Father Ted Crilly Hackett; and their neurotic housekeeper, Mrs Doyle (whom Linehan states Ted first met when she won the local Lovely Girls competition). He has a bitter rivalry with Father Dick Byrne, a priest living on the nearby Rugged Island. Ted's experiences throughout the show range from the mundane (having to protest against a blasphemous film in "The Passion of Saint Tibulus", 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", climbing out of a flying plane to fix the fuel line in "Flight Into
Father Ted Crilly more conservative, traditional priest. Morgan lobbied hard for the role, eventually persuading Linehan. The writers considered O'Donoghue a back-up to use should Morgan become unavailable, and later created Father Dick Byrne, Ted's recurring rival, specifically for O'Donoghue to play. Aspects such as Ted's obsession with money and fantasy of going to Las Vegas emerged while writing for Morgan, and the writers began to feel for Ted in a way they did not for the other characters. After the second series aired, Linehan said he still believed that Mathews could easily have played Ted in the show. There have been several