The above advert for Mechi’s Modern Strop – indispensable for barristers, and others – appeared in the Dublin Daily Express of 1894.

A strop was a band used to straighten and polish the blade of a straight razor.

Although some nineteenth-century Irish lawyers boasted fashionable beards, whiskers and moustachios, most remained clean shaven. Judges were not shy about voicing disapproval of barrister facial hair and some of the more scathing comments can be read here.