Getting Craggy With It

Hey, Joe…

hen it came to the Lovely Ladies competition, well, everyone assumed the glamorous Mrs Doyle who was celebrating her 70th birthday was going to walk it.

But then, Sister Orla not only had God on her side, but she could make a mean sandwich too.

That the bould Joe should be the one who was crowned Greystones’s Most Lovely Lady caught everyone by surprise. Everyone except, it seemed, Joe.

It was that kind of night, as The Whale gave itself over to The Greatest Irish Sitcom Of All Time, with two of the show’s guest stars up onstage, and some of the show’s greatest fans down in the audience.

Heck, the fun even continued after the show, when Patrick McDonnell and Joe Rooney spoke to 11-year-old superfan Jack on the phone – not as Patrick and Joe, but as Eoin McLove and Father Damo.

You could hear the squeals of delight all the way up at Blacklion Church.

And it was all in the name of Father Ted. Laughing like loons for two hours, as Pat and Joe delivered blistering sets that took us through Irish foreplay, reluctant Viking invasions, strip clubs, odd-shaped heads and smearing marmalade on your buttocks.

Out. Feckin’. Rageous.

Still, this is our kind of Ted talk. Dermot Morgan would have loved it…