Abstract
Co-writer of hit comedy television series Father Ted,
A few years later, Graham and I wrote “the clerical sitcom”, Father Ted. Again, our aim was firstly to amuse ourselves (as well as potential viewers), and the idea of three priests living on a remote island appealed to us. Coming from rural Ireland, and feeling immersed in Catholicism – my father, especially, was deeply religious, and two of my uncles were priests – it was an area I knew a lot about. Father Ted was always more surreal than satirical (more Monty Python than Rory Bremner) and, despite its intended silliness, had many of the traditional aspects of sitcom at its core. In recent years I see it as more satirical than it appeared at the time. The dichotomy of three flawed, imperfect buffoons being the “link” between ordinary people and an all-powerful, eternal, perfect (although ill-defined and unknowable) supernatural creator of the universe was at the heart of the show. The idea that these three misfits were God’s representatives on Earth was part of the humour. In Father Ted, the central characters may have been fools, but priests in the real world I grew up in were also flawed (as all human beings are), and to my mind, didn’t seem particularly spiritual or unworldly; seeming to be as interested in horse racing or enjoying a small glass of sherry as to spreading the divine word of God.
The programme was first aired 20 years ago on the UK’s Channel 4. At the time Ireland was still a very religious country. A “pro-life” amendment to the constitution had been passed as recently as 1983 in order to please the vociferous anti-abortion lobby. Divorce was still prohibited. (It was finally introduced in 1996 after a previous referendum in 1986 had been soundly defeated.) Even today, most of the schools and churches are controlled by the Catholic church, abortion remains illegal and a blasphemy law is still in place. Some 84 per cent call themselves Catholics – although, apparently, 62 per cent reject key parts of Catholicism such as transubstantiation. (I’m always intrigued by people who regard themselves as believers, but don’t actually believe in the fundamentals of their faith. This doesn’t apply to fundamentalists – obviously.) Modern liberal religious folk seem to have no problem in disregarding disagreeable portions of otherwise sacred texts when it suits them. It’s similar to perusing a copy of the Rules Of The Road and saying: “Okay, I’ll stop at red lights, but I’ll travel at 150 miles per hour up a one-way street.” (Obvious fertile area for satire there.)
Ireland has progressed, but I feel it’s, at heart, a conservative country still coming to terms with the modern world. Needless to say, a recent suggestion that the famine of the 1840s could be a possible basis for a sitcom made by Channel 4 caused outrage. This was when the proposal was still very much at the “ideas” stage, but even the idea of it caused offence among the usual conservative reactionary elements.
Against this background, I wasn’t surprised that many people were offended by Father Ted. And, coming from a Catholic family myself (like almost everybody else in the country), I understood that. I reckon that my older, conservative, rather fearsome priest uncle – who had died in 1989 and did not live to see the show – would have been gravely offended. However, because it was not an overtly satirical show, and most of the characters were actually quite loveable, it came, in time, to be seen as mostly harmless. Many (mostly younger) priests would laugh it off. One said to me once: “Sure you don’t know the half of it!” Serious damage to the church would come a short time later with the revelations of sex abuse by the clergy and the scandalous regimes they ran in various Catholic institutions. The most that could be said about Father Ted was that it undermined the church in a country where it had always been venerated, and was rarely exposed to criticism. The tradition of opposition to the church from the left which existed in France never emerged in Ireland. There was hardly “the left” in Ireland at all. Almost everybody involved in the Irish revolution from 1912 to 1923, no matter how violent, uncompromising or fanatical, was a pious, mass-going Catholic. The emergence of an independent Ireland reflected their beliefs. Under pressure from the church, the gloriously named Committee on Evil Literature was set up in the early years of the Free State to censor dangerous books and newspapers. (The News of The World was banned, for instance.) The censorship board lasted until 1967, but its legacy of intolerance lived on. (Probably the most deliberately satirical piece of work I’ve done is Well Remembered Days, a bogus memoir written from the perspective of a Gaelic-speaking, rabidly Republican, pious Catholic civil servant. Random extract: “The 1950s were a very exciting time in Ireland. Censorship remained strict, government, by whatever party, was deeply conservative, and the country remained a largely agricultural and rural-based society controlled by the church.”)
Under pressure from the church, the gloriously named Committee on Evil Literature was set up in the early years of the Free State to censor dangerous books and newspapers
However, by the 1990s, the opposition to Father Ted that Graham and I experienced was much milder than it would have been 10 or 20 years before. We were never in danger of physical harm. Would we have created the show if we thought we would endanger ourselves in some way? I doubt it. We would have written a sitcom about Formula One racing drivers. Father Ted was a mild satire, a million miles away from the provocative cartoons of Charlie Hebdo. While we never set out to offend anyone, we took it for granted that there would be no question of the show being censored, let alone taken off air, if people did take umbrage. Naturally I don’t believe that all writing has to be political, polemical, or about challenging institutions and religion, but of course all writers should be free to do that if they so wish. We are lucky enough to live in a society which is tolerant, inclusive, and – this is important – with an ability to laugh at itself. It is also a place with few taboos – where everything can be discussed, its absurdities and hypocrisies ridiculed, and people can come away from debates with their points made forcefully and passionately without having to worry about their personal safety. That seems like a desirable society to me. To see it come under such ferocious attack as it did so recently in France is a shock to the system.
Modern liberal religious folk seem to have no problem in disregarding disagreeable portions of otherwise sacred texts when it suits them