Quotes

My standard response to people asking me, 'Will you hear my confession, Father?' is, 'I only handle the heavy stuff. So if it's just stealing from your mother's purse, forget it. But if you've been a senior member of the Conservative Party, I'll hear it.'

Before Ted, my fame ended at Howth. There's something disingenuous about comedians saying, 'Oh, fame's so heavy.' Obviously sometimes it's intrusive, but it's ungrateful to bellyache about the effects of fame if you've actively sought it. If you don't like it, then piss off and sell insurance.

It doesn't at first glance look like a winner. But people like the characters. If you want the audience to stick with you, you have to have attractive characters. Dougal and Ted are an idiot who knows nothing and an idiot who thinks he knows something but actually knows nothing. Ted is an Everyman guy, bumbling through life with a half-wit - half may even be overstating the fraction.

Things that give us a good laugh are not that plentiful. OK, political life gives us enormous laughs. As a professional comedian, one feels miffed that the amateurs are upstaging us. I had a satirical radio show on RTE, and it was getting harder and harder to outstrip reality.

One trendy priest had a cut at us in an article. But the reasons why he didn't like it can't have been cogent, or they would have stayed with me. The Church has greater problems than Father Ted. It's a spent force. I've heard they have zero admissions at some seminaries. I'm old enough to recall the clout they had in the 1960s, when people used to talk about 'the belt of a crozier' whenever they cracked down on secular society. Now I genuinely sympathise with priests for what is a largely untenable position. Anyone suggesting that it is the infallible will of the Church that priests should remain celebate is talking nonsense. That is going to do far more damage than Father Ted.