Morgan's performance was acclaimed; after his untimely death on 28 February 1998 from a heart attack, he was awarded a posthumous BAFTA for his work in the third series.

Arthur Mathews had a lifelong fascination with priests, and developed the character of Father Ted while working at Hot Press with Graham Linehan and Paul Woodfull in 1987–89.

As Ted, Mathews sometimes read from a book, Notes from Africa, purportedly written by Father Dougal McGuire, a missionary friend who described his experiences of being attacked and chased by natives.

In one sketch, Ted discussed his concern for Dougal, who had been voted Most Unpopular Priest in Africa for two years running and was spending Christmas up a tree in the grounds of The Bob Geldof Centre.

Woodfull later said that the show was "probably a bit too weird for [its] slot", and that, when the station suggested they take two of the characters and launch a spin-off called Tea and Toast with Tony and Ted, Mathews opted out.

[1][2] In 1989, Ted (played by Mathews) performed with The Joshua Trio in an episode of the Irish music anthology series Nighthawks, marking the character's first televised appearance.

The script, delivered in 1990, described Ted as "a perpetually jolly and rather sad man who, through some terrible accident of faith, has found himself in the priesthood."

The story involved Ted returning to his seminary to catch up with his old friends, including Father Jack, whom he fails to realise has recently died.

Producer Geoffrey Perkins asked Linehan and Mathews to discard the mockumentary format and expand the Father Ted episode to a traditional sitcom.

Ted attended Saint Colm's seminary, and was bullied by the other novices, who nicknamed him Father Fluffybottom after seeing his backside in the showers.

Some time after being ordained, he was stationed in a Wexford parish, where he was investigated under suspicion of stealing the money for a child's pilgrimage to Lourdes to fund his own trip to Las Vegas.

He was eventually promoted and managed to move to a comfortable parish in Dublin, though his stay there was abruptly ended after irregularities in his expenses claims were discovered, and he was promptly sent straight back to Craggy Island.

For the duration of the show, Ted lives in the Craggy Island Parochial House with the childlike and dimwitted Father Dougal McGuire, the senile, aggressive and alcoholic Father Jack Hackett, and their neurotic housekeeper, Mrs Doyle (whom Linehan states Ted first met when she won the local Lovely Girls competition).

Ted's experiences throughout the show range from the mundane (having to protest against a blasphemous film in "The Passion of Saint Tibulus" and rigging a raffle to repair the roof in "Think Fast, Father Ted"), to the surreal (becoming Ireland's entry for Eurosong 1996 in "A Song for Europe", and climbing out of a flying plane to fix the fuel line in "Flight Into Terror").

In the final episode, "Going to America", Ted persuades the suicidal Father Kevin not to jump off a ledge at the "It's Great Being a Priest!

Mathews later noted that the original ending still left Ted's fate ambiguous, and would have suggested the possibility of future episodes.

[17] Linehan and Mathews have described Ted as a decent man, albeit one with "cheap" and "earthly" ambitions; they note that he would hate to become a bishop or cardinal.

[8] The writers agree that Ted should be married to Polly Clarke (played by Gemma Craven), the novelist he becomes infatuated with in "And God Created Woman", and consider the impossibility of their relationship "terribly sad".