Westlife's Shane ties the knot

More than 350 guests were at one of Ireland’s most exclusive hotels tonight for the latest wedding party to feature one of the Westlife boy band.

Tying the knot in Co Mayo were singer Shane Filan and childhood sweetheart Gillian Walsh.

The pair wed at historic Ballintubber Abbey, but celebrated later in the luxurious lakeside splendour of the nearby Ashford Castle hotel.

Shane popped the question while he and Gillian were on holiday together in Dubai last year.

The Westlifer’s elder brother Finbar acted as best man at the ceremony in Ballintubber, which dates back to the 13th century – and was once left a wreck by the army of Oliver Cromwell.

Music at the strictly-behind-closed-doors wedding party - scheduled to go on until dawn and then into tomorrow – was not provided by chart-topping Westlife, according to insiders.

Instead, Shane was understood to have laid on another band, complete with its own DJ.

The event marked the first Westlife wedding since last summer’s occasion in a French, rather than an Irish village, when Nicky Byrne married Georgina, one of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s two daughters.

Today, though, there was no tie-up with a celebrity magazine that made the French wedding so controversial back home for Ahern, a guest this time.

Nicky was the second band member to get married and fans of the group were tonight waiting on news from the two remaining singers.

Around 200 of Westlife’s noisy, but devoted following stood in the icy-cold-but-mainly-bright weather outside the Abbey to catch a glimpse of their favourites and cheer them into and out of the church.

Like his bride, Shane was dressed in white and the happy couple arrived for the ceremony in a white, horse-drawn coach.