One of the stars of the classic comedy Father Ted says it's "hugely gratifying" when the show is name-checked in the Dáil.
Today marks 25 years since the first episode of the show - Good Luck, Father Ted - was broadcast.
Ardal O'Hanlon (who played Fr Dougal Maguire) and Arthur Matthews (who co-created the show with Graham Linehan) spoke to Newstalk Breakfast about the legacy of one of Ireland's most enduring comedies.
Ardal observed: "I was very much a stand-up comedian at the time, and RTÉ had made this sort of modern twist on Shakespeare called Hamlet and her Brothers... Hamlet was a female character, and I played the sort of Ophelia character as a guy... that was my first ever acting experience.
"Arthur was one of the only people in Ireland who saw the show... I haven't seen it myself yet."
One day he received a call from Arthur asking him to come in for an audition for the show that would become Father Ted.
He recalled: "I wasn't too worried about it, as I was a stand-up comedian... I wasn't really thinking in terms of an acting career at the time.
"Another month later, I got another call saying 'we'd like you to come over and read with Dermot'... at this stage, [they'd] probably cast Dermot [Morgan] as Father Ted, and they wanted to do what they call a chemistry reading to see if we got on together."
A month after that, he received the call to confirmed he had the part.
He said he got his first inkling that the show was "really good" was after watching all six episodes of the first season back-to-back with a group of people.
However, the show was not initially met with universal acclaim.
Arthur explained: "It got kind of mixed reviews, but there was this guy called Ben Thompson who was with the Independent in London, and he really liked it.
"He was the first one to ring us up and talk to us about it... that was kind of an indication."
Ardal, meanwhile, recalled that Irish critics didn't like it, apart from one in the old Sunday Press newspaper.
He recalled that "everybody else just dismissed it with a wave of the hand".
'The cast is brilliant'
For Arthur, it's the cast of the show that has allowed the show to endure over the years.
He suggested: "The cast is brilliant in it... I'm diminishing my writing role, but I think casting is hugely important in these things... there is a chemistry between them.
"Apart from that, it looks a kind of gentle and silly rather than really heavy-handed."
Ardal also argued that the setting of Craggy Island is "timeless" - observing that it "could be any time in the 20th century" but is also "kind of like an alternative universe".
The comedian says that while he loves individual scenes from all episodes, his own favourite episode is Speed 3 - the episode featuring milkman Pat Mustard which also frequently tops fan polls of the sitcom's best moments.
He also said it's "hugely gratifying" when the show is name-checked in the Dáil or referenced by a TD.
He observed: "'That money was just resting in my account' will always be referenced when corruption is being spoken of.
"You'll always see the signs 'down with that sort of thing' and 'careful now' at any protest."
Arthur also said it's "quite an honour" that An Post is releasing stamps to mark the anniversary of the show.
He concluded: "It's brilliant... I'm very grateful people still like it."
