Professional Documents
Culture Documents
150 YEARS
OF A
TR ADITION
EXHIBIT CATALOG
L ACIS MUSEUM
OF
L ACE
AND
TEXTILES
94703
ot wanting to let go, the nurturing of this spirit to become the living
legacy of Kaethe, has made me believe that all is possible.
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ork was soon recognized as the main centre of the crochet lace industry in the South of Ireland but the manufacture soon spread to other areas. Mrs W. C. Thornton
introduced crochet as an experiment in County Kildare, first
as a famine relief scheme, and it proved so successful that a
demand developed for teachers to go to other parts of Ireland. The Rectors wife at Clones in County Monaghan,
Mrs
Cassandra
Hand, invited one
...Accordingly girl babies were more
of these teachers
valued than baby boys, as they would
to her area. The
become crochet workers and the
combination
of
crochet hook gave these women
Mrs Hands busidignity. Rosela farmers were described
ness ability and
as the worst in the country, as the men
the expertise of the
did the housework, while the women
teacher soon made
crocheted!..
Clones one of the
CLONES LACE, Marie Treanor
principal centres of
the craft. Exquisite models of Guipure and Point de Venise
lace were developed there and Mrs Hand also developed
a style of crochet based on Church lace, which became
available after the dissolution of the; monasteries in Spain.
Within a few years of the establishment of ithe Clones
school in 1847, about fifteen hundred workers were employed directly or indirectly through crochet working in the
parish. As a result, by 1910, Clones was the most important centre of the industry in Ireland.
At the time that Clones lace was in demand, the standard
of living in Ireland was very poor. In this depressed economic period, lacemaking provided a very important contribution to the budgets of families whose women had the
skill. The fashions of the time created a great demand for
lace for blouse bodices and cuffs, ruffles, trimmings and
even whole dresses. Men wore lace in the form of jabots
and evening shirts. New motifs were added by the workers themselves so that Clones lace eventually became an
art form native to Clones and the surrounding area.
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rochet, the manufacture that seemed to grow in the air under the
hands of its makers, far outdistanced Carrickmacross and Limerick
in giving work to women after the famine. Mrs. Meredith, patron of the
Adelaide school for crochet, Cork, which became a depot where good
were received and sold, describes the efforts of 20,000 [employed from
1847] in the indigenous lace...When mens hands were useless, little
girls fingers by means of this lace-work provided for families...
THE IRISH FLOWERERS, Elizabeth Boyle
ven by 1855 inferior workmanship was becoming predominant, and by 1860s the industry was in a state of stagnation...
In the 1870s there was a period of revival for a time. The crochet
most favored then was distinguished by small neat patterns.
The revival of the 1870s was short-lived. In the following decade
the crochet trade of Ireland entered the worst period of decline it
had yet faced, as a result of competition from machine-made laces.
It was not until the very end of the 1880s that the industry began
to revive again.
Messrs. Hayward of Oxford Street, for example, took a direct interest in crochet and invented a new variety called Royal Irish
Guipure which was made in silk.
VICTORIAN LACE, Patricia Wardle
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