Father Dougal McGuire of nuns' lives were "irreparably damaged". Dougal is also famously known for wearing a Ireland soccer jersey when he is in bed. On the Channel 4 website for Father Ted, the profile for Father Dougal states that 'Dougal was relegated to the island after an unfortunate incident on a SeaLink ferry that put the lives of hundreds of nuns in danger.' In "Old Grey Whistle Theft", Dougal mentions that he is 25 years old. In the 2011 documentary "Unintelligent Design", Linehan said that Dougal had been conceived as a cross between wide-eyed bartender Woody in "Cheers" and roadsweeper Trigger in
Father Ted Crilly Geoffrey Perkins asked Linehan and Mathews to discard the mockumentary format and expand the Father Ted episode to a traditional sitcom. Linehan found the character of Ted easier to write if he imagined Mathews's version delivering the lines. "Every time I wrote Ted in the early days, I'd hear Arthur's voice... Ted was this very bland character who'd never curse except for saying a very quiet 'feck' to himself. That panic and turmoil under the surface defined Ted before we even started writing him. Years later, when we did, it was just like pressing 'play' on a tape recorder." One