You know when you see a photo that just captures the moment? Well, for me, this one above nails the trip that I’ve had to Ireland with my dad as we went on our dad and daughter road trip (more on this soon!). We were stood in the icy rain that was coming down and drenching us in sideways sheets, in the middle of nowhere, outside Father Ted’s house, trying to stop giggling at the randomness of it all.
The whole Father Ted tour (if you’ve never seen the show then check this out) was bizarre, surreal but utterly brilliant. My dad is a huge fan of the Channel 4 comedy that first aired 21 years ago about a group of priests who had been exiled to live together on fictional Craggy Island, so when organising our Irish itinerary we knew this had to be on the list.
We drove the same route that the cast took to come to Kilfenora in Co.Clare, they stayed for six weeks at a time during the bleakest months of November and December to get that grey, drizzly and wet Craggy Island feel. The exact weather conditions that were ironically recreated when we visited - although we were there in August. Oh, you’ve gotta love the Irish summer!
We met chatty and knowledgeable tour guide, Janet, who runs the tours in the village centre and piled into a minibus with three other families to be driven past famous sites that appear in the show. Setting off down winding country lanes singing along to ‘My Lovely Horse’ and hearing tales about what the crew members got up to whilst they based themselves here, was a taste of things to come.
Back in the rain we plodded into one of the quaintest pubs I’ve ever been into. The owner, Eugene, welcomed us by getting a roaring fire going and then proudly showed off his ‘shrine’ to the show as the pub in Ennistymon was used as the crew’s regular haunt. Loads of locals got involved in filming so they are quite rightly proud of what became such a successful TV show. We headed to the bright yellow ‘Chinese Restaurant’ and spotted the waterfalls and streets where Father Dougal did his milk rounds.
It was onto the pièce de résistance as we visited the actual Father Ted House, where they filmed much of the first series. Built in 1850, near the Burren National Park, the imposing building is set on acres of lush land with not a neighbour or local shop in sight. The house is still owned by the same family who lived there whilst filming was taking place, their youngest child was even used as the baby left on the door step in the Christmas special show - filmed when she was a few weeks old and who has recently turned 20!
The lady of the house was a friendly, chatty Irish-American woman who ushered us in from the cold with homemade cakes, endless cups of tea and shared gossip from what it was like basically living on a TV set. She regularly invites visitors to come and have ‘Mrs Doyle’s’ tea and cake by appointment and didn’t once seem bored to keep repeating the same old tales. After warming up and admitting that the windswept look was here to stay we posed for photos in winds so strong even an Irish guy on the tour grumbled that ‘you wouldn’t put a cat out in this weather’ and piled back into the minibus for another sing-song.
It was such a treat to share this excitement with my dad (even if most of the references went over my head) so if you’re a hardcore Ted fan and thinking about booking a spot on the tour, then, in the words of Mrs Doyle: ‘Go on, go on, go on!’
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