During the humorous ceremony, which was also highly religious, Cricket\u2019s youngest son, Father Frankie Mulgrew, who once worked as his road manager but is now a Catholic priest, joked it “isn\u2019t the first time I\u2019ve seen him die”.<\/p>\n
![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/0024e117-614.jpg\"\/)
\nThe coffin of Jimmy Cricket is carried by pallbearers at Salford Cathedral on Friday. Photo credit: Peter Byrne\/PA Wire<\/p>\n
Father Frankie said: “Friends, my dad taught me to look at things in a heavenly perspective, which informed everything, faith, family, comedy, kindness, and yes, death itself.<\/p>\n
“One outstanding act of kindness is like a glimpse of heaven and earth. My dad put kindness where he wasn\u2019t; he led kindness with his light; kindness and joy were the weapons he used to make this world a much brighter, happier place to live in.<\/p>\n
“And as a dad, to me, my siblings\u2026 he loved us into life unconditionally, and I\u2019m more than sure that all of us, at different times, tested it, but I found no limits in his love, I found no conditions in his love.<\/p>\n
“A family man, a hero, a champion.”<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/0024e11a-614.jpg\"\/)
\nA mourner dressed as Jimmy Cricket arrives for the funeral<\/p>\n
The ceremony, which lasted almost two hours, was attended by comedy veterans such as Syd Little, Tommy Cannon and Roy Walker, and also saw a performance from Irish 1970 Eurovision Song Contest winner Dana.<\/p>\n
Father Frankie added at the start of the ceremony: “I just want to say this, this isn\u2019t the first time I\u2019ve seen him die, and rise again, comedy metaphor, it\u2019s a comedy metaphor.<\/p>\n
“Friends, about 20 years ago, my dad said, \u2018I will sacrifice grandchildren, you go into the priesthood\u2019.”<\/p>\n
The ceremony also saw Father Frankie mention a humorous moment where his sister, Katie, asked him if he thought their dad would be performing a gig in heaven, to which he replied, “or maybe he\u2019s waiting for Ken Dodd to get off stage”.<\/p>\n
She told the congregation that she often forgot how famous he was and added that it was not until the family was contacted by the Press Association to confirm his death that she realised, with her brother taking the call and walking into the living room to check, before replying “yep, he\u2019s dead”.<\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/0024e11d-614.jpg\"\/)
\nAn order of service for the funeral of stand-up comedian Jimmy Cricket<\/p>\n
Becoming emotional, she added: “He had the best laugh, laughter was the fuel to his fire that he kept our family warm by.<\/p>\n
“I like to think that this is why my siblings and I have grown up to be exceptionally loud laughers, I think many of the people in this room have heard us often.<\/p>\n
“In the days after his fire was extinguished, we still found things to laugh about, to find the light in the dark, because that\u2019s what my dad did.<\/p>\n
“Even in one of our family\u2019s most darkest moments, around his hospital bedside, when we were told he might not make it through the night and he was in and out of consciousness, my dad opened his eyes and he went, \u2018always look on the bright side of life\u2019, to which we all just automatically responded (by whistling the tune).”<\/p>\n
At one point a phone rang in the congregation and Father Frankie joked “that\u2019s him ringing now”, before adding “well at least it didn\u2019t start ringing inside the coffin”.<\/p>\n
Cricket, who was known for his signature bowler hat and catchphrase “And there\u2019s more”, became a TV staple in the 80s, appearing in programmes such as The Good Old Days as well as the Royal Variety Performance.<\/p>\n
The star left school at 16 and spent his summers working as a redcoat camp host at Butlins holiday camps.<\/p>\n
He went on to work the comedy club scene throughout the 1970s and 1980s, going on to win LWT\u2019s Search For A Star talent contest before getting his own ITV show, And There\u2019s More, which ran for four seasons.<\/p>\n
He later fronted his own programme on BBC Radio 2 before appearing on the Royal Variety Show in the 80s and performing in a number of pantomimes.<\/p>\n
Source: Press Association<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Comedian Jimmy Cricket\u2019s son has remembered his father as “a family man, a hero, a champion” as he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60],"class_list":["post-600339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600339","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=600339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}