Somehow, January is over, and a month that felt like it would last forever segues into a new RTÉ One series that you probably won't want to end.
If you're looking for a bit of heat, Irish people in sticky situations under the sun, and something to banish the Theme from Glenroe fears that come of a Sunday night (admit it: even on a bank holiday weekend), then a familiar face is back at 9:30pm for the next six weeks - Tom Vaughan-Lawlor.
Watch: The trailer for These Sacred Vows
Having made the slot his own from 2010 to 2014 with his iconic portrayal of gang boss Nigel 'Nidge' Delaney in Love/Hate, Vaughan-Lawlor is on the right side of the Lord as Fr Vincent O'Keeffe in These Sacred Vows, writer-director John Butler's (Handsome Devil, The Stag) appointment-to-view comedy-drama about the state of us.
A study of the secrets we can and can't keep, and the lies we tell ourselves and others, These Sacred Vows is chock full of twists - and the first one arrives in the opening scene.
Fr Vincent is found face down in a swimming pool.
"Nobody has much use for a priest these days - dead or alive," he tells us in his opening monologue from the afterlife. "But I do have one last rite to perform..."
We then rewind seven days to see Fr Vincent arrive in Tenerife to officiate at the wedding of the daughter of his old pals Sandra and Jerry, played by Justine Mitchell and Jason O'Mara.
He brings a tiny suitcase, but it turns out there's a lot to unpack...
Billeted in a nothing-exceeds-like-excess villa with friends of the bride and groom, Fr Vincent takes stock as the longest week of his life becomes the last.
And for Vaughan-Lawlor, this latest role has become one of the highlights of his career, taking him places that he wasn't expecting.
"One of the many extraordinary things about being an actor is engaging with parts of your life that lay dormant," the Dubliner says poolside (NB: via Zoom) at the show's Tenerife base.
"And so, I've kind of been going to mass and really thinking a lot about faith and spirituality. It's been really, really incredible. I'm not converting back, but going to mass again was really quite moving and very beautiful and seductive."
He has, he says, struck CV gold playing a character who, ironically, is "a bit of an afterthought for everyone".
"It's a stunning part. There's something absurd about him in terms of he's not a man who goes on holiday and is not a man who's used to the sun and is not a man who is a partyer.
"And so, he's thrust into the madness of an Irish wedding abroad and is trying to keep his head above water and trying to manage all of the slings and arrows of being that afterthought.
"He's funny without realising it and he's goofy and he's awkward, but he means well and he's trying to figure out his position in this wedding, in society, and it's a real joy to play."
The generational clash in These Sacred Vows provides good laughs, but there is something more profound too as people come into Fr Vincent's orbit, from the permanently put-upon Ava (India Mullen) to the acerbic Glen (Shane Daniel Byrne) and the downright hostile Rory (John Hewson).
Judgment is, for the most part, one-way traffic.
"Vincent is a man who has lived a life pre-ordination. He is a good man who's trying to do the right thing in the face of apathy and sometimes aggression or dispassion," Vaughan-Lawlor explains.
"The status with which he was held or that was part of weddings is taken away from him. So, he's slotted in and they're going, 'We're doing these readings. We're doing these poems. We're singing these songs. You just do your sermon and we'll all get out of here happy! We'll do a few photographs and you can f*** off back to Ireland!'
"It's exciting [to see] where Ireland is at in terms of faith now to where we all were when we were growing up. It's a really exciting part to play because of what Vincent represents to Irish youth."
The potential for These Sacred Vows to be a Monday morning conversation-starter and a hit outside of Ireland is huge. Everyone who watches will see someone they know or shared a table with at an Irish wedding.
"It is a universal story," Vaughan-Lawlor smiles.
"We all go to weddings or relationship ceremonies. I think what makes this quite unique is that Irish people are nuts! And I think when you add the sun, and you add high-stakes emotional gatherings, that can induce heady drama."
"I think it's very, very funny, but it's also got a lot to say about love, about fate, about relationships, spirituality - all the big themes are all there," he continues.
"But it's also got a through line of a very specifically Irish sense of humour, a very specifically Irish way of looking at the world, and a subversive quality that is, I think, particularly Irish. Taking that Irish attitude and placing it in the sun, with the heat, with coupling that with this formal ceremony is a really clever mix that leads to lots of opportunities for madness!"
As he introduces Fr Vincent to Ireland, Vaughan-Lawlor says he will remember the character for two reasons.
Firstly, for being a "mirror in my own life", but also for the opportunity Fr Vincent has given him to work with a new generation of Irish acting talent - and he can't speak highly enough of how they inspire him.
"I think what's very funny in the story and what's been very fun to play is meeting all these young actors and young characters who are very, I suppose, switched on and tuned in and awake in a certain way that Vincent isn't and I kind of am," he laughs.
"In my head, I'm still, like, a relative newcomer - that's just in my head! And then I come out here, I meet all these gorgeous young Irish actors who are so talented and so on it, and you realise what you are, which is a middle-aged man trying to understand younger references to culture and stuff!
"I've gotten used to it, actually, over the past few years, seeing young Irish actors on a set or on a stage just be, like, shockingly brilliant. As they say, 'fully baked'. On all fronts: in terms of their talent, in terms of how they carry themselves off-screen, in terms of how they package themselves in the most positive, inspiring way. I've loved it. And they're all really committed as actors but also really funny and down to earth."
"We finish this week, and I'm really going to miss them," he sighs, signing off.
"It's one of the hardest things about being an actor is that you get very close to people very quickly and you spend all this time together and you do all these intimate, intense scenes - and then everyone packs up and the circus moves on and you miss them.
"It's been magical. And that doesn't happen all the time, but definitely with this cast it has."
Your wedding invite awaits...
These Sacred Vows, Sundays, RTÉ One and RTÉ Player, 9:30pm
