We sat down with Rory O'Connor of Rory's Stories fame to discuss his rise in comedy, bypassing the traditional stand-up route to Vicar Street and finding success in failure online.
In 2013, Rory O'Connor began sharing funny and bizarre (but true) stories from his life to his Facebook page to give his friends a laugh. "I'm just one of those unfortunate people who's had so many disasters," he explained.
From nightmare days at work to making his way home after a night out, the posts grew so popular that the Meath man was convinced by friends to start a website where his misadventures could be enjoyed on a larger scale.
Not being the most tech-savvy, Rory enlisted some help to set up a blog, and thus, Rory's Stories was born.
In 2014, encouraged by the success of the blog, the funnyman took things a step further. Whipping out his iPhone 4 in a GAA changing room, he started filming improvised sketches based on the various situations that he himself found himself in when playing for the county minors.
"I'm a firm believer that funniest comedy is off the cuff, where it's improv and people don't know what's going to come out of this lad's mouth so I went with that and put it up online the next day and it kind of went viral to an extent," he said.
A player with Donaghmore-Ashbourne since a young age, Rory found a gap in the online market when it came to his beloved sport. And with the encouragement of his fans behind him, he decided to dive headfirst into the world of comedy.
Armed with only a phone and help from "a few of the lads", the online sensation began to film sketches based on various aspects of Irish life - from the N7 Naas roadworks to raging stag parties abroad, videos that would eventually earn him 477k Facebook likes, 57.1k Twitter fans, 187k Instagram followers and 77.7k YouTube subscribers.
When the videos became consistently viral, and on the invitation of the GAA, Rory began performing improvised stand-up for different clubs and, before long, he had left his job in the recruitment agency to pursue a full-time career in entertainment, with two best-selling books behind him and a third in his future.
"Most comedians would start off by writing a completely and utterly scripted ten minutes and go into a comedy club on a Tuesday night for free, and tell their jokes to ten or twelve randomers, a weird niche of people who might not necessarily understand their humour.
"I did the opposite," he continued. "I just went into a GAA club with a dodgy sound system and started slagging people off the cuff."
From humble beginnings, the comedian has grown into an undeniable success, and is now touring the country, even playing the hallowed stage of Vicar Street with his live show What's the Story, Rory?
Surprisingly, this isn't as unusual as it seems.
Recently, new acts such as The 2 Johnnies, Giz a Laugh's Enya Martin - who also featured in Rory's videos - and Farmer Michael have all booked the iconic venue having earned their fans through online platforms rather than traditional stand-up.
Does this ever lead to animosity within the small Irish comedic community?
"I don't think so... I'd imagine there's a little annoyance towards the likes of me. People had to go and do these gigs in front on nobody on a Tuesday night to earn their keep and I have nothing but respect for those people - that's the way it was traditionally done.
"I used my platform of social media. People like your humour, you throw your name on a ticket, and they buy the ticket. Again though, that's extra pressure. You're coming in as a name, they expect you to be really funny."
"The feedback has been really good though," he continued. "It's different and it's very relatable. I talk about normal life scenarios and bring in my stories - that's kind of what I do - hence, Rory's Stories."
Tickets for Rory's Stories: What's the Story, Rory? are on sale now.
