Red alert as Crosshaven prepares to celebrate all things ginger

A wacky, ginger-loving celebration of everything to do with red hair takes place this month in Crosshaven, Co Cork.

Each summer for the past six years the small coastal village has been transformed into a glorious sea of ginger when thousands of redheads from all over the world gather there for the festival of fiery hair, freckles, and frolics.

Carrot-tossing, ginger speed-dating, freckle counting, group photo-shoots, and a redhead parade are just some of the colourful events taking place from August 21 to 23.

True redheads can get certificates of genuine foxiness and, to top it all, there will be the coronation of the Redhead King and Queen.

The redhead convention also includes a seminar by author Jackie Collis Harvey, author of RED, a complete history of the natural redhead.

There will also be a panel discussion involving successful redheads in business including Tristan Rogers, publisher of the international redhead art magazine MC1R, and Emma Kelly Campbell, blogger at Ginger Parrot, who led a successful campaign to include ginger emojis on keyboards.

Central to the convention is the Foxygen music stage — reserved for gingers —where performers will include Ginger nutz, a trad band made up entirely of natural redheads from the West of Ireland.

The ‘redheadline’ act for the weekend is Irish Jazz and blues singer Mary Coughlan.

The convention — which began life as a friendly joke between locals and redheaded siblings Joleen and Denis Cronin — is also an important fundraiser for the Irish Cancer Society.

Ireland has the second- highest per capital population of redheads at 10%, next only to Scotland at 13%.

The United States is believed to have less than 2% redheads.

www.redheadconvention.ie