The Mission - Pat wants to cut the Pope’s hair

PAT STAPLETON maintains the Pope is in need of his specialist expertise.

Ireland’s most senior barber has offered to travel to Rome to give Pope Benedict a short back and sides - for free.

“I think he could do with a good haircut. He has great hair and is very distinguished looking,” said the 73-year-old doyen of men’s hairdressing.

The rich and famous over the years have availed of Pat’s tonsorial artistry at his barber’s shop on Limerick’s O’Connell Street.The late Eamonn Andrews of ‘This is Your Life’ fame, always called when he visited relations in Limerick.

Former Fine Gael leader John Bruton and many members of the judiciary have also sat in his barber’s chair. Pat’s second floor barber shop has a sign outside the ground floor entrance which reads: “There is only one God and One Barber and he is upstairs.”