Biography

O'Hanlon was born and raised in Carrickmacross, County Monaghan, the son of politician and doctor Rory O'Hanlon and Teresa Ward. He was educated at Blackrock College in Dublin and graduated in 1987 from the National Institute for Higher Education, Dublin (now Dublin City University) with a degree in Communications Studies.

After leaving university, O'Hanlon decided to set up the International Comedy Cellar in Dublin, because at the time the city had no comedy scene to speak of. This was located in the upstairs portion of the International Bar on Dublin's South Wicklow Street, and O'Hanlon soon achieved considerable success, winning the Hackney Empire New Act of the Year competition in 1994 and hosting The Stand Up Show for a time.

As his stock continued to rise, he was spotted by comedy writer Graham Linehan, who later cast him as Father Dougal McGuire in Father Ted (1995-1998), the role for which, to this day, he is best known. In 1995 he was awarded the Top TV Comedy Newcomer at the British Comedy Awards for this role, and also appeared in the award-winning short comedy film Flying Saucer Rock'n'Roll.

After moving into dramatic acting in the ITV comedy-drama Big Bad World, O'Hanlon starred in an episode of the original Whose Line Is It Anyway? and, in the year 2000, starred as the main character in comedy series My Hero, in which he played a superhero from the planet Ultron. He would remain in this role until 2006, where he was replaced mid-episode by James Dreyfus.

In 2005 he played main protagonist Gary Chandler in the BBC One sitcom Blessed, written by Ben Elton, about a young couple struggling to raise two small children.

Moving into the 2010s, O'Hanlon has appeared on several television panel shows such as That Sunday Night Show, Dave's One Night Stand, and Alexander Armstrong's Big Ask, and also played Eammon in one episode of the sitcom Derry Girls. In 2015 he also began playing the role of Peter the Milkman in the Sky One sitcom After Hours, and in that same year he officially launched the 2015 Sky Cat Laughs Comedy Festival, which takes place in Kilkenny from 28 May - 1 June.

Alongside these positions in the comedy world, O'Hanlon has also featured in the Doctor Who episode "Gridlock", in 2007, and in series 3 of the TV show Skins, playing a politics teacher named Kieran

O'Hanlon was the subject of an episode of the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are?, which aired on 6 October 2008. The investigation revealed interesting facts about his paternal grandfather, Michael O'Hanlon, who had joined the IRA during the Irish War of Independence, and also discovered that he is a close relative on his mother's side of Peter Fenelon Collier.