan to be the archenemy of Father Jack Hackett, because Jack had the potential to become a bishop, but failed, whereas Brennan succeeded. Jack, whom Brennan refers to as "The Kraken", is considerably less afraid of Brennan than Ted or Dougal are, and openly regards him with contempt, often telling him to "feck off", punching him in the face after the bishop wakes Jack up, and sarcastically apologising for saying "Arse biscuits!" in front of the bishop.
Bishop Brennan is consistently addressed by other characters (with the exception of Dougal) as "Your Grace", which is an unofficial salutation.
Father Dick Byrne is played by Maurice O'Donoghue. He appears in four episodes of the show, in "Competition Time"; "Song For Europe"; "Cigarettes and Alcohol and Rollerblading"; and "Escape from Victory". Dick is Ted's equivalent on nearby Rugged Island, and his bitter rival.
Dick is Ted's nemesis, and often manages to outwit him as part of their ongoing feud. It is unknown how the feud started, but Dougal once mentions a "Scrabble fiasco" (in which Father Byrne manages to get all of his words to spell "useless priest, can't say Mass"). The feud has led to various ill-judged escapades, usually after Dick has telephoned Ted to tease him for some inadequacy or taunt him for some fault. These include fooling him on the phone into thinking that Dick had sincerely believed Ted's Eurovision song would be good, and winning the annual "All-Priests Five-a-Side Over-75s Indoor Football Challenge Match". However, there are also instances where Ted gets the better of Dick. Ted mentions an occasion where Dick had lost a bet with him and that as a forfeit, he had had to say "bollocks" very loudly in front of the (then) Irish President Mary Robinson. Ted also beats Dick in the Eurosong competition, despite Dick's song, "The Miracle Is Mine", being given a standing ovation and being far superior to the Craggy Island effort (although this was part of a plan to ensure that Ireland would lose Eurosong and thus not have to host it at great expense the following year). Ted states that he "really hates Father Dick Byrne!"
In the 2010 Channel 4 retrospective Small, Far Away – The World of Father Ted, Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews state that Maurice O'Donoghue and the rest of the Rugged Island cast were each their second choices to play the main characters on the show.
Father Larry Duff, played by Tony Guilfoyle, is a friend of Ted's who always seems to be on the receiving end of some misfortune. The cause of these events is usually Ted calling him on his mobile phone. Examples of Larry's mishaps include driving off a cliff in his Ford Cortina while looking for his ringing mobile ("Hell"), losing £10,000 in a TV gameshow when Ted interrupts his concentration by ringing him ("Cigarettes and Alcohol and Rollerblading"), getting hit while volunteering for a blind-folded knife throwing act, ("Tentacles of Doom") and being trampled by a herd of stampeding donkeys ("Flight Into Terror"). Occasionally Ted manages to get through to him, only to be informed he will not be arriving at a picnic as he is being investigated for weapons smuggling by the Army ("Old Grey Whistle Theft") or that he cannot accept Ted's offer of rabbits as he decided to get 12 rottweilers instead ("The Plague"). Ted often mentions Larry as being "tremendous fun". He appears to be a good friend of Bishop Facks, who appears in "Tentacles of Doom". Despite his frequent injuries, he always returns unscathed in his next appearance. Though they are close friends, Ted and Larry are never seen together on screen in the entire three series. After his last appearance in A Christmassy Ted, Fr Duff's fate is unknown.
The character has been referenced in Spider-Man 2099, with a statue of Larry replacing that of Francis P. Duffy in a scene depicting Duffy Square.
Father Noel Furlong is played by Graham Norton. He appears in three episodes of the show, in "Hell" and "Flight Into Terror" in series 2; and in "The Mainland" in series 3.
Father Noel is a very annoying and hyperactive priest with whom Ted and Dougal hate spending time. He runs the St. Luke's Youth Group and is first encountered during Ted's abortive caravanning holiday in "Hell". Here he invades the peaceful surroundings of the priests' rented caravan and keeps them awake at night, singing songs ("The Whole of the Moon" and "Dirty Old Town") and expressing his desire to tell ghost stories at six o'clock in the morning. He regales the helpless Ted and Dougal with tales of how members of the youth group have a habit of turning in "late" ("ten past the eleven") and succeeds in driving them out of their holiday home, which he then proceeds to tip over after having himself and the youth group perform a Riverdance routine inside it.
Father Noel turns up again in "Flight into Terror" in which he is accompanying Father Fintan Fay, the monkey priest of Killybashangel.
Noel makes a third appearance in Season 3's "The Mainland", in which his boundless energy results in him getting his group lost in the "Very Dark Caves" and, after performing a rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody", his attempts to start a "screeching competition" cause him to be buried under falling rocks, dislodged by the noise he is making. His very last scene features him under the rocks with his hand sticking out, still in a very happy mood. His youth group then abandon him and head to Paraguay on Aer Lingus flights. Ted tells an apparent rescue service man to save Noel, but the man turns out actually to be an uninterested dustman. In the short scene after the credits, Noel is still under the rocks, clicking his fingers and singing "Fat Bottomed Girls".
Father Paul Stone, played by Michael Redmond, is an exceedingly boring priest who featured in the episode "Entertaining Father Stone" and comes to stay at the parochial house every year. He is completely unable to hold a conversation and is more than happy just to sit and do/say nothing at all, giving one-sentence answers at best. He usually brushes off any attempted social interaction by saying something along the lines of "No. I'm fine". Despite his quiet persona, Father Stone's presence dominates those around him, leading to awkward and protracted silences, which suck the life out of the room, ruining Ted's birthday party as a result. His unresponsiveness makes him practically impossible to get rid of, causing Ted and the others to go to great lengths just to avoid contact with him, such as going to bed extremely early or going out to the island's sub-standard crazy golf course in the pouring rain. When Ted prays to God with the intention of getting rid of Father Stone, he is subsequently struck by lightning after joining Ted and Dougal at the crazy golf course. He gets stuck in the same position as he was when he is struck, and surgeons are unable to remove the golf club from his hands, leading Dougal to comment: "He looks like a trophy". His grandmother and parents are alive and he is known to have one brother who is a doctor. It turns out that he hero-worships Ted and once drew a portrait of the two of them together, which features in subsequent episodes appearing on the living room mantle.
Father Austin Purcell, played by Ben Keaton, features in the episode "Think Fast, Father Ted". He is "the most boring priest in the world", according to Ted. The entire population of a village in Nigeria once sailed to their deaths on a crocodile-infested lake to escape him. He talks constantly in an annoying high-pitched voice about the most trivial and irritating topics, including central heating, insurance and "favourite humming noises". His conversation includes describing painting a house orange and building extensions on an extension, concluding "the house is in a circle now". Ted has to physically restrain Father Jack from punching Father Austin. After Ted allows Father Jack to leave he cries out 'Thank Christ' and promptly locks Ted up with Father Austin in his place. He claims to have known a woman once, "but she died soon afterwards". Purcell keeps talking even when no one is listening, at one point striking up a conversation with a sofa coverlet embroidered with Jesus' face: "Ah, it's yourself!".
In 2014, Keaton returned to the role, performing a stand-up routine and hosting pub quizzes entirely in character. Keaton also set up a Twitter page for the character, and a website where fans can purchase customised Father Purcell video greetings. In 2015, Keaton began a spin-off web series, Cook Like a Priest.
Father Fintan Stack, played by Brendan Grace, is the main antagonist in the episode "New Jack City". He comes to the Parochial House as Father Jack's replacement when Jack contracts "hairy hands syndrome" and is sent to St Clabbert's (known informally among the priests as "Jurassic Park"). Father Stack is rude, obnoxious and destructive. His unpleasant habits, in which he engages solely for his own amusement, include:
Stack's visit is abruptly cut short when he too contracts Hairy Hands Syndrome from sitting in Jack's chair. This is discovered right as Jack is about to punch Stack out for going after his whiskey.
Ted concludes that Stack is worse than Hitler, because "you wouldn't find Hitler playing jungle music at three in the morning".
Father "Todd Unctious", played by Gerard McSorley, appears in the episode "A Christmassy Ted". He turns up at the parochial house at Christmas claiming to be an old pal of Ted's; Ted has no recollection of Todd whatsoever. Ted is required to employ long-winded strategies to find out his name, without success. An attempt to get him to write his name fails, with Unctious claiming he once fell while running with scissors, completely severing the nerve that controls handwriting. Fortunately Mrs Doyle manages to guess his name in under an hour, after increasingly ridiculous wrong guesses (including Neil Hannon, a reference to the Divine Comedy singer who wrote the show's theme tune). His behaviour disturbs Ted: he enjoys wandering around in nothing but his underpants, is not averse to showing Ted some of his more intimate scars, and likes shadow boxing. He turns out to be a thief who wants to steal Ted's "Golden Cleric" Award, having befriended another mysterious priest in a bar who knew Ted. He then proceeded to steal the other priest's clothes, despite having priest's clothes of his own, claiming "it was just going that way". It is also revealed at the end of the episode that Todd Unctious is not his real name.