Spending time at Ireland’s annual redhead convention
<p>Red is the rarest of hair colours and accounts for only 0.6 per cent of the global population. And a good portion of those people descended on Ireland for the annual Redhead Convention.</p>
<p>The festival of ginger-loving madness, held Co. Cork's Crosshaven, is a celebration of all things to do with red hair.</p>
<p>The annual convention was partnered with the Irish Cancer Society who said that fair and freckled people are one of the most susceptible groups to melanoma and other skin cancers.</p>
<p>Amongst the festival highlights was a redhead-only parade, a group photograph featuring hundreds of redheads, and the ginger jig, where redheads joined together in traditional Irish céilí dance, setting a world red-cord of jig-happy gingers in the village square.</p>
<p>Ireland has the second highest proportion of redheads at 10 per cent (with Scotland taking the top spot with 13 per cent), but up to 40 per cent of Irish are believed to be carriers of the ginger gene.</p>
<p>The convention started as a joke between redhead siblings Joleen and Denis Cronin and has been steadily growing in popularity year-on-year.</p>
<p>Check out our favourite photos in the gallery above.</p>
<p><em>Image credit: Stuff / Redhead Convention Ireland</em></p>
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