Hi °C | Lo °C 
The personal grooming gods have decreed November shall henceforth be known as 'Movember'. For the next four weeks, guys who would otherwise never dream of stepping outside less than fully clean-shaven are giving it the full Tom Selleck. Gentleman, start your moustaches -- fuzzy caterpillar season is upon us!
You may scoff. But the truth is Movember serves an invaluable social purpose, aside from its goal of raising awareness about men's health issues.
As chaps across the country bin their razors, so the rest of us are forced to re-appraise our relationship with that most misunderstood of cultural institutions -- the moustache.
Recent decades, it must be agreed, have not been kind to the 'umble 'tache. It is not going overboard to say it has become an object of widespread ridicule.
When, for instance, did you last spot a celebrity proudly flaunting a moustache? In the '70s and '80s, a droopy caterpillar was, at some point in their career, de rigueur for any star. Your moustache told the world you were at ease with your manliness.
Movember is that one moment in the calendar where guys can look back on the way things were and agree they were good. In recognition of this seismic event, then, we present our countdown of the best celebrity moustaches of recent years.
Colin Farrell
Moustache experts have identified a connection between Farrell's bad boy days and the lushness of his 'tache. In those years when he seemed to have a new girlfriend every 10 minutes and enjoyed a lifestyle of hedonism, the Col 'tache flourished, threatening, at points, to colonise the bulk of his face.
By the end, you wonder who was really calling the shots -- man or moustache? It is tempting to imagine Farrell was outsourcing career decisions to his hairy chum. It would go someway towards explaining Alexander.
Daniel Day-Lewis
Behold the method moustache! Usually a moustache hoves into view after you've stopped shaving for a few days. In the case of actor's actor Day-Lewis, the moustache was, you suspect, first apprenticed to a 19th Century Italian cobbler, before it turned up for two of his signature roles, as 'Butcher' Bill in Gangs of New York and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood.
Day-Lewis won an Oscar for the latter, though in his acceptance speech he disgracefully neglected to thank his moustache for its part in his triumph.
With 20pc plus unemployment, an infestation of crime gangs and Leinster rugby in the ascendency, Limerick has its share of woes. On the positive side, the city is custodian of the most famous moustache in Irish politics.
Regardless of your party leanings, with Willie O'Dea's handlebar there is only one possible response: silent awe.
Aidan Gillen
As slippery Game of Thrones power-player Littlefinger, Aidan Gillen raises the bar for on-screen oiliness. Are we alone in suspecting that the slime factor would not be nearly as high were it not for the evil 'tache beneath the Dubliner's nose?
Marty Whelan
The quintessential public service moustache, Marty's lip ornamentation feels like it's been with us almost as long as the Angelus. Like Marty himself, it has proved remarkably flexible, attuning itself to his gigs as radio DJ, sarcastic Eurovision voiceover and quiz show host.
Some actors are trapped by their good looks. Clooney is always looking for new ways to undercut his dishy features. For the spy drama Syriana he cultivated a paunch. His true chameleon moment was The Men Who Stare At Goats, where he thoroughly un-Clooneyed himself by donning a forbidding black moustache.
Brad Pitt
Pitt had always seemed a bit weighed down by his billing as cinema's he-totty. He kicked out in a variety of ways, playing a stoner in True Romance, developing a stammer in 12 Monkeys.
Working with Quentin Tarantino on Inglourious Basterds he went the full kahuna and got all 'tached' up.
"My goal is to bring moustaches back," he said. "I don't think they are respected enough."
In 2006, The Killers frontman had a problem. The world regarded him as a girly-man obsessed with British music.
In his heart, he thought of himself as a young Springsteen. How to transmit his blue-jean virility to the world? By vanishing for six months, returning with a moustache (right) apparently purloined from a random member of Kings of Leon.
Irish Independent
