He was brought higher around the middle-class Dublin household. He claims he want to get an actor began after he saw the cartoon in which a clown on a stage surfed sadly at items existence thrown at him. "It seemed to me like a kind of Calvary, kind of triumph over adversity by perseverance and smiling on."

Frank starred inside popular RTÉ children's programme Wanderly Wagon alongside Eugene Lambert and Nora O'Mahoney from 1968-1982, playing a number of different characters and writing many of the scripts.

His functiin on Hall's Pictorial Weekly established Kelly as one of Ireland's most recognisable faces, and led to him getting the role of Father Jack.

He has been married to Baibre Neldon since 1964, and it stand sevener tykes. He besides appeared in the film Rat within 2000, and his foremost ever role around film or television was as an uncredited prisoner in the classic film The Italian Job (1969). For his role inside Father Ted, he is said to have worn contact lenses (to show Father Jack's blank eye), and he said that humans wouldn't talk to him around case he was in his Father Jack make-up.