Father Ted was so damn good it became an event in Ireland. Every time an episode was due to air for the first time, down to the pub everyone would go and watch it on the (then) big televisions, laughing uproariously and just loving the not so subtle pokes at Irish life. I'll never forget the sight of my father laughing so hard he had difficulty breathing. There was never a chance in hell that RTÉ would've touched it at the time given that the Church had such a powerful influence over pretty much everyone, so it also broke ground in letting us laugh at the Church itself. Of course, at a time when certain allegations were coming into light, it was something that contributed to the massive change in the relationship between the Church, the people and the state.
Even now we quote the lines to each other and even though we know every episode back to front, it's still gut-bustingly hilarious and never fails to make us laugh. As someone previously said, the casting was insanely good with dotty Mrs. Doyle, violent drunk Father Jack (in reality Frank Kelly is one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet), clueless Dougal (how Ardal O'Hanlon did those utterly gormless faces, I'll never know - shades of Rodney from Only Fools & Horses?) and poor put-upon Ted. It's such a great shame that Dermot Morgan died just as he was really hitting it big.
Even all the ancillary characters were so well done - Father Dick Byrne and his fierce rivalry with Ted that started with the "Scrabble fiasco" where Dick somehow got the letters to spell out "Useless priest, can't say Mass", John and Mary and their secret, violent hate for one another, complete nutjob Tom ("Would you believe me own dog did that to me?!") and so on.
A great documentary to watch is
Small, Far Away - The World of Father Ted, if anyone is interested.
)
