​Going for the Viking look in Gorey!

Marion O'Toole, hair braiding tutor in Gorey Community School.

Gorey Community School in Co Wexford has enlisted the help of a hairdresser with TV, film, and theatre experience to tutor a night class in Hair Braiding and Plaiting.

The five-week course will cover everything from the basics of hair plaiting up to the intricacies of French, Dutch, fishtail and waterfall plaiting. Learners will even be able to duplicate the Viking look as featured in the TV series of the same name!

Tutor Marion O’Toole herself worked in the Viking TV series, as well as Game of Thrones, Moone Boy, Little Women, Badlands, and the Wexford Opera Festival.

“Viking plaits are quite popular now and many of those styles were designed on Vikings and Game of Thrones,” says Marion, who runs a mobile hairdressing service covering Wicklow, Wexford, Carlow, and Dublin.

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Award winner

On set, hair styles would have been researched by the creative director and the job of the hair department was to implement those styles. “You’d have to stay true to the look and adapt the style to the people in front of you – the look had to be real and not overdone. The work was really creative and enjoyable.” Indeed, Marion was part of the team that won an Irish Film and Television Academy award for creative hair design on Vikings.
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Working on set is not all glamour: “The hair, make-up, and wardrobe departments work long hours, prepping in the morning and working until the end of filming each day as different scenes are set up and require different people.” Marion is secretary of the Hairdressers Guild which negotiates terms and conditions for hairdressers on film and television work.

To tie in with Covid-19 guidelines, each person will have their own training head to learn on during the class (above). Marion O'Toole on set in various locations (right)

Plaiting technique

Today, she specialises in wedding and occasion hair styles, as well as hair extensions. “There’s one technique to braiding or plaiting your hair and, once you’ve mastered that, you can adapt that to other styles.
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“Dutch plaits, for instance, are popular with girls who play sport or for school days. Waterfall plaits are popular with First Communion girls. Fishtail plaits then are suitable for the dressier look.”

Whatever the occasion, once you’re able to master crossing over three strands of hair, you have cracked the code of plaiting and braiding! ​

Night classes in Gorey ​

Click here for the full range of night classes in Gorey Community School, Co Wexford