It could be the perfect tonic to lighten the public mood. An Post is putting out a call asking people to send in details of their favourite Father Ted characters, episodes, moments and phrases over the next few weeks.

The material will then be used to help design four new stamps to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the most popular Irish comedy series ever.

Already the stamps, which are scheduled to be issued before the summer, are destined to become collectors’ items.

‘An Post is working on a really special set of stamps to celebrate the anniversary of the first airing of Father Ted,’ confirmed a spokesperson. ‘No details yet on dates but we will be asking everyone to tell us their best Father Ted moments.’

Father Ted ran for three series from 1995 to 1998, including a Christmas special. A total of 25 episodes were produced. Bound to figure in the reckoning is the scene from episode 5, series 1 entitled ‘And God Created Woman’.

In it, Father Ted falls for racy novelist Polly Clarke and in his haste to rush to a date with her, says mass in under 10 seconds to a bunch of disgruntled nuns.

But with his car improbably blocked-in by two parishioners, he has to get a lift from Tom, (played by Pat Shortt) who stops off at the post office to rob it at gunpoint. When he gets back into the car, Ted asks him: ‘You haven’t been up to your old tricks again, have you Tom?’ Tom replies: ‘No Father, ’tis my money, I just didn’t want to fill out the forms!’

Previous commemoration of Father Ted include the erection of a plaque to lead actor Dermot Morgan in the Dublin suburb of Mount Merrion where he grew up.

The plaque is on the wall of McGuire’s shop on Deerpark Road, where Morgan was a regular customer. It pays tribute to Morgan as an ‘actor, writer, iconoclast, satirist’ and describes him as a pioneer.

The actor died suddenly from a heart attack aged 45 in 1998. Michael Nugent of Atheist Ireland (who is a good friend of writer Arthur Matthews) is delighted the series will be celebrated in this way by An Post. ‘It’s great to see Ted and Dougal joining Pope Francis and Padre Pio in the pantheon of priests on Irish stamps.

‘It shows in retrospect how gentle Father Ted was compared to the reality of the Catholic Church at the time.

‘It’s a bit odd to see things that I lived through becoming old enough to be commemorated. I’d like to see more comedy writing celebrated in this way, like Frank Hall and Dave Allen or more recently Paul Howard and Tara Flynn.’