‘Like a badly watered lawn’: Garda supervisor decries officers’ patchy beards

Irish police force inspector calls on officers to grow proper beards or shave in internal memo

To beard or not to beard, that is the question vexing Ireland's police force in a controversy over officers' patchy facial hair.

A Garda Siochana supervisor has instructed subordinates to smarten up" and grow a proper beard or to be clean-shaven and to avoid a ragged in-between look that resembles a badly watered lawn in a heatwave".