Father Dougal McGuire to television, casting O'Hanlon as the on-screen Dougal. Arthur Mathews created the character of Father Ted while working at "Hot Press" in 1987–89. During production weekends, he and Paul Woodfull had the idea for The Joshua Trio, a comedic U2 tribute band. The band performed various warm-up sketches written by Mathews, Woodfull, and Graham Linehan, who joined in a non-musical capacity. These sketches included stand-up performed by Mathews in-character as Father Ted Crilly. 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
Father Dougal McGuire and very, very strange. I saw Dougal as very doglike, very puppyish and lovable, and really loyal to Ted." After the first episode aired, Ben Thompson of "The Independent" singled out O'Hanlon as "the real star of the show", and said that Dougal's "holy-fool innocence" as "worthy of James Stewart". Writing for the "Irish Examiner", Ed Power said that while the "meme-worthy" Dougal and Jack received the most attention at the time of broadcast, Morgan's straight-man performance was the highlight in retrospect. Morgan attributed the show's success to the appealing double-act formed by Dougal, "an idiot who knows nothing", and