Representatives of everything he raged against were clustered around his coffin. Church, state, establishment stood awkwardly in the drizzle to pay their respects.

Absence yesterday would have invited criticism and would have given Dermot Morgan a last chance to get the boot in.

His death demanded a hero’s send-off, mystifying those who knew him only as Father Ted.

Ireland’s president, government ministers, broadcasting authorities, pop stars, actors, friends, family and about 600 members of the public crammed into St Theresa’s church in Mount Merrion, Dublin.

Ireland has lost a visceral, talented son and was unsure who could take his place. That he had moved to Britain to find work caused grief to be tinged with guilt and invoked an unwelcome tradition of banishing creative talents.

Standing at the altar, with the brown teak coffin between him and the congregation, Father Michael Paul Gallagher walked the tightrope.

Morgan was an atheist who savaged the Church throughout his career. In his last interview, days before a suspected heart attack killed him at his London home, aged 45, he ridiculed its “ju-ju men”.

Father Gallagher, who tutored Morgan at University College, Dublin, said: “It was part of his vocation to be hard to take at times. I pray for his surprise that explicit faith is not God’s crucial measure of life, but love.

“Dermot used to write essays. He was always anxious for a good comment. On the essay that’s been his life, in the name of all of us, I say: Brilliant, a joy to read. Even if rushed and unfinished. Thank you, well done.”

Tentatively at first, unsure if it was permitted, the congregation clapped, even those whose rusty reflexes betrayed the lapsed Catholic. They knew that Channel 4’s sitcom had rescued Morgan from neglect and lack of work in Ireland, despite public acclaim. But now, too late but better than never, it was time to acclaim him as Ireland’s foremost humorist.

After Communion, at the request of the family, Chris de Burgh sang a love song, Paradise. Unaccompanied and without a microphone, he filled the cavernous space.

Ardal O’Hanlon, alias Father Dougal, helped to carry the coffin, on it a wreath from Morgan’s estranged wife and two sons.

The four black leather-bound books of condolence at the entrance were filled long before the coffin was carried past. Blotched by hands dipped in Holy Water, Morgan would have cackled as he read the messages.

Childish scrawl: “You are very funny. RIP.”

In copperplate writing; “Hello Dermot, You’re up there now with Bob Marley and Stalin. Thank you for the happy memories on and off the pitch.”.

Rain splattered down as the coffin slid into a Mercedes hearse, which took Morgan’s body to Glasnevin to be cremated. A stone’s throw from the church courtyard was Oatlands College, where the schoolboy Morgan dreamed of entering the priesthood. A mile the other way stood UCD, where in the 1970s he first flexed his scabrous comedy and wondered how Ireland would react.

A couple of hundred yards further on, he eventually got this answer, at RTÉ’s Montrose headquarters, where years of stop-start freelance broadcasting left him bitter and financially insecure, and added the state broadcasting hierarchy to his list of foes.

What those foes thought yesterday went unanswered. The Catholic hierarchy would not be human if it did not feel some relief. For 20 years Morgan hurled savage, often hilarious abuse.

Morgan’s invective died with him, and there’s the rub. “At least he cared enough about the Church to have a go at them. He hated the hypocrisy, because he knew it was important,” said Clare Farkin, a long-time friend.

Many of the public figures he ridiculed were there yesterday or had visited the night before – prime minister Bertie Ahern, his predecessor Charles Haughey, his deputy Mary Harney, ex-president Mary Robinson, and past or serving ministers and aides. Some would have wanted to be there; others, not.

Did they miss him? Did they shite, reckoned Morgan’s hardcore fans. “They are fighting over who gets to gush most. It’s a competition. It’s shameless,” said Declan Shiels.

Ivan Yates, a former cabinet minister, urged the government to issue a commemorative stamp. A colleague, Austin Deasy, tried to get a parliamentary vote of sympathy passed.

Yesterday was supposed to see the start of the third series of Father Ted. Death intervened, delaying transmission for a week. The banner in front of the altar – “Life has changed not ended” – could well have prompted an identical response from Morgan and Ted: Like feck it has.