Father Jack wishes you a happy St Paddy's day!

Joe sez,

A group of seven Irish comics artists - Stephen Mooney, Stephen Thompson, PJ Holden, Nick Roche, Will Sliney, Bob Byrne and Declan Shalvey - recently set up their own collective comics sketching blog, Eclectic Micks. As Declan put it, they were trying to raise the profile of Irish comics creators and make readers as aware of them as they are of the great talent we have in the UK.

With seven artists the guys are effectively taking a day each to post sketches - for today Declan has posted up a piece that isn't actually comics related but dammit, it's so good it has to be shared: St Patrick's Day greetings from the always charming and deeply pious Father Jack Hackett from Graham Linehan's brilliant Father Ted series (surely one of THE stand out comedy series of the last couple of decades). If you're getting ODed on dyed green rivers and people donning ginger beards and green hats here's a St Pat's Day antidote for you. Now where's my drink, you feckers? DRINK!!!

HAPPY ST. PADDY'S DAY FROM FATHER JACK HACKETT! (Thanks, Joe!)

• [arkizzle]

  And from me!

  Happy St Patrick’s Day!!

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifO7AwBtNjE

  (link repost, I didn’t know we’d have a whole thread!)

• [garodin]

  Graham Linehan _and_ Arthur Mathews wrote Father Ted. Happy St. Pat’s!

• [reginald]

  the lord works in mysterious ways . . .
  after several pints of guinness.

• [Big Ed Dunkel]

  Good masters & sweet ladies! Please raise your glass and give thanks to that feckin’ island.

  Thanks, a show that completely defied categorization.

• [Fran Cannon Slayton]

  Happy St. Patty’s Day to all!!!

• [Donal]

  “What’s that there Ted?”

  It’s not ever called St. Pat’s Day.
  It’s not ever ever ever called St. Patty’s Day…
  It’s not ever ever ever ever called Patty’s Day…

  It’s called St. Patrick’s Day. Maybe, but only if you’re Irish, you might call it “Paddy’s Day”.
  And I’m an atheist, with me it has nothing much to do with religion. It’s called St. Patrick’s Day out of respect, by us Irish, to Ireland, our country.
  We generally find anyone non-Irish saying “St. Paddy’s Day” as being ignorant, saying “St. Patty’s Day” as being ignorant insulting. We might not say it you directly, but trust me on this.

  Unless you’re actually Irish and doing it just to annoy everyone, in which case…feck off you langer.

  “Father Ted: That’s the great thing about Catholicism – it’s very vague and no-one knows what its really all about.”

  And we have the worst parades in the world! If I’d only had a camera with me today in Tipperary to prove it…
  All it was missing was a Spider baby…

  “Father Dougal: Funland is coming to Craggy Island on Saturday..
  Father Ted: I wouldn’t have much interest in that kind of thing myself.
  Dougal, wheedling: They’ve got a spider baby.
  Ted: A what?
  Dougal: A Spider-Baby- It’s kind a freak show thing. It’s got the body of a spider but it’s actually a baby.
  Father Ted, confused: How is it a baby, does it have a nappy on it or something?
  Dougal; No.
  Ted: Does it have the head of a baby?
  Dougal: No.
  Ted; Well, if it looks like a spider, and it doesn’t gurgle or anything, how do you know it’s actually a baby?:
  Dougal: They keep it in a pram.
  Ted sighs.
  Ted: Dougal… are you absolutely sure about this? You’re not confusing it with a dream you had or anything?
  Dougal: NO Ted, No, no…no…oh, wait a minute. yes…Yes, it was a dream.”

• [Trent Hawkins]

  “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy,” -Ben Franklin

  Happy st.Patty’s everyone! And try not to throw up all over the subway on the way home.

• [johnmcorg]

  #12 Donal, are you from the People’s Republic by any chance since you’re running around with your langer on the internet? How about we try to eradicate the name “St. Patty’s Day” by this time next year?

• [Sal Paradise]

  Dougal: God, I’ve heard about those cults Ted. People dressing up in black and saying Our Lord’s going to come back and save us all.

  Ted: No, Dougal, that’s us. That’s Catholicism.

  Dougal: Oh right.

• [zuzu]

  Ladies and gentlemen, what you are seeing is a total disregard for the things St. Patrick’s Day stand for. All this drinking, violence, destruction of property. Are these the things we think of when we think of the Irish?

  – Kent Brockman

• [thebelgianpanda]

  Father Ted: Ah, Sister Assumpta!
  Sister Assumpta: Hello Father!
  Father Ted: Dougal, Dougal, do you remember Sister Assumpta?
  Father Dougal: Er, no.
  Father Ted: She was here last year! And then we stayed with her in the convent, back in Kildare. Do you remember it? Ah, you do! And then you were hit by the car when you went down to the shops for the paper. You must remember all that? And then you won a hundred pounds with your lottery card? Ah, you must remember it, Dougal!
  [Dougal shakes his head]
  Sister Assumpta: And weren’t you accidentally arrested for shoplifting? I remember we had to go down to the police station to get you!… And the police station went on fire? And you had to be rescued by helicopter?
  Father Ted: Do you remember? You can’t remember any of that? The helicopter! When you fell out of the helicopter! Over the zoo! Do you remember the tigers?
  [Dougal shakes his head some more]
  Father Ted: You don’t remember? You were wearing your blue jumper.
  Father Dougal: Ah, Sister Assumpta!

• [johnmcorg]

  #5 (and the rest of the US) – It is *not* nor ever has it been “St. Patty’s Day”. Today is St. Patrick’s Day or (St.) Paddy’s Day. Patty is not a valid contraction of Patrick, especially in Ireland.

• [arkizzle]

  Johnmcorg, its a deal!

  Now we just have to settle on a punishment.

• [arkizzle]

  BISHOP O’NEILL: So Father, do you ever have any doubts about the religious life? Is your faith ever tested? Anything you’ve been worried about? Any doubts you’ve been having about any aspects of belief? Anything like that?

  DOUGAL: Well…you know the way God made us all, right, and eh, he’s looking down on us from heaven and everything. And then His Son came down and saved everyone and all that.

  BISHOP O’NEILL: Well yes.

  DOUGAL: And when we die we’re all going to go to heaven.

  BISHOP O’NEILL: Yes. What about it?

  DOUGAL: Well that’s the bit I have trouble with.