Francis Kelly (28 December 1938 – 28 February 2016) was an Irish actor, singer and writer, whose career covered television, radio, theatre, music, screenwriting and film. He is best remembered for playing Father Jack Hackett in the Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted. Early life and career Kelly was born, in 1938, in Blackrock, south County Dublin, where he lived most of his life. His parents were Kathleen and Charles E. Kelly, cartoonist and founder of the satirical magazine Dublin Opinion. He was educated at Blackrock College and went on to study law at University College Dublin and tried journalism, working for years as a subeditor at Irish newspapers, before moving on to acting. He worked at Dublin's Eblana Theatre with Cecil Sheridan and as a feed to Jack Cruise. Other work included pantomime and reviews. Kelly's first film role, which was uncredited, was as a prison officer in The Italian Job (1969), escorting Charlie Croker (Michael Caine) out of prison in the film's opening sequence. He starred in the popular RTÉ children's programme Wanderly Wagon alongside Eugene Lambert and Nora O'Mahoney from 1968 to 1982, playing a number of different characters and writing many of the scripts. It was Kelly's work on Hall's Pictorial Weekly (1970–1982) that established him as one of Ireland's most recognisable faces. He memorably portrayed councillor Parnell Mooney, a send-up of a backward local authority figure in rural Ireland. In 1974, Kelly won a Jacob's Award for his work on the series. In the early 1980s, he was featured in the RTÉ television programme for those learning Irish Anois is Aris. At the end of the programme he spoke into a telephone, gradually introducing Irish phrases. In 1988, he appeared in the Irish thriller film Taffin. Father Ted Kelly was best known outside Ireland for playing Father Jack Hackett in the comedy series Father Ted, which aired in the United Kingdom from April 1995 to May 1998. Father Jack is an old, alcoholic and offensively rambunctious priest who usually shouts only "feck!", "arse!", "drink!" and "girls!" and the occasional scream of "what!" and "women's knickers". For his role in Father Ted, he wore contact lenses (to show Father Jack's cataract). People would not eat lunch with him during filming if he was in his Father Jack make-up because the false flaky skin he was wearing would fall off into the food. Interviewing Kelly in 1997 for