THE fashion for periwigs in seventeenth and eighteenth-century Europe represents an intersection of politics, social distinction, and artisanal skill. They started with King Louis XIII of France who used the periwig to disguise his male pattern baldness. This baldness would have cast aspersions on his virility, as a result he had the most elaborate headpiece created. The King’s solution quickly transformed into a courtly fashion statement. Very quickly most of the King’s men adopted the elaborate hairpieces – bald or not.
The word originated from the French ‘perruque’ before becoming ‘periwig’, eventually making way for the simpler term we know today, ‘wig’.
In the 1730s smaller, lighter wigs known as ‘perukes’ began to replace the towering periwigs. The perukes were more practical for travel, riding, and daily use, and soon became the more common choice.
Whether peruke or periwig, both styles were expensive to produce, and the wig-making trade demanded significant skill. Creating the characteristic curls was especially laborious: locks were tightly wound onto small pipe-clay rollers, tied with rags, boiled, and then baked in an oven to set. Wig fitters also needed barbering skills, since a close-shaven head ensured both comfort and a snug fit, and delousing was part of the routine.
The craze reached Ireland, and Limerick was no exception. Here it quickly became a visible marker of status among political leaders and merchants. Portraits of Edmund Sexton Pery, founder of Newtown Pery and speaker of the Irish House of Commons in the 1770s, show him wearing a full flowing periwig that extended past his shoulders. By 1790, however, he is depicted with a simpler peruke tied neatly at the back, a sign of changing tastes.
In 1769, John Ferrar, the founder of the Limerick Chronicle, released a trade directory of Limerick City. This was a time before the major development of Newtown Pery, when the main streets of the city were in Englishtown and Irishtown. During this period periwigs and perukes were still in high demand. This was very noticeable in the directory which showed the following entries for peruke makers.
In Englishtown, Jacob Bennis, James Connolly, Edmund Crowe, John Hogan, Benjamin Mills, all of Main Street (Mary Street/Nicholas Street), Francis Downes of Creagh Lane, John Fitzgerald of Parade, Thomas and William Mullock of Quay Lane, William Perry of Mainguard, Thomas Power of Old Quay. In Irishtown, John Bourke and John Mackey of John Street, Dennis Crowe of Back Lane, John Everitt of Mungret Street, and William Ryan of Shamble Lane.
It is difficult to trace the lives of these peruke makers as the records at this time are sparse. What is known is that Jacob Bennis died in his home on Mary Street in 1793 with his obituary noting he was a well-known hairdresser in the city.
As with the wig makers themselves, some of the street names noted in 1769 have long since disappeared as with Shamble Lane and Mainguard. At the time, as well as a peruke maker, you could find a blacksmith, a wine merchant, an apothecary, a butcher, and a baker on Shamble Lane. While, Mainguard also had an apothecary, a mercer (textile merchant) and woollen-drapery.
During the reign of George III (1760-1820) periwigs and perukes gradually went out of fashion. Men dusted their hairpieces with starch-based powders to achieve a brilliant white sheen, while wigmakers competed to produce ever more elaborate styles. But the extravagance came at a cost. A single full-bottomed wig could require hair from 10 different donors, and the finest examples were made from human hair rather than horse or goat substitutes. The passion for powdered wigs declined abruptly in 1795, when the British government introduced a tax on hair powder. What had once been a mark of sophistication suddenly became an expensive burden, signalling the beginning of the wig’s fall from everyday fashion.
By the end of the century they were mainly worn by bishops, coachmen, and the legal profession. In the 1830s, even bishops were given permission to stop wearing wigs.
There was an outlier in Limerick in the 1840s with John Dallas and his shop the Hair Dressing Rooms, at 121 George Street (corner of O’Connell Street and Bedford Row) where he advertised patent metallic spring perukes which were a “perfect imitation of nature, and its extreme lightness and elasticity”.
In 1846, two men, William Woods, Mungret Street, and John Egan, Thomas Street, were noted in the trade directories as Curled Hair Manufacturers. Despite the trade name, these men were probably not making wigs but instead the stuffing for mattresses.
Today, this very particular style of wig has all but vanished from everyday life. Their legacy survives in portraits, in trade records, and in the occasional obituary. The only place where perukes are still regularly seen is around the courthouse, where some barristers and judges continue to wear them.
