Traveller and Black communities are among the most distinctive populations in Ireland. Although they occupy opposite ends of the spectrum of visible difference, hair is a site at which their perceived differences converge. In Ireland, the racial and aesthetic dimensions of Traveller and Black hair have contributed to the marginalization of the two groups. Traveller hair was historically associated with dirtiness and poverty, and Traveller women’s hair, traditionally worn long, was often perceived to be old-fashioned, gaudy, or indicative of sexual availability. Meanwhile, Black hair, which departs from white hair in texture and direction of growth, has been denigrated, and distinctively Black hairstyles have been disparaged. This chapter examines hair culture in the writings of contemporary authors Dr. Rosaleen McDonagh, a Traveller dramatist and activist, and Emma Dabiri, a Nigerian-Irish author and academic. Their portrayals of minority hair culture reveal histories of institutionalized racism and crinicultural (hair-related) discrimination, but they also present affirmative depictions of beauty and empowerment that dismantle older, demeaning representations.

Thomas M. Wilson and Hastings Donnan note the perception that “recent transformations in Ireland have resulted in an explosion of new forms and ways of being ‘Irish,’” producing “a more liberal, cosmopolitan and diverse society [… that is] a far cry from [… the country’s] Catholic and rural past.” In this changed society, however, historical forms of racism and classism persist. This chapter prioritizes the intersectionality of class and ethnicity/race in highlighting some instances of how these matters have been dealt with in recent Irish drama since the 1990s. Its reading of plays by Donal O’Kelly, Roddy Doyle, Brian Campbell, Ursula Rani Sarma, Ken Harmon, Dermot Bolger, Vincent Higgins, Jim O’Hanlon, Martin Lynch, Bisi Adigun, Charlie O’Neill, Mirjana Rendulic, and Rosaleen McDonagh suggests how those who write from the subject positions of marginalized minorities have challenged too commonly simplistic, melodramatic, or assimilationist treatments of those communities.