Father Ted Crilly death in February 1998, 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. After considering several surnames, Linehan suggested Crilly, which stuck. Mathews has described his version of Ted as a generic priest, but Woodfull saw the character as more camp, and later said that he felt Mathews had preempted the camp/gay priest stereotype in Irish comedy. During production weekends, Mathews and Woodfull had the idea for The
A Song for Europe (Father Ted) A Song for Europe (Father Ted) "A Song for Europe" is the fifth episode of the second series of the Channel 4 sitcom "Father Ted" and the 11th episode overall. It originally aired in April 1996 and has since been recognised as one of the most popular episodes of the show. The episode is based on Ireland's winning streak at the Eurovision Song Contest during the 1990s. The plot centres around Ted and Dougal trying to write a song for it (though the episode does not refer to that name directly) in order to settle a rivalry with Dick Byrne.