Father Ted Crilly one day after the third series of "Father Ted" completed recording, and was posthumously given the Award for Best Comedy Performance at the British Academy Television Awards 1999. In November 2014, the "Irish Examiner" named Ted the greatest Irish TV character, calling him "a rare example of a straight man providing almost as many chuckles as his compatriots" and praising his characterisation as an "upstanding-yet-oh-so-faintly-slippery man of the cloth" as true to life for many rural Irish viewers. Father Ted Crilly Father Ted Crilly is the title character of the Channel 4 sitcom "Father Ted". Created by Graham Linehan and
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