Nineteen ninety-eight looks set to go down as a vintage year in rag mythology. Time was when priests, local politicians and concerned parents were the ones worried about the debauchery that students got up to; this year, things look set to get so out of hand that USI (yes, the national students' union) has launched a campaign to urge students not to hit the bottle too hard over rag week.
Union officers say they are worried that increasing numbers of students are resorting to alcohol to avoid confronting problems such as exam stress, financial difficulties and the career demands "created by the so-called Celtic Tiger economy". The resort to alcohol is at its most intense during rag week, seen by students all over the country as a last chance to let their hair down before the exams.
Whatever about the stressed-out cubs of the Celtic Tiger, over-indulging yourself in life's pleasures every night for a week before getting serious about the summer exams has been the raison d'etre of rag week down through the years.
However, even students need an excuse for such behaviour, and what better reason could there be than raising money for charity?
The organisers of UCC Rag Week reckon they raised in the region of £20,000 for national and local charities during this year's festivities, which took place during the last week of January. Such fundraising prowess would be praised by any upstanding citizen as a model of civic responsibility. However, what the young men and women of Cork got up to in order to raise that "20 grand" might make even the most liberal of parents baulk. Is there a mother or father who wouldn't be ever so slightly reluctant to let their daughter participate in the "Picnic Lick", for instance? In this competition, a lucky young man gets to smear Haagen Dazs, Creme Eggs or strawberries over the body of a scantily clad young lady, and then licks it off. But Mum, it's for charity!
Then there's the When Harry Met Sally Fake Orgasm Competition. In this athletic contest of Cork's sturdy youth, students simulate the climax of a particularly gratifying sexual encounter on stage, in front of a thousand of their colleagues.
E&L asked UCC rag officer Johnny Coffey if he had any trouble persuading people to take part in it. Not at all, he assured me - there was a "huge demand". And the incentive? A first prize of a six-pack of beer.
If that's not enough good clean fun for you, then there are kissing competitions and blind date ("like Cilla except with saucier questions"). UCC Rag Week also featured "The Humiliator". This public service was provided by two students, who - for a minimum £5 donation to charity - would humiliate one of your friends by recounting a particularly embarrassing episode from their past on stage in front of hundreds of revellers. Their motto? "The bigger the donation, the bigger the humiliation".
It's hard to feel entirely comfortable with the idea of ritually humiliating unwilling victims in front of a large crowd of perfect strangers, but the organisers of UCC Rag Week say it was worth the risk of damaging a few egos to raise such a large amount of money for facilities for the blind, the aged, the homeless and people suffering from cancer.
However, the editors of the Queens University Belfast rag magazine, PTQ, found this year that the one thing you couldn't get away with - even if it was for charity - was desecrating the memory of a people's princess. They had to pulp thousands of copies of their magazine when there was a public outcry about "a page of sick jokes" on the death of Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed.
Both Kensington Palace and Harrods asked for copies of the magazine to be faxed to them after the newspapers got hold of the story and the students' union issued an urgent apology to the princess's family, followed promptly by an investigation into how the jokes came to be printed.
The public and the media were unconvinced by the magazine's editorial, in which the editors ensured their readers: "we know she would have wanted it this way - after all, it's for charity".
