Father Ted creator Graham Linehan has accused Ardal O’Hanlon, who played Father Dougal in the TV series, of abandoning him as he became embroiled in controversy over his views on transgender issues.
He spoke out after his criminal damage conviction, relating to an incident involving a trans activist’s mobile phone, was overturned on appeal at Southwark Crown Court on Friday.
Reflecting on the controversy over his views, he told GB News: “I’m still completely stunned by it. These ideas came into fashion around 2015. They were cooked up between American academics and kids on Tumblr who kind of came up with a series of thought-terminating talking points, which they repeat ad nauseam.
“There’s never any depth to the comments. There’s never any thoughtfulness behind them. They’re simply a way of brute forcing the idea that some men are women into the public consciousness.
“I’m astonished that it worked. I’m astonished at the NHS which is not only defending putting men in women’s spaces, but forcing the women who have to be subjected to it to tribunals and so on.
“I never expected all my friends to be so cowardly. Most recently, it was Ardal O’Hanlon, who played Father Dougal in Father Ted.
“When I was being attacked by trans activists and losing work, and my family was under siege by them, he never called me to ask me how I was doing or asked me what my opinions were. He just decided they were bigoted, because that’s what everyone was saying.
“I find the whole thing extraordinary, from top to bottom. I never expected people to be so cowardly. I never expected people to be so thick, frankly. But here we are, now in my 10th year of it.”
On the toll the controversy has taken on him, Linehan said: “I never considered taking my own life. I went through a period of maybe just kind of wondering about it as a solution, let’s say, but I quickly put that out of my mind, because that’s what they want.
“They want their victims to kill themselves. It is actually the ultimate aim of all these kinds of woke campaigns against people. They want the victims to kill themselves, and in some cases they’ve achieved that. The journalist Mark Fisher, who wrote a brilliant essay about the intolerance of the left, eventually killed himself.
“I won’t give them that win, and I intend to be around long enough to get people like Ardal, people like Neil Hannon, on camera and ask them why they don’t believe women deserve single sex spaces, why they believe men should be in women’s prisons and sports.
“They never allow themselves to be seen answering these questions because they know their positions are indefensible.”
