{"id":359900,"date":"2026-03-22T21:15:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T21:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/359900\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T21:15:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T21:15:11","slug":"father-ted-actor-ben-keaton-has-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/359900\/","title":{"rendered":"Father Ted actor Ben Keaton has died"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Father Ted actor Ben Keaton has died\" width=\"620\" height=\"500\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"w-full object-cover rounded-md\" style=\"color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url(&quot;data:image\/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg' viewBox='0 0 620 500'%3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'\/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'\/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'\/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'\/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3C\/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAQAAACEN3D\/AAAAL0lEQVR42mP4z8DAwMiAARgZGJhY+P\/\/PwMDAwPDfwYGBgaGhgYGhgYGAAD9Hwlr5xRngAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg=='\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E&quot;)\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774214110_221_image.webp\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Tributes are flooding in for the actor.<\/p>\n<p>Father Ted actor Ben Keaton has died.<\/p>\n<p>Tributes are flooding in for Keaton, who played Father Austin Purcell in the show from 1995.<\/p>\n<p>He is also known for his roles in shows such as Casualty, Emmerdale, The Bill, Hububb, Doctors and Double Time, as well as films East Is East and Love Bite.<\/p>\n<p>Keaton passed away unexpectedly at Lincoln County Hospital on Friday, March 20.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Ben will be forever greatly missed, loved and fondly remembered by his ex-wife Polly, son Waldo and daughter Daisy, brothers Des and Thom, sister Jeanette,&#8221; reads his death notice.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Article image\" fetchpriority=\"auto\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"618\" height=\"329\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"w-full h-auto object-contain rounded-[10px]\" style=\"color:transparent\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774214111_921_image.jpeg\"\/><img alt=\"Logo Camera in article\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"11\" height=\"9\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"absolute w-[11px] h-[9px] bottom-[11px] right-[11px] object-conatin tablet:hidden\" style=\"color:transparent\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774214111_869_image.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The Dublin man was also well known in the theatre space having appeared at The Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester in productions of\u00a0Animal Crackers,\u00a0American Buffalo,\u00a0Harvey,\u00a0Cyrano de Bergerac, and Hay Fever. <\/p>\n<p>He was also a finding member of the improv group South Of The River, and a director of the Creative Academy.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, he also did work as a comedian and won an array of awards like the Perrier Comedy Award at the\u00a01986\u00a0Edinburgh Festival, two Manchester Evening News Best Actor Awards and a prestigious Laurence Olivier nomination.<\/p>\n<p>Funeral arrangements will be announced at a later date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tributes are flooding in for the actor. Father Ted actor Ben Keaton has died. Tributes are flooding in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-359900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}