Father Ted Mathews first met while working at "Hot Press". In the late 1980s, Mathews, Paul Woodfull and Kieran Woodfull formed The Joshua Trio, a U2 tribute band. The trio began writing comedy sketches to accompany their act. Mathews created the Father Ted character for his short-lived stand-up routine. Before The Joshua Trio played at gigs, Mathews would occasionally come on-stage as Father Ted and tell jokes involving his great friend, Father Dougal McGuire. In 1991, Mathews left his job at "Hot Press" and moved into Linehan's London home. Over the next three to four years, they worked on rough ideas for
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