The chill in the air reminded me of this beautiful carte-de-visite showing a Dublin girl in her lavish winter outfit. The expression on her wise little face, peaking out from the large bonnet, makes me think that she might have been a tad precocious and spoilt!
The matching coat, muff and gaiters are made from a material which looks like the fake or fun furs which were popular during my childhood in the 1970s. In my attempt to identify the fabric, I received several suggestions as to what this material might be including an Astrakhan fur, a reversed shearling or a bouclè wool. In general, I find Noreen Marshall’s Dictionary of Children’s Clothes 1700s to Present to be very useful and the excellent photographs in this V&A publication make it a vital resource for the historian of children’s costume.
Lauder Brothers worked from 32 Westmoreland Street from the 1850s to 1900 although I think that this image dates from the later decades of their tenure at this premises. Edward Chandler included several of their card backs in his invaluable book Photography in Ireland: the Nineteenth Century and the example above matches those from the 1890s. I located a similar, although possibly later image, from a Romanian studio on an interesting blog called The Cabinet Card Gallery.
Jacolette: 
She does have a very focused and mature attitude. She is utterly fascinating! Her clothes are interesting,too. To me it looks like bouclè on the leggings. Isn’t Ireland famous for bouclè weaving? (I have a gorgeous swing coat that I made out of hand woven Irish bouclè wool.) The coat collar looks too soft and the fall of the sleeves too fine for Astrakhan fur but I also don’t think the coat is bouclè. Did you decide on your best theory? I can’t see it being reversed shearling for the same reasons for it not being Astrakhan. To me it does look woven – maybe it is a very special type of bouclè? Just raving on now! I have really enjoyed this post!!!!
Hello Katherine, I think it is the bouclè as suggested by my mother! Thanks for the comment, Orla.