Edinburgh cathedral puts on a Mass for stag party

Edinburgh is a city which has gained a reputation for raucous stag parties but not many, if any at all, have ever started off in a church.

St Mary's Catholic Cathedral. Picture: NW Images

A post by St Mary’s Cathedral on the church’s Facebook page showed Conor Gildea and his friends attending Mass, organised by Conor’s best man, as part of the 24 year-old’s stag celebrations.

The stag party then went onto have launch, a few drinks and watch a Celtic game.

The post has since been liked and shared hundreds of times.

Conor told the Catholic Herald: “To have all my friends there praying with me and for me – it was amazing. It gave me a lot of encouragement in the preparation for marriage.

“If you believe he was present in the Blessed Sacrament, why would you not want to encounter him every day? Why would that not be a great way to start any day, even a stag do?”

The trainee RE teacher, who is studying at the University of Glasgow, said he and his friends “often go to Mass together as a group”

He said: “To go to Mass exactly a week before was quite important for me to prepare spiritually,”

Conor said some of his friends were surpised at the choice for his stag do with some finding it a “bit bizarre” adding they “might not have agreed with it but they could see the rationale behind it.”

Conor his fiancee Naomi, a music graduate, were married earlier this month at the Glasgow University Catholic chaplaincy and took their honeymoon in Rome.