Friends and colleagues of Dermot Morgan yesterday agreed that his extraordinary comic ability was coupled with an inability to relax.

Frank Kelly, who played alongside Morgan in Father Ted, described him as “a kind of comedic meteor”.

“He literally burned himself out. He was tired and pretty stressed. He had a fairly heavy workload but who’s going to predict something horrible like this is going to happen?”

Speaking on RTÉ, Kelly said he and other members of the cast were “quite shattered”.

“I’m just back from London. I was taping a programme with him on Friday night. He appeared to be in good form making the last series and we had very pleasant, relaxed conversations, where we were reminiscing about a number of things.

“He was hugely pleased (with Father Ted) and it’s a huge credit to him that as a man who didn’t really have a theatrical background, he was able to get on top of a very big role. He had to hand over some of the laughs to other people because of the structure of the series, but he did that very generously.”

Gerry Stembridge, who worked with Morgan on Scrap Saturday, said he was shocked that “a man of his age and vigour would die so suddenly”.

“I remember very often thinking that I wished he would relax. When I was with him I wanted to take it easy for an hour and have a bit of chit chat, and not have to drive things forward all the time, even if he was laughing while doing it.” Stembridge said Morgan was “particularly chuffed” when he won a BAFTA award for Father Ted.

“No matter how much self-confidence you have, you can’t help sometimes wondering if you’re as good as you thought, and the Comedy Actor of the Year award was an objective affirmation of that.”

Speaking on RTÉ This Week programme, Mike Murphy, who worked with Morgan on The Live Mike, where the comedian first became known to a national audience, said he had a “firecracker of a mind” whose anger drove him to “have a go at icons”.

“He was a very good friend to me but I don’t think he ever forgave me for going on The Arts Show. He loved the fact that the show went out live because he had a licence to break up the set with a hurley. He would leap out of the audience, swinging the hurley about, and head for one part of the set, to smash it down.

“I was so pleased he reached the pinnacle he did with Father Ted. He knew always he was going to get to the top. I saw situations where Dermot got terrible setbacks and a lot of discouragement, some of it I have to say from RTÉ. He still took it on the chin. No way would he go back teaching or do anything else. He wanted to antagonise the establishment.”

Mr Bob Collins, director general of RTÉ, said Morgan “was a man of exceptional talent” who “made a tremendous and inimitable contribution to RTÉ’s radio and television schedules over many years”.

“His relationship with RTÉ was not always smooth and he did not always believe that his talent was given adequate expression by us. It is one of life’s ironies that last year, some months after I became director general, we met at his request and enthusiastically discussed a renewed association with RTÉ based on a number of projects he was developing. Alas, none of that promise can now be fulfilled.”

The former Taoiseach, Mr Charles Haughey, and his then press secretary, Mr P.J. Mara, who were the political double act that formed the centre of Morgan’s satire, yesterday led the tributes to the comic from the world of politics.

Mr Haughey said he was “deeply saddened” to learn of Morgan’s “sudden and tragic death”.

“He will be missed as a talented, innovative professional who brought pleasant, relaxed enjoyment to many thousands of people. Ar Dheis De go raibh a anam.”

Mr Mara said he was “very upset and very, very sad” to learn of Morgan’s death.

“You always felt better for meeting him and that’s probably the best thing you can say about a person.”

Another of Morgan’s most famous take-offs, Mr Michael Noonan, described him as “having a particular talent for political satire. “I knew Dermot Morgan personally and he was great fun and a most interesting and sensitive person. Scrap Saturday became synonymous with political events in the country, particularly in the Haughey era”.

Mr Noonan said that Morgan had satirised his native Limerick in the programme “but he also loved Limerick and had the same passion for rugby as many Limerick people have”.

The President, Mrs McAleese, led the formal tributes to Mr Morgan by extending her “deepest sympathy to his family on their tragic loss”.

“Ireland and the world of entertainment has lost an exceptional talent,” she said.

The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, said Morgan was “one of the greatest entertainers ever produced by this country” and “a prince among the new generation of Irish comedians”.

“He won millions of friends and admirers, both here and abroad, with his comic genius and wonderful sense of fun. We all miss him greatly.”

The Tanaiste and the leader of the Progressive Democrats, Ms Harney, said Morgan’s death came as “a huge shock”.

“He was one of the finest entertainers this country has ever produced” but “first and foremost he was a very close personal friend”.

The leader of the Labour Party, Mr Ruairi Quinn, said Morgan’s impersonations of political figures had been “extremely observant and highly amusing”.

“Not only was he a funny comedian, he was also very committed to the modernisation of Ireland”.

The head of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, Ms Olive Braiden, who taught in the Dublin School of English with Morgan, paid tribute to his charity work.

“He was a very strong supporter of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre and did several gigs for us before he went to England.”