[4] Norton has been acting for over fifty years in theatre, television, and film, and frequently plays clergymen, most notably Bishop Brennan in the sitcom Father Ted, as well as roles in The Sweeney (1975), Peak Practice (1993), Sunset Heights (1997), A Love Divided (1999), Rebus: Black and Blue (2000), Mad About Mambo (2000), Boxed (2003) and Jimmy's Hall (2014).
Other television work includes: 1990, Agatha Christie's Poirot; Waking the Dead; Cheers; Frasier; Midsomer Murders; Maigret and Rumpole of the Bailey as Fig Newton, Stan Laurel in the BBC drama Stan (2006) and Larry Joyce in the 2013 television drama Deception, Silas Mitton, Brendan Robinson and Digger in the stop motion series The Treacle People (1996-1997) and as the timid Gardener in the first series of the long-running CITV children's series T-Bag: "Wonders in Letterland" (1985) 1960s Norton made his film debut with a small role in the 1965 thriller The Face of Fu Manchu starring Christopher Lee, and later appeared in the 1969 epic film Alfred the Great as Thanet.
In 1971 he played Chris Cawsey (aka "The Rat Man"), one of several villains in the controversial Sam Peckinpah film Straw Dogs starring Dustin Hoffman.
2010s In 2011 Norton appeared as the character Old Mr Black in the film Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close directed by Stephen Daldry.
He appeared in the 2011 film Water for Elephants, in which he portrays a circus worker called "Camel" who befriends a character played by Robert Pattinson.
Norton has a longtime partnership with playwright Conor McPherson, having originated roles in six of his plays in Dublin, London and New York, and for which he has won both the Tony and Olivier Award.
Norton played Jack in The Weir (1997), Joe in Port Authority (2001), Matthew in Come on Over (2001), Richard in The Seafarer (2006–7), Reverend Berkeley in The Veil (2011), and Maurice in The Night Alive (2013).
In 2013/2014 he played Maurice in Conor McPherson's The Night Alive, a Donmar Warehouse production, transferred to the Atlantic Theatre Company in New York.
Norton starred as Candy in the 2014 Broadway revival of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men (alongside James Franco and fellow Irishman Chris O'Dowd) at the Longacre Theatre.