Do you know what FURRIES are? We go inside Ireland's strange new world, where dragons check into hotels, foxes roam the corridors and costumes can cost up to €10,000

Published: 23:04, 7 August 2026 | Updated: 23:04, 7 August 2026 The first furry I meet holds open a hotel door for an elderly woman wrestling with a wheelie case. He is a pale blue dragon, almost six feet tall, with articulated wings folded neatly against his back. As she passes beneath his snout, his tail catches briefly on the door frame, almost sending a luggage trolley wobbling across the foyer. She thanks him in the same way she might thank anyone else and continues towards reception. A child nearby stops and stares, while an older man does a double take, then looks away and carries on. The reaction I had expected – laughter, surprise, someone asking what on earth is going on – never comes. Nobody seems particularly bothered that a dragon is holding the door open. They have arrived, as have I, at AnthroIrish, Ireland’s furry convention, held this year at the Metropole Hotel in Cork under a swashbuckling seafaring theme. Hundreds of people from Ireland and across Europe have travelled to spend the weekend as animal characters they have designed and created themselves. Georgina with BB and StyracoStyx at the AnthroIrish 2026 convention in Cork Tickets sold out for the first time in the convention’s four-year history. Anchors and ships’ wheels still hang from the hotel foyer ceiling, leftovers from a corporate event the week before, but by chance they fit perfectly with the weekend’s nautical theme. I have arrived with the obvious questions – who chooses to spend a weekend dressed as a wolf? How much does it cost to become a dragon? And what happens when a hotel is full of adults walking around in fur? The night before, a handful of twenty-somethings had already gathered in the foyer. They were not in costume yet, but there were clues – branded tote bags, lanyards and the way they looked around the room, searching for people they had previously known only through a screen. They arrived in small groups, spotted one another and quickly fell into conversation. I asked a member of staff what he knew about the convention. ‘Nobody told us much,’ he said. ‘But let’s face it, you can spot them a mile off.’ By the following morning, it is clear he is right. Grape Soda at the AnthroIrish 2026 convention The hotel has been transformed. A giant yellow bird crosses the foyer, a raccoon checks his tail in the lift mirror, and staff move between dragons and foxes carrying coffee and room-service trays with the calm efficiency of people who have decided this is simply another weekend at the Metropole. Downstairs, a wedding party is checking in. Garment bags and flower boxes sit beside fursuit cases and costume bags – two very different versions of a big weekend arriving under the same roof. Volunteers haul boxes through the lobby while guests carry dresses, overnight bags and bouquets. For the next two days, brides and dragons will share the breakfast room, queuing side by side for scrambled eggs and rashers. The opening ceremony begins not with applause but with a chorus of barks, meows and howls. Mike, head of the ‘fursuit lounge’ – the cooling station where overheated attendees can remove their heads and rest – welcomes a room full of ‘crewmates’ and reminds them, completely straight-faced, that many of them ‘don’t even have thumbs’ before explaining the fire evacuation procedures. Ink, the convention's outgoing director, last week. Photo: Michael Chester Then Ink, the convention’s outgoing director, steps up to the microphone. ‘Welcome home,’ they say. For many in the room, it is not an introduction to a strange new world, it is a place where they already know exactly where they belong. Fire Mixer, 30, has travelled from Scotland. He discovered the fandom when he was 18 and later spent €1,200 turning his fursona – his animal identity – into a physical costume. Bailey, 22, from Wicklow, was at her first Furries convention Grape, 19, from Cork, found the community online during the Covid lockdown. Bailey, 22, from Wicklow, is attending her first convention, wearing a suit based on a character design she says she fell in love with online. Rascal Griffiths, 30, this year’s guest of honour, has been part of the fandom since 2009. Throughout the weekend, attendees queue for photographs with him, with one fan even asking him to sign the inside of a fursuit head. One thing becomes noticeable quickly – a surprising number of people here work in technology. ‘You’ll find if you talk to a lot of people that the main field of work is generally IT,’ one attendee, an architect from the midlands, tells me. ‘It’s a very internet-based subculture.’ Bee at the AnthroIrish 2026 convention Behind the colourful heads and oversized paws is a surprisingly complicated craft. Every costume begins with a drawing or reference sheet, which is refined over months between the wearer and the maker before the first piece of material is cut. A partial suit can take months to complete and cost hundreds of euro in materials. Full suits generally start at around €1,200, while the most elaborate creations can pass €10,000 – roughly the cost of a small car. Several attendees admit they paid in instalments. They are quick to point out that, for them, this is no different from any other expensive hobby. Eliott, who builds fursuits professionally in Dublin and specialises in what he calls ‘evolutionary adaptations, rare or endangered species’, has designed his latest creation with detachable ears held in place by magnets. The idea was partly practical – Ryanair’s luggage restrictions were as much a consideration as aesthetics. An unnamed attendee at the Metropole Hotel Even a 10kg carry-on allowance can influence the shape of a dragon. ‘People spend that [amount of money] on a holiday,’ he says. ‘This lasts longer.’ Loopy, from Waterford, takes a completely different approach, crocheting her entire suit by hand. The process can take almost a year alongside a full- time job. For Grape, the character came first. She found a design online that she loved – ‘as bright and sparkly as possible’ – before she had even joined the fandom. Many people here introduce themselves by their character names rather than their real ones. Nearly everyone I speak to asks not to be identified beyond that.For some, the reason is simple – they are still deciding how much of this world they want to bring into their everyday lives. Bailey is attending her first convention without telling her friends. Her family know and are supportive – her father’s reaction to seeing the fursuit was straightforward. ‘It’s really cool,’ he told her. Maple at the AnthroIrish 2026 convention Her friends are a different matter. Explaining it to them is something she is still ‘working up the courage’ to do. Fire Mixer describes keeping his convention life separate from his professional one. ‘I’ve got my work side and I’ve got my home side,’ he says. A mother’s defence of the hobby, passed on to me second-hand, is that she would rather see her child spending money on a fursuit than on hard drugs. But there is one question that follows the furry community everywhere – and it is the one many people here seem to expect before I even ask. A man in full fursuit pulls me aside. ‘It’s really important for you to know that this is not a sexual thing,’ he says. ‘This is only about creativity.’ He acknowledges that there is a section of the wider fandom in which sexuality does play a role but insists that is not what this convention is about. Georgina with Grape Soda at the convention. Photo: Michael Chester For him, and many others here, the appeal is the character, the craft and the community. I hear the same distinction repeatedly. ‘Some people think that this is like a fetish,’ I say to Bailey. ‘This isn’t sexual, absolutely not,’ she replies. ‘This is pure enjoyment of cosplaying your character and the self-expression, art and community behind it.’ Fire Mixer is equally direct. ‘There’s no sexual thing,’ he says. Eliott, the Dublin-based fursuit maker, offers a more complicated answer. He says the biggest misconception about furries is that the entire community is a fetish. ‘There is a decent chunk of furries who participate in the adult side of the fandom,’ he says. ‘But that isn’t what being a furry is all about.’ It is a distinction many attendees are keen to make. They do not deny that different parts of the wider fandom exist, they object to one part becoming the definition of everyone else. An unnamed attendee at the Metropole Hotel convention. Photo: Michael Chester Grape, 19, from Cork, puts it most simply. ‘For some people it is, and that’s okay,’ she says. ‘But not for me.’ Rascal Griffiths, this year’s guest of honour, draws another boundary – between furries and those who feel a deeper personal or spiritual connection to animals. ‘Generally the people who feel like they have more of a spiritual connection to animals, akin to a more religious and soul feeling, that is a completely different sub-community, called therian and otherkin,’ he says. ‘I don’t, so I can’t speak for a community that I’m not in.’ Later, someone offers me a spare fursuit head to try on. They tell me it weighs about as much as a bowling ball. Once it is in my hands – and then on my head – that sounds entirely believable. My view is reduced to two small mesh eyeholes. The room becomes a blur of whatever happens to pass in front of me. Voices around me become muffled beneath layers of foam and fake fur. Within seconds I am hot, uncomfortable and acutely aware of why the fursuit lounge exists. BB, who says he becomes more confident in his suit, shows off his access card. Photo: Michael Chester But there is something else too. Behind the oversized animal face, nobody can see my expression. Nobody can see whether I look nervous or unsure. For a brief moment, the pressure of being watched disappears. BB, 22, says that is part of the appeal. Out of costume, he describes himself as reserved; in his suit, he becomes noticeably more confident. ‘I usually keep to myself,’ he says. Several other attendees describe a similar change – feeling more relaxed, more willing to approach strangers and less conscious of how they appear. One tells me it is easier to start a conversation when the other person cannot see your face either. The fursuit lounge serves a much more practical purpose – stopping people from overheating. Inside are fans, ice packs, cold drinks and volunteers checking on anyone who needs a break. A row of abandoned fursuit heads sits on a rack, looking like a collection of strange helmets waiting for their owners to return. Spending hours inside a full fur costume in a Cork hotel in August requires preparation. Fire Mixer says he can manage an hour or two before needing to cool down. Azakir, who has worn the same yellow dragon suit for eight years, says he still cannot get out of it particularly quickly. Before the dance competition, he jokes that even he would struggle with a rapid escape. Ink opens every AnthroIrish with the same disclaimer. ‘It’s a bit weird,’ they say, ‘but we know we’re weird, and that’s the beauty of it.’ Asked what would surprise a first-time visitor, they answer immediately. ‘Probably the amount of times you’ll hear “where’s my head?” and it would be totally normal,’ they laugh. Throughout the weekend, animal heads are constantly being misplaced, carried under arms or left temporarily on chairs while their owners disappear back into the crowd. Ink is stepping down as convention director after this year’s event, handing the role over to a friend. Looking back on the experience, they struggle to sum it up. ‘An absolute joy, a wonder, a privilege, a nightmare and a delight at the same time,’ they say. It has also taken its toll. ‘I started going grey the first year,’ they say. ‘And I’m holding back the greys in my fourth.’ The access cards are as colourful as the costumes. Photo: Michael Chester For Ink, AnthroIrish is a rare place where nobody has to explain themselves. Outside the hotel, most people here return to everyday lives where few people know this side of them exists. This year’s convention also partnered with Sofia Housing, a Cork charity providing transitional homes for people experiencing homelessness. A representative addresses the crowd between costume panels, speaking to a room filled with foxes, dragons and birds and asking for donations. A collection bucket is passed around afterwards, and by the end of the evening it is far heavier than expected. Downstairs, the wedding continues. The band plays, glasses clink, and guests move between the ballroom and reception. One floor above, attendees in animal costumes queue for a competition. A waiter carries a three-tier wedding cake through the foyer with the same calm expression he wore earlier while walking past a giant yellow bird. Raccoonatic at the AnthroIrish 2026 convention in the Metropole Hotel By early evening, the costumes are beginning to come off. A fox head rests on a chair while its owner scrolls through his phone. Outside, someone carefully straps a dragon head into the passenger seat of a car before driving into Cork traffic, waving at another attendee still walking down the street in full fursuit. Back inside, wedding guests gather handbags, jackets and garment bags. Across the hotel, fursuits are packed away with the same care they received when they arrived – heads wrapped separately, paws tucked in last, every piece checked before the cases close. By Monday morning, the dragons, foxes and birds have gone. The people wearing them have gone back to their other lives. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.