A GROUP OF lads dressed up as the cast of Father Ted isn’t a new innovation in the murky world of Irish stags.

But Gavin McKenna’s group in Kilkenny last weekend got one up on the regulars.

Needless to say, they went all out with the costumes – like Ted’s Elvis impression here

Garry Marsella Garry Marsella

But it was what happened on their second stop of a Saturday evening pub crawl that makes them stand out from the rest.

Best man Garry Marsella tells DailyEdge.ie what happened:

Throughout the years we all grew up watching Father Ted, obviously, and we’d always talked about making it over to the Ted Fest as a group of friends. We never made it so when we were planning Gav’s stag we just had to go with the Ted costumes.

Groom Gavin was lovingly dressed as Mrs Doyle while the rest went for other characters from Craggy Island

Garry Marsella Garry Marsella

In fairness to them, they’d put in the groundwork on the looks:

We all had made some signs to carry around with us on the night – just quotes from the show. I had brought a little tea pot down for Gav, we were going full detail on the costumes. Someone was dressed as Father Stone and another was dressed as the Elvis Father Ted.

The signs were out in force from the start – and they’d become crucial later

Garry Marsella Garry Marsella

They started off in An Poc Fada in the early evening, all kitted out, and were getting a great reaction from everyone:

People were having their pictures taken with us and it was all good fun. Around 5.30pm or 6pm we said ‘come on, let’s go somewhere else’ and moved down the road to The Left Bank.

It was there that they hit a slight roadblock – no costumes allowed:

I went up first to the bouncers and said there was about 10 of us just looking to get a pint. They said they don’t let groups wearing costumes in – it’s not that kind of place. We were like ‘fair enough’.

“Just before we walked away, we thought we’d have a peaceful protest – and the signs came in handy”

Garry Marsella Garry Marsella

The ‘down with this sort of thing’ sign is a particular highlight.

Garry sent the photo in to Joe.ie - and from there it’s gone viral, with one request for an appearance even coming in from Today with Maura and Daithi on RTÉ One.

Garry has been surprised by the reaction:

Just by chance we had ‘down with this sort of thing’ and ‘careful now’ signs with us and it worked out picture perfect. Only afterwards did we think it was funny because it wasn’t planned at all – it just came about that way.

Surely that wasn’t a premature end to the festivities, though?

“We had a plan to go into the lingerie department in Dunnes at some stage that night but ended up just going to the next bar and having the craic.”

Garry Marsella Garry Marsella

Worth it.

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