Joe Rooney host Celebrating Father Ted!

A Celebration of Father Ted

NCC ‘Save Your Cinema’ Fundraiser #saveyourcinema

Joe Rooney’s ‘A Celebration of Father Ted’ brings one of Father Ted’s most loved characters Father Damien Lennon (Father Damo) back for a one off live tour. 

We watch the episode The Old Grey Whistle Theft followed by a quiz pitting one side of the audience against the other. Then Joe shares some behind the scenes revelations and parts of Father Ted you might have missed.

After a short break Joe performs his stand up and musical comedy with his guitar, interspersed with A Lovely Girls Competition with three volunteers from the audience. You don’t have to be a girl to enter. Participants will be asked to show their lovely walk, lovely laugh and sandwich making skills. The winner will receive a free whistle although it might have been stolen. The whole audience will compete in the Dancing Priests Competition and the evening will be wrapped up with a singalong rendition of My Lovely Horse. 

Afterwards there’ll be a chance to meet Joe Rooney and have a selfie taken. Joe is a renowned stand up comedian who has performed shows at the Edinburgh Fringe as well as shows worldwide from Beijing to Moscow to San Francisco.

"The intensity he puts into his singing and character acting is on another level. His act rolls along smoothly and nothing felt forced….. an enjoyable romp with songs, great stand-up and excellent storytelling, full of gags“
Chortle 2019 

Joe Rooney is a stand up comedian, actor, screenwriter, musician and podcaster. Although performing is his bread and butter he is currently studying a Multimedia degree course in DCU and aims to diversify into documentary and film making. In the last 20 years Joe has performed stand up comedy from Moscow to Muscat and everywhere in between. He has brought his stand up shows to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Glastonbury Festival and Kansas City Irish Festival as well as a host of festivals in Ireland.

“Rooney is very funny, but it is with his guitar in his hands that he becomes unmissable” 
The Stage ****

He is best known for his role as Father Damo in Father Ted and his role as Timmy in the long running RTE sitcom Killinaskully. He also wrote on two seasons of Killinaskully. As an actor he has appeared in the feature films South (2016 dir. Gerard Walsh), Poster Boys (2020 Dir. Dave Minogue) and Wretch (2018 dir. Mathew Dunehoo), in the Gaeity Theatre production of John B Keane’s The Chastitute and at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival in a stage version of The Shawshank Redemption. 

On his podcast Podarooney he has interviewed people as diverse as Aidan Gillan, Shazia Mirza and Sean Locke. 

“Using his guitar to embody Elvis as God or singing a traditional Irish Sean-nós song about a girl in love with a terrorist, Rooney embodies confidence and enthrals his audience” 
The Skinny (2018)***