IT EMERGED THIS week that Belevedere College secondary school in Dublin had circulated a form to students requesting that they register their beards.
The form asked those sporting facial hair to give details of colour, length and style of beard and to sign a declaration agreeing to keep it “neat and clean”. If they failed to do this, and received two warnings, they would have to shave the beloved beard off.
“Outrageous! Absolute beard racism!” you cry.
Well, there’s more to this story than meets the eye. We asked the school what this was all about and Deputy Headmaster Seamus Finnegan said that the whole thing is actually a big practical joke.
“It’s a bit of a laugh we have with the sixth years at the start of the year,” he explained. “We’ve done it with the sixth years for a number of years now.”
Finnegan said every year, a small number of students do fall for it and “some become a little indignant” but he confirmed that there is no anti-beard policy at the school.
He did, however, tell us that now that we’ve “let the cat out of the bag”, the school will have to come up with a new prank for next year’s seniors.
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