Quotes from Ardal O'Hanlon

Carrickmacross always had a border mentality. Smuggling would have been a big thing there in the past; there would have been spillover from the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

I was never ideological in any sense, or a slave to any particular politics or religion. My solace and my inspiration always came from books and literature.

Irish politicians are very accessible to the public, just the messenger boys for the local constituency.

The big turning point for me was a school debate in sixth year when, against all odds and to everybody's surprise, I put myself forward... I wrote this funny speech and was determined to do my own thing, and it wasn't on topic and people were laughing a lot. I really can't describe how wonderful an experience it was.

I am going through a Neil Young phase. I also listen to a lot of alternative country, a band called Smog and Bonnie Prince Billy, which is very dark and twisted.

In terms of being typecast, if you do something like Father Ted that infiltrates the public's imagination to the extent that it did, I think realistically you're not going to be asked to do something radically different from that very often. But it's not a problem.

My father was a typical Irish father. He was a nice, hard working, driven guy. His politics were very conservative and I was just a very different kind of kid to that. I was very shy and bookish.

I don't take myself or the species too seriously. You have to laugh at everything.

I think my first girlfriend and I hardly spoke to each other in the year we were going out. In fact we never even spoke to each other to formally break it off. For all I know she still thinks we're together. Maybe in a parallel universe we're very happy.

Marriage is when two people are joined together to become one desperately boring person.

People pay far too much attention to the television and they're quite literal in some ways. At the beginning, when I was playing very stupid characters, I think people genuinely thought I was possibly quite dim-witted myself, which is a compliment in some ways, as I must have been doing my job very well.

If I was a very stable person, I would not have to do comedy. Nobody would have to listen to me.

Fundamentally, I was a very shy and quiet person growing up, so it was just really difficult getting up on a stage. It was a perverse career choice really.

Johnny Giles is my favourite Leeds player, without doubt. He was a fierce competitor. I met him once, at a black-tie event in Dublin, which was one of the great nights of my life.

My father was driven, active and always busy. We didn't see that much of him, although he never went far away or stayed overnight anywhere.

Dragged out of your bed at the age of seven, my mother screaming, six kids under the age of 12. I'm not equating my experience with the people who lived in Northern Ireland. But my dad was always out and about late at night, and I could not go to sleep until I knew he was in.

I couldn't make a living as a comic in Ireland and I was watching my friends from college getting good jobs, buying houses, and I had to really take stock and say: am I going to go for this comedy thing, or what?

People love authenticity in comedy and, coming from a region, you get a very strong sense of place. They can place you straight away, so they can relax.

I think there is a very strong sense of Irish identity, and I think partly that's to do with the fact that we have evolved differently from Britain and other countries in Europe.

To be honest I would like to do more movies, I've been a victim of my own success in that sense, as if you have a TV character that really endures, it's really hard to get into film.

I suppose British people generally, probably have very stereotypical notions about the Irish that go back to Victorian times.

I think making a documentary gets you out and about more, with people. With stand-up, you're talking at people. With documentaries you're talking with people, and you're listening a lot more.