Dermot Morgan


Dermot John Morgan was an Irish comedian and actor. He was best known for the role of Father Ted Crilly, the title character in the Irish sitcom Father Ted.

Early life and education

Morgan was born on 3 March 1952 in Dublin. His parents were Donnchadh Morgan, an artist and sculptor with a passion for drama, and Hilda "Holly" Stokes, a "celebrated beauty" from Dún Laoghaire. Donnchadh died young of an aneurysm, leaving Hilda with four children: Dermot, Paul, Denise, and Ruth, who died in childhood.
He was educated at Oatlands College, Stillorgan, and University College, Dublin. Morgan was a teacher of English at St. Michael's College, Ailesbury Road before quitting to become a full-time performer.

Career

Father Trendy and ''The Live Mike''

Morgan made his debut in the media on the Morning Ireland radio show produced by Gene Martin, whose sister Ella was the mother of one of Morgan's friends. It was through this contact that Morgan made the break into radio and eventually television.
Morgan came to prominence as part of the team behind the highly successful RTÉ television show The Live Mike, presented by Mike Murphy. Between 1979 and 1982 Morgan played a range of comic characters who appeared between segments of the show. Morgan lampooned the rampant Modernism within the Post-Vatican II Roman Catholic Church in Ireland by creating Father Trendy, a wishy-washy, trying-to-be-cool hippie-priest. Father Trendy always wore an Elvis-style haircut and, sometimes, a leather jacket. He was also given to drawing ludicrous parallels between religious life and secular hobbies in two-minute 'sermons' to the camera. Morgan's other characters included a bigotted GAA member who waved his hurley around while verbally attacking his pet hates.
Morgan also lampooned both the Wolfe Tones and the clichés of Irish rebel songs, which he said "always have lots of blood and guts and thunder in them." He then sang a rebel song of his own about the martyrdom of Fido, a dog who saves his IRA master by eating a hand grenade during a search of the house by the Black and Tans during the Irish War of Independence. When Fido farts and the grenade explodes, the British ask, "Excuse me, mate, was there something your dog ate?!" The terrified Black and Tans then flee the house, as the heartbroken IRA man looks at Fido's remains, "on the ceiling, floor and wall."
In a parody of the Wolfe Tones' wildly popular cover of the Young Irelander anthem A Nation Once Again, Morgan climaxed by singing:
;"Another martyr for old Ireland
;By Britannia cruelly slain!
;I hope that somewhere up there I hope he'll be
;An Alsatian once again!
;An Alsatian once again!
;An Alsatian once again!
;That Fido who's now in ribbons will be an Alsatian once again!"

As a singer: ''Mr Eastwood''

Morgan released a comedy single, Thank You Very Very Much, Mr Eastwood, in December 1985. It was a take on the fawning praise that internationally successful Irish boxer Barry McGuigan gave his manager, Barney Eastwood, at the end of successive bouts. The single 'featured' lines by McGuigan, Ronald Reagan, Bob Geldof and Pope John Paul II, and was the Christmas number one in the Irish singles chart in 1985.

''Scrap Saturday''

Morgan's biggest Irish broadcasting success occurred in the late 1980s on the Saturday morning radio comedy show Scrap Saturday, in which Morgan, co-scriptwriter Gerard Stembridge, Owen Roe and Pauline McLynn mocked Ireland's political, business and media establishment. The show's treatment of the relationship between the ever-controversial Taoiseach Charles Haughey and his press secretary PJ Mara proved particularly popular, with Haughey's dismissive attitude towards Mara and the latter's adoring and grovelling attitude towards his "Boss... the greatest Leader, Man of Destiny, Statesman, Titan, a Colossus" winning critical praise.
Morgan pilloried Haughey's propensity for claiming a family connection to almost every part of Ireland he visited by making reference to a famous advertisement for Harp beer, which played on the image of someone returning home and seeking friends, especially "Sally O'Brien, and the way she might look at you". In Morgan's version, Haughey visited somewhere in the world and, after a few seconds, the music from the advertisement began playing. At this point, the Taoiseach exclaimed "did I tell you, PJ, about my cousins in... " before mentioning supposed relatives such as "my cousin François Haughey", "Helmut Haughey", "Yassar Haughey" or "Yitzak Haughey" to the despairing Mara, who groaned "Ah now Jaysus, Boss, come on now. Ah Jaysus !"
The Haughey/Mara "double act" became the star turn in a series that mocked both sides of the political divide, from Haughey and his advisors to opposition Fine Gael TD Michael Noonan as Limerick disk jockey "Morning Noon'an Night". When RTÉ axed the show in the early 1990s a national outcry ensued. Morgan lashed the decision, calling it "a shameless act of broadcasting cowardice and political subservience". An RTÉ spokesman said: "The show is not being axed. It's just not being continued!"
In 1991, Morgan received a Jacob's Award for his contribution to Scrap Saturday from the Irish national newspaper radio critics.

''Father Ted''

Already a celebrity in Ireland, Morgan got his big break in Britain with Channel 4's Irish sitcom Father Ted, which ran for three series from 1995 to 1998. Writers Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews auditioned many actors for the title role, but Morgan's enthusiasm won him the part. Father Ted focused on the misadventures of three morally dubious Irish Catholic priests, whose transgressions have gotten them exiled to the fictional Craggy Island, off the coast of County Galway.

BAFTA Award

In 1996, Father Ted won a BAFTA award for Best Comedy. The same year Morgan also won a British Comedy Award for Top TV Comedy Actor, and McLynn was awarded Top TV Comedy Actress. In 1999, Father Ted won a second BAFTA for Best Comedy, with Morgan being awarded Best Comedy Performance posthumously.

Unreleased works

Morgan said in an interview with Gay Byrne on The Late Late Show in 1996 that he was writing a screenplay entitled Miracle of the Magyars, based on a real-life incident in the 1950s when the Archbishop of Dublin forbade Catholics from attending a football match between the Republic of Ireland and Yugoslavia on religious and spiritual grounds. Yugoslavia won the match 4–1. Morgan planned to use Hungary as the opposing side to Ireland – hence the title. At the time of his death in 1998, he had completed the screenplay but the film was never made.
Morgan's first project after Father Ted was to be Re-united, a sitcom about two retired footballers sharing a flat in London. According to former manager John Fischer, Morgan was scripting the programme and planned to take the part of "an Eamon Dunphy-type who had gone on to work in journalism, but had ended up living with an old football pal". Mel Smith was in talks for the role of the friend.
Morgan had been commissioned to write a drama series for the BBC.

Personal life

Dermot married Susanne Garmatz, a native of Hamburg, and they had two sons: Don and Rob. They separated in 1990. He later began a relationship with Fiona Clarke, with whom he had another son, Ben.
Morgan was an atheist.

Death

Prior to location filming on the third and final series of Father Ted, Morgan underwent a mandatory medical examination in which he was found to have high blood pressure and was prescribed medication.
The day after recording the series' final episode, Morgan suffered a heart attack while hosting a dinner party at his home in south-west London. He was rushed to hospital, but died soon afterwards.
His sister Denise said, "He wasn't feeling great at the end of the meal and I went to the bedroom with him. He had a heart attack and I didn't recognise it.
From my limited training in first aid, I wasn't sure exactly what was happening. The symptoms didn't match what the books said. I said to him 'I think you are okay' and we went back to the table. He apologised for having left the room and the next thing he just collapsed. We tried to resuscitate him but it didn't work. He had a massive heart attack."
Father Ted co-star Frank Kelly said, "Dermot's mind was mercurial. I think he was a kind of comedic meteor. He burned himself out."
Despite Morgan's atheism, a Roman Catholic Requiem Mass was offered for him at St. Therese's Church, in the South Dublin suburb of Mount Merrion. The Mass was attended by Mary McAleese, President of Ireland, her predecessor Mary Robinson, and by many of the Irish political and religious leaders who had been the targets of his satire in Scrap Saturday. Morgan's body was cremated at Glasnevin Cemetery, and his ashes were buried in the family plot in Deansgrange Cemetery.

Legacy

In December 2013, a documentary, Dermot Morgan – Fearless Funnyman, aired on RTÉ One.
A wax statue of Morgan was erected by his sons in the national wax museum in Dublin.

Appearances

Television