Tributes to Irish comedian Jon Kenny who starred in Father Ted

The taoiseach has paid tribute to the Irish author, comic and actor Jon Kenny following his demise.

He was finest identified for his work reverse Pat Shortt within the comedy duo D’Unbelievables.

The 66-year-old had been receiving remedy for most cancers and coronary heart failure.

The County Limerick-born star additionally had many display credit to his identify together with Father Ted, The Van, Les Misérables (1998), Angela’s Ashes, and The Banshees of Inisherin, by which he reunited with Pat Shortt.

Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Simon Harris stated he learnt of Jon’s demise with “utmost unhappiness” and stated he had the “capability, that only a few individuals possess, to make his audiences crack up laughing with a look or a single phrase”.

“Behind that seemingly easy expertise to joke, there was a gifted performer and a particularly deep thinker,” Harris stated in a press release.

“Jon was an fascinating and considerate particular person, he had some beautiful dramatic performances on stage and on display and the nation continues to be in stitches from the magic that was D’Unbelievables.”

Kenny was additionally an acclaimed singer, poet, and solo stand-up performer.

In a tribute, Tánaiste (deputy prime minister) Micheál Martin described Kenny as “one among our most iconic actors and comedians”.

“Deeply saddened on the passing of Jon Kenny,” Mr Martin stated in a press release.

“By way of the D’Unbelievables, and his appearances on stage & on display, Jon made us smile. He was an entertainer to his core.”

Jon, alongside together with his comedy soulmate Pat Shortt, shaped D’Unbelievables within the late Eighties in Limerick.

Their sketches featured day-to-day life within the Republic of Eire.

Maybe their most memorable featured the pair as two bumbling Garda (Irish police) officers interesting for the general public’s assistance on Crimebusters.

Pat performed Garda Tom Walsh and Jon performed Garda PJ Moloney.

The actor additionally had a memorable cameo as a blustering tv host within the Eurovision episode of Channel 4′s Father Ted, which launched him to a world viewers.

Jon was identified in his 40s with Non-Hodgkin’s Illness in 2000, which delivered to an finish the duo’s time collectively within the D’Unbelievables.

Talking on The Oliver Callan Present on RTÉ Radio 1 in April, he stated the prognosis had left him with no selection however to “not do something”.

“Over the area of two years I used to be on totally different types of remedy,” he stated.

“That went on for 2 years, and I received a stem cell transplant, thanks be to God, in James’s (hospital), they usually sorted me out, and I motored on for one more whereas.”

Nevertheless, he informed Oliver Callan that his most cancers had returned.

“I had it there once more; it got here again once more about three years in the past, 4 years in the past,” he stated.

“So I had some operation to take away a few of my left lung, and that was good – good luck to that.

“I have been fortunate now as a result of my chemo is working, so I have been grand, you recognize?

“However simply in the course of all of it, only for the craic of it – you recognize while you’re getting on with issues? – and after I had my second chemo, I had coronary heart failure.

“Throw that within the combine, like. A pleasant little cocktail of issues there to be getting on with.”

In addition to his profession on tv and in movies, Jon additionally was extremely thought to be a stage actor.

He appeared in John B Keane’s The Matchmaker, Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer at The Abbey Theatre, and Katie Holly’s darkish comedy Crowman, a one-man present by which he portrayed 10 characters.