If you saw seven priests drinking in your local bar, you’d probably assume that they were on a stag do, so the premise of this story is totally understandable.
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It all went down at the City Arms in Cardiff on Saturday afternoon. The priests were in attendance to celebrate ordination of Father Peter McLaren at Cardiff Metropolitan Cathedral of St David near Queen Street, but despite the fact that it’s a favourite boozer for those in the clergy, the bouncer wasn’t having any of it. Father Michael Doyle explains:
They arrived at the City Arms and they were dressed wearing the clerical collar. The doorman basically said something along the lines of, ‘sorry gents, we have a policy of no fancy dress and no stag dos’.
The doorman was good-natured but firm, and the students had started to leave when they were approached by the bar manager. He basically said, ‘you’re real, aren’t you?’
He invited them back in and when they walked back in the entire pub burst into a round of applause, and they had a free round off the City Arms.
Reverent Rob James decided to buy the barman a drink and, of course, one of the Brains beers in Wales is the Reverend James, so the Reverend Robert James bought a Rev James for the barman.
Classic priest banter there right? I can sympathise with the bouncer to some extent, but when you look at these guys they hardly strike you as a rowdy stag do, do they? They’ve pretty much got the stereotypical priest look down – have some brains dude.
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The City Arms assistant manager Matt Morgan tried to save the reputation of the pub by saying the following:
At first one of our staff members thought the group were a stag party in fancy dress and suggested they might want to try another pub, as we generally have a quieter crowd of drinkers than others nearby.
When we realised our mistake we quickly apologised to the priests and thankfully they were all great sports and saw the funny side of the situation.
It’s not every day you have a group of priests drinking in the pub and they would be welcome back any time.
Great news – hopefully this will become their regular boozer and they can laugh about this story for years to come.
For more priests, check out this one riding his hoverboard during mass. Baller.
