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24th Dec 2017

QUIZ: Mrs. Doyle guesses the names of 29 priests in the Father Ted Christmas special, name them

Conor Heneghan

If you can get more than 10 without the aid of Google, then you can count yourself as a true Father Ted fan.

Even though it’s more than 20 years old and you’ve probably seen it one hundred times already, the Father Ted Christmas special remains a must-watch piece of television over the festive period.

Amongst the many memorable scenes included in the longest episode of the show is Mrs. Doyle’s attempts to guess the name of an uninvited priest, who claims to be a former colleague of Ted’s from St. Colm’s and turns up on the eve of Ted receiving the Golden Cleric award.

In a quite brilliant piece of acting by Pauline McGlynn, Mrs. Doyle goes on to cite the name of 29 priests before landing on the correct one (or, at least, the stranger’s assumed name), which was, of course, Todd Unctious.

In the spirit of the season, we’ve decided to test your knowledge of the scene in question; Mr. Unctious is one of the 29 names in the quiz below and to give you a few more hints, others include the lead singers of The Divine Comedy and The White Stripes and the surname of a Father Ted creator mentioned below.

In the absence of anything official, meanwhile, we’re basing the spelling of the names on a quite brilliant t-shirt we became aware of last year, a t-shirt that was endorsed with a retweet from one of the creators of Father Ted, Graham Linehan himself, but is actually missing the name of one priest namechecked by Mrs. Doyle.

We’re giving you five minutes to name as many as you can without having to resort to Google (surname only required) but as we’ve said already, if you can reach double figures, then get in touch with us for a reward of an advent calendar that includes Ruud Gullit sitting on a shed*.

Go!

*Such a prize does not actually exist.