Arthur Mathews opens up about his rift with Graham Linehan: ‘I wasn’t joining him in the trans crusade... That was the betrayal’

The Father Ted co-creator talks about cancel culture, facing rejection for new comedy ideas and why his latest project is delving into the turbulent life of a Free State politician who ordered the execution of his best man

‘I’m not responsible for the woke world we live in’: Arthur Mathews. Photo: Gerry Mooney

John Meagher

It is about three-quarters of an hour into my interview with Father Ted co-creator Arthur Mathews when the conversation ventures into uncomfortable territory. A certain subject has been looming on the horizon from the off and it explains why, early on, he seems so ill at ease.

I am in the airy kitchen of his red brick Victorian home in south Dublin to talk to him about his latest project — a book on the pro-Treaty politician Kevin O’Higgins, who was assassinated in 1927. But we both know that the breakdown of his friendship with Graham Linehan is going to come up.