W2A-005 Irish lace-0.txt
Irish Lace

Tradition or Commodity?

by LINDA BALLARD

Folk Life, vol 31

Among the many popular images associated with Ireland, that of a woman sitting outside a dwelling and engaged in needlework is very familiar, and the description 'traditional Irish lace' is glibly applied to many products available on the crafts market, but in what ways may Irish lace be considered traditional? What factors have governed its production, and how is it related to the lives of the people who made it? In addressing these questions, it is necessary to consider the contribution which Irish needlework has to make to an appreciation of the Irish visual tradition, a subject which has suffered some neglect. Lace was made in a great many places throughout Ireland, and a wide variety of types of work was produced. It is appropriate to begin by looking into the background to lace production, and to give an introduction to the different types of Irish lace.

This Tradition of producing skilled needlework may be traced back beyond the existence of the medieval guilds at least to the era of the Brehon Laws. These stipulate that the fine for the theft of an embroidery needle was an ounce of silver. The subsequent vicissitudes of the industry, particularly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, from the disastrous impact on Irish lacemaking on the ruin of the woollen trade to the protection of the producers of gold and silver laces in Dublin in the 1770s are traced by Elizabeth Boyle. Her book, The Irish Flowers is nowadays notoriously difficult to track down, but her two articles 'Embroidery and Lacemaking, 1600- 1800' and 'Embroidery and Lacemaking in Ulster' are more accessible. In the period preceding the nineteenth century, bone (bobbin or pillow) lace, embroidery and drawnthread work were among the types of needlework produced in Ireland. There is evidence of domestically produced needlework, and of professional embroiderers producing impressive banners for ceremonial use, or furnishing for elegant interior decoration. Lacemaking was also taught to the poor as a means of earning a living. The records of the workhouse in Dublin show that in 1743 the children there earned for the institution £ 160. 14s. 0 1/2d. from the production of bone lace.

Much of the surviving lace was made during the nineteenth century, when various factors, including the popularity of the commodity itself, influenced its production. Throughout the century, energetic women of some social conscience realized that lacemaking held potential as a means of alleviating poverty, and various techniques were introduced or developed. Lacemaking provided an income for many during the Famine years of the 1840s, but more general levels of poverty were also addressed. Needlework was among the skills fostered by the Congested Districts Board, and c. 1920 the income of an average family in The Rosses, Co. Donegal, was estimated as £ 43. 0s. 0d., of which £ 7. 10s. 0d. (approximately 18%) was earned from 'knitting, sewing, etc.' This is second only to earnings for migratory labour in Scotland, and contributed more to the family than either the sale of cattle or the sale of eggs. (Incidentally, the accounts suggest that the average Rosses family could expect to be in the black to the tune of 4s. 9d. per annum.)

Several different types of handmade lace were produced in Ireland in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many of these enterprises were'school' based. Lace schools offered instruction and marketed products. Although pupils were expected to attend and to work at the school itself, once they were fully trained they might be permitted to work at home with occasional attendance at the school, behaving more like outworkers using the school as an agency. In Co. Londonderry, Mrs Ross and Mrs Ritter organized a school at which girls could learn bobbin lacemaking. They produced torchon-type lace, which was very popular as trimming and was very similar to work produced at many other centres. Other types of bobbin lace were made in Ireland during the nineteenth century. The collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum includes samples described as 'new Irish blonde', but nothing else about the lace is known.

Pure needlepoint laces, both flat and raised, were produced in Ireland. Flat needlepoint, sometimes known as 'Irish rosepoint', was particularly associated with centres such as Kenmare, Youghal and New Ross. Some raised needlepoint was also produced at New Ross, and during the 1840s this type of lace began to be made at Tynan in Co. Armagh. It was later produced at other centres, the best known of which is Innismacsaint in Co. Fermanagh. The industry was inaugurated there by the Misses Macken, sisters-in-law of the rector, George Tottenham. It was later fostered by Ellen Hassard, a native of the area who possessed a talent for design. She was awarded a grant which enabled her to study art at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin. In addition to her artistic flair, Miss Hassard was an able business woman, and attended herself to the various administrative aspects of marketing and of supervising production, as well as to teaching lacemaking. Under her influence, Innismacsaint lacemaking flourished, and it seems that much of it was destined for the United States, and for San Francisco in particular. The decline in its production appears to have coincided with the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906.

Needlepoint lace is made by laying down a couched thread on a design drawn on calico. Buttonhole stitches are worked in different combinations from the couched thread, without piercing the calico, to form the design. The couching stitches are then carefully cut to free the lace from its backing. This type of lace was imitated by the makers of Irish crochet.

Crochet was encouraged in many European convents, and it appears that this work came into Ireland under the auspices of the Ursuline Order, which was established in Cork by the late eighteenth century. Irish crochet lace was particularly prized by the French fashion industry of the early twentieth century, and was also very popular in America. Alan Cole conceded that Irish crochet at its best possessed 'a certain cachet'. It is distinguished by the decorative motifs, roses, trefoils and other shapes incorporated in the work. Crochet lace is worked with a hook in the same manner as wool crochet, the hook and yarn being much finer. It is sometimes said that the eye might be broken in a sewing needle to produce a hook sufficiently fine, the point being put into a cork. Irish crochet copied the sculpted effect of needlepoint lace and could be produced more quickly, but the designs were often poor quality. In 1897 Cole found it necessary to criticize design deficiencies and remarked of the crochet school in Ardara: "The trade leaves the invention of ornamental forms for crochet work practically to the workers themselves, who have had no training in drawing and consequently cannot produce properly designed patterns."

Crochet was also worked in combination with braids or tapes, and work of this type was sold in Paris under the title 'Irish work'. Braid lace may also be produced by combining types and embroidery. Much work of this kind was made in Ireland, and early in the present century handmade lace curtains and other household items were being produced in Connemara. This lace is described as 'a strong linen mesh net on which various widths and patterns are sewn, so as to compose the design'." Household textiles like these enjoyed considerable popularity in Edwardian homes.

Many of the laces so far referred to might be described as 'real' laces, as the entire fabric is produced by the lacemaker, but perhaps the best known Irish laces, Carrickmacross and Limerick, use machine-made net as a ground. Ada Longfield specifies that Nottingham machine net was generally used in the production of Limerick lace. This work was started by an English business man, Charles Walker, who had married into a lacemaking family. In 1829, he brought a group of twenty-four women to Limerick to teach lacemaking.

Three types of Limerick lace are made. Run lace is embroidery or darning on net, and is similar to laces made in English centres such as Nottingham and the Isle of Wight. Tambour lace, worked with a hook, is heavier in appearance than run work, and resembles work made at Goggeshall in Essex. The third type of Limerick lace, often considered the most successful, combines tambour and run work, the design being outlined with a hook and filled with embroidery stitches. Other techniques, such as net in decoration applied to net ground, were also known to Limerick lacemakers. Terms such as 'Limerick' and 'Carrickmacross', while they refer to important centres of lace production, may also be used to differentiate techniques of lacemaking, irrespective of the area of origin of the piece of lace itself.

A similar type of lace to that usually associated with Limerick was produced in Kells, in Co. Meath. This industry also had strong links with Nottingham, and Dunlevy states that it 'was established in 1825 by Emma Hubbard. Her brother Henry, born about 1791, owned a lace-manufacturing business in Nottingham'." Links between this city and the Irish lace industry remained strong during the early nineteenth century.

Carrickmacross work resembles these laces as it makes use of a similar net ground and repertoire of stitches. The most popular form of Carrickmacross lace combines embroidery with fine appliqu&/e. The appliqu&/e is worked first, and nowadays is usually of organdie, although in the past fine cambric was used. A sheet of net covers the paper pattern, and this in turn is covered by a length of the fabric to be applied. The appliqu&/e design is couched unto the net and the surplus is cut away using special scissors and taking care not to cut the net. Additional decoration is worked by embroidering the net. This type of work was introduce early in the nineteenth century. Later, a type of guipure lacemaking was introduced, and was popular for a short time. Guipure work was very successfully combined with appliqu&/e and embroidered lace, to make mixed Carrickmacross.

The introduction of Carrickmacross lace is usually credited to Mrs Grey Porter, wife of the local rector, and it is generally believed that she discovered the technique by unpicking a piece of Italian work. Mrs Grey Porter employed a sewing maid, Annie Steadman, who seems to have helped to develop the craft in the 1809s. It was later fostered by the Misses Reid as a means of relieving young female tenants on their estate of the need to perform heavy farm work, but as Elizabeth Boyle commented, 'the help was by its nature too personal and too limited in scope to be lasting and as teaching and in organisation declined, so did the industry'."

This was exactly the problem which Cole identified in 1887 as being a widespread handicap to the Irish lace industry. He remarked of the work of the Ladies'Industrial Society for Ireland: "With a Programme so innocent of commercial conditions it is not surprising that the Ladies'Society did not live many years. During its short term of existence it experimented with diffusion of instruction in lacemaking and the encouragement of ornamental design... But the operations of the Society were not very far reaching and, as usual, were undertaken under the stimulus of benevolence."

A charitable concern to improve conditions for local people underlay several Irish lacemaking enterprises of the early- and mid-nineteenth century, whether convent-based or otherwise directed. Cole was worried at the lack of commercial acumen exhibited by many of these enterprises, and felt that the Irish lace industry could become much more successful with the benefit of a definte aim and knowledge of necessary conditions. During the 1880s he was instrumental in founding a committee dedicated to the improvement of the Irish lace industry. This committee was particularly involved in helping to promote high standards of design. One of its most active members was Florence Vere O'Brien, wife of a solicitor who, during the 1880s, was based in Co. Limerick.

Mrs Vere O'Brien's personal motivation was philanthropic rather than commercial. She was a gifted designer and an energetic organizer who devoted herself to improving the by then declined lacemaking industry in Limerick. Work produced under her direction was awarded prizes at various late nineteenth-century international exhibitions. When, towards the end of the century, she moved to Co. Clare she established another operation, the Clare Embroidery Industry. This began production in 1892, and gave a marketable skill to local women. Clare lacked the lacemaking background upon which Mrs O'Brien had been able to build in Limerick, but women in the locality quickly learned to do the work devised for them, which generally empolyed basic embroidery stitches worked in simple designs. Clare Embroidery made use of a range of bright, clear colours and was very popular for such items as children's dress and ladies'gardening aprons. Among the patrons of the industry was Queen Victoria, who ordered dresses decorated with Clare Embroidery for her grandchildren. The English royal family have long been patrons of the Irish needlework industry. A few Christmases ago, one Co. Down embroiderer was commissioned to embellish a number of pairs of boxer shorts with the Prince of Wales'feathers. These were to be given as a gift by Diana to Charles.

During the 1880s, Cole defined eight classes of Irish lace: needlepoint; pillow lace; drawn linen embroidery; cut linen work; crochet; braid and cord lace; embroidery on net and cambric embroidery. We have already seen the close relationship between embroidery and many types of Irish lace, and Levey commented of early laces that 'Their technical origins lay... in the different embroidery and other techniques used to decorate linen items of costume and furnishing'. Linen production and its decoration have been of great economic importance, especially in the north of Ireland, and Elizabeth Boyle discovered that the earliest detailed extant account of an embroidery and lace enterprise in Ulster relates to the Moravian community in Gracehill. In 1794, Thomas Russell found the women there employed 'in spinning, knitting, all sort of needlework embroidery' by means of which they supported themselves.
