Irish president joins mourners for comedy star

Irish president Michael D Higgins was among the mourners who turned out for the funeral of  Father Ted actor Frank Kelly in Dublin today.

The sitcom’s co-creators Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews as well as Ardal O'Hanlon, who played Dougal, were also among the hundreds paying their respects.

Kelly’s son Emmet told mourners: ‘When he gets to Heaven, when they chose to let Father Jack through the duty free at Pearly Gates, they'll have no choice - it will be the first time anyone ever told St Peter to feck off.’

And after the service Mathews told the BBC that Kelly had been ‘a legendary figure in Irish comedy’.

Kelly died at the weekend at the age of 77, 18 years after the sitcom's star Dermot Morgan passed away.

The Father Jack star had a history of health problems, including Parkinson's disease, bowel cancer – from which he got the all-clear in 2011 – skin cancer and heart problems.

But he had a longer history of performance and comedy, starting in the Irish children's programme Wanderly Wagon from 1968 to 1982.

He became known for comedy via the long-running Hall's Pictorial Weekly, from 1970 to 1982, where he played Parnell Mooney, a councillor from a rural backwater.

Kelly was also a popular radio comedian of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, including The Glen Abbey Show, where his characters included bumpkin Gobnait O'Lúnasa and an English BBC reporter.

His other credits include Emmerdale and Mrs Brown's Boys D’Movie, but he will always be known as the aggressively drunk Father Jack Hackett.

A number of  gifts were brought to the altar for his funeral, including the Irish Times crossword, which he undertook every day, and 17 flowers, representing each of his grandchildren

Published: 2 Mar 2016