Figure 1.--This CDV is undated, but was probanly taken during the 1860s. It was taken in Louth. The dealer believes that was the Irish and not the English Louth. The top curl was worn by youyngr boys in Englnd and in Amrica. This boy is a little older than most boys with these top curls.

We do not have a lot of information on Irish hair styles. As is always the case here is much more infirmation on women t's than men's hair styles. There is some understnding of historical male styles. There seem to general agreement that the ancient Celts wore their hair long. Soldiers may have been an exceoption. There is also some evidence that men also wore their hair in rounded, bowl cuts. We have no specific information concerning boys, but we suapect it was largely similar to adult men. One source describes class destinctions. The uppr-class suported mustaches and beards, both forked and squared. The lower classes commonly wore just long mustaches, sometimes curled at the ends. Sometimes bands of cloth or metal were worm across the forehead. We do not hve much infomation on the late middle ages when Engkand finally solifigied their control of Wales. We suspect that hair syles in Ireland and England were similar, certainly among the Anglo-Protestant Asendency. At it was the upperclasses that set the trends. We can not follow this in detail until the invention of photography (mid-19th century). Ireland is a very small country, at the time a cionstinuent part of the United Kingdom, but actuallly more like a colony. Ireland was a small ciuntry to begin with, but as a resultb if the Potato Famine was hugely reduced and very poor. As aresult, our Irishb photigraohic archive is very limited. We have begun to develop some limited information. As indeed hair styles in Irekand were identical to those in England.

Created: 6:28 AM 2/27/2023
Last updated: 6:28 AM 2/27/2023