Captured in the Clothing: Ireland, 1850s–1890s

Abstract

Clothing was hugely important in the identification of criminal suspects at large, missing persons, or deceased strangers in the nineteenth century. Descriptions of dress thus feature prominently in the Irish police gazette, the Hue and Cry, which published wanted notices from across the island. This article explores what descriptions in the Hue and Cry reveal about clothing and the wearer in Ireland and is based on a sample of 4,083 notices published from the 1850s to 1890s that document almost 14,000 individual items of clothing and footwear. It showcases intertwined meanings attached to clothing and argues that inhabitants could “read” bodies for what dress revealed about the wearer, with a particular focus on gender, age, social position, and occupation. Recognizing that people’s garments identified them in multiple ways, this article also shows that Irish inhabitants used dress as a form of deception. In doing so, it offers fresh insight into how nineteenth-century Irish inhabitants dressed and understood their clothing and the clothing of others.