St Laurence’s Kids Have Their Yearly Wash In The Sea

Scrubbers!

here are, of course, many, many ways to mark the end of your school life…

A nice meal with those nearest and dearest to you. A night out on the town. A little party back in some poor, unfortunate parents’ house.

Well, there’s another act of celebration for marking such a milestone in life that’s just come to light to GG after a loving parent sent us a video shot at Greystones harbour this afternoon. Shortly after that final school bell rang.

Turns out, there’s a tradition up in St Laurence’s when it comes to your very final day at this much-loved primary school. And it’s a doozy.

It involves the celebrating pupils waving bye-bye to their six years at the school by, well, marching down to the sea with piper Sean Kelly leading the way, and then running straight into the waves at Greystones harbour.

With their uniforms still on.

Normally, it would be the South Beach, but, the red flag there suggested otherwise. So, if you see some slightly crumpled, slightly wet and quite possibly shrunken St Laurence’s school uniforms for sale online tomorrow, you’ll know how they got that way.

Glad to hear subsequently that this is a tradition in quite a few Greystones schools, including St David’s, and that this cleansing ritual has been going on for many, many years now. Makes the heart fair swell with pride, to think that our future town leaders could be amongst these nutty youngsters…

To think some of these kids might be one day be Greystones’ gardaí, councillors, shop owners, coast guards… Well, they certainly seem brave enough. And crazy enough.