five hundred machines, each machine occupying thirty-six persons: the value
of the thread produced annually £175,000. Loch adds, that in consequence of
the cheapness of provisions, Scotland, as a country, is better adapted to
lace-making than England. In consequence of Loch's remarks, his Majesty's
Board of Trustees for the Fisheries and Manufactures, after asking a number
of questions, determined to give proper encouragement and have mistresses
for teaching the different kinds of lace made in England and France, and
oblige them to take girls of the poorer class, some from the hospitals, and
the mistress for five years to have the benefit of their work. A girl might
earn from 10d. to 1s. per day. They gave a salary to an experienced person
from Lisle for the purpose of teaching the making of thread; his wife to
instruct in lace-making. With the records of 1788 end all mention of
lace-making in Scotland.[1216]
{435}CHAPTER XXXV.
IRELAND.
"The undoubted aptitude for lace-making of the women of
Ireland."--_Juror's Report, International Exhibition._ 1862.
"It is peculiarly interesting to note the various foreign influences
which have done their part in the creation of Irish lace. Italian and
Flemish, Greek, French and English, all have lent their aid."--A. Loyd.
_The Queen_, Feb. 6th, 1897.
Little is known of the early state of manufactures in Ireland, save that
the art of needlework was held in high estimation.
By the sumptuary laws of King Mogha Nuadhad, killed at the Battle of
Maylean, A.D. 192, we learn that the value of a queen's raiment, should she
bring a suitable dowry, ought to amount to the cost of six cows; but of
what the said raiment consisted history is dark.
The same record, however, informs us that the price of a mantle, wrought
with the needle, should be "a young bullock or steer."[1217] This hooded
mantle is described by Giraldus Cambrensis as composed of various pieces of
cloth, striped, and worked in squares by the needle; maybe a species of
cut-work.
Morgan, who wrote in 1588, declares the saffron-tinted shirts of the Irish
to contain from twenty to thirty ells of linen. No wonder they are
described--
"With pleates on pleates they pleated are,
As thick as pleates may lie."[1218]
It was in such guise the Irish appeared at court before Queen
Elizabeth,[1219] and from them the yellow starch of Mrs. Turner may have
derived its origin. The Irish, however, {436}produced the dye not from
saffron, but from a lichen gathered on the rocks. Be that as it may, the
Government prohibited its use, and the shirts were reduced in quantity to
six ells,[1220] for the making of which "new-fangled pair of Gally-cushes,"
_i.e._, English shirts, as we find by the Corporation Book of Kilkenny
(1537), eighteenpence was charged if done with silk or cut-work. Ninepence
extra was charged for every ounce of silk worked in.
An Irish smock wrought with silk and gold was considered an object worthy
of a king's wardrobe, as the inventory of King Edward IV.[1221]
attests:--"Item, one Irishe smocke wrought with gold and silke."
The Rebellion at an end, a friendly intercourse, as regards fashion, was
kept up between the English and the Irish. The ruff of geometric design,
falling band, and cravat of Flanders lace, all appeared in due succession.
The Irish, always lovers of pomp and show, early used lace at the
interments of the great, as appears from an anecdote related in a letter of
Mr. O'Halloran:--"The late Lord Glandore told me," he writes, "that when a
boy, under a spacious tomb in the ruined monastery at his seat, Ardfert
Abbey (Co. Kerry), he perceived something white. He drew it forth, and it
proved to be a shroud of Flanders lace, the covering of some person long
deceased."
In the beginning of the eighteenth century a patriotic feeling arose among
the Irish, who joined hand in hand to encourage the productions of their
own country. Swift was among the first to support the movement, and in a
prologue he composed, in 1721, to a play acted for the benefit of the Irish
weavers, he says:--
"Since waiting-women, like exacting jades,
Hold up the prices of their old brocades,
We'll dress in manufactures made at home."
PLATE XC.
[Illustration: IRISH, YOUGHAL.--Needle-point fan mount, made at the
Presentation Convent, Youghal, for H.R.H. Princess Maud of Wales on her
marriage, 1896. Width in centre 8½ in.
Photo in Victoria and Albert Museum.]
_To face page 436._
{437}Shortly afterwards, at a meeting, he proposed the following
resolution:--
"That the ladies wear Irish manufactures. There is brought annually into
this kingdom near £90,000 worth of silk, whereof the greater part is
manufactured; £30,000 more is expended in muslin, holland, cambric, and
calico. What the price of lace amounts to is not easy to be collected from
the Custom-house book, being a kind of goods that, taking up little room,
is easily run; but, considering the prodigious price of a woman's
head-dress at ten, twelve, twenty pounds a yard, it must be very great."
Though a club of patriots had been formed in Ireland since the beginning of
the eighteenth century, called the Dublin Society, they were not
incorporated by charter until the year 1749; hence many of their records
are lost, and we are unable to ascertain the precise period at which they
took upon themselves the encouragement of the bone lace trade in Ireland.
From their _Transactions_ we learn that, so early as the year 1743, the
annual value of the bone lace manufactured by the children of the
workhouses of the city of Dublin amounted to £164 14s. 10½d.[1222] In
consequence of this success, the society ordain that £34 2s. 6d. be given
to the Lady Arabella Denny to distribute among the children, for their
encouragement in making bone lace. Indeed, to such a pitch were the
productions of the needle already brought in Ireland, that in the same
year, 1743, the Dublin Society gave Robert Baker, of Rollin Street, Dublin,
a prize of £10 for his imitation of Brussels lace ruffles, which are
described as being most exquisite both in design and workmanship. This
Brussels lace of Irish growth was much prized by the patriots.[1223] From
this time the Dublin Society acted under their good genius, the Lady
Arabella Denny. The prizes they awarded were liberal, and success attended
their efforts.
In 1755 we find a prize of £2 15s. 6d. awarded to {438}Susanna Hunt, of
Fishamble Street, aged eleven, for a piece of lace most extraordinarily
well wrought. Miss Elinor Brereton, of Raheenduff, Queen's County, for the
best imitation of Brussels lace with the needle, £7. On the same occasion
Miss Martha M'Cullow, of Cork Bridge, gains the prize of £5 for "Dresden
point." Miss Mary Gibson has £2 for "Cheyne Lace,"[1224] of which we have
scarcely heard mention since the days of Queen Elizabeth.
Bone lace had never in any quantity been imported from England. In 1703 but
2,333 yards, valuing only £116 13s., or 1s. per yard, passed through the
Irish Custom House. Ireland, like the rest of the United Kingdom, received
her points either from France or Flanders.
The thread used in the Irish fabric was derived from Hamburg, of which, in
1765, 2,573 lbs. were imported.
It was in this same year the Irish club of young gentlemen refused, by
unanimous consent, to toast or consider beautiful any lady who should wear
French lace or indulge in foreign fopperies.
During the two succeeding years the lace of various kinds exhibited by the
workhouse children was greatly approved of, and the thanks of the Society
offered to the Lady Arabella Denny.[1225]
Prizes given to the children, to the amount of £34 2s. 6d.; the same for
bone lace made by other manufacturers; and one half the sum is also to be
applied to "thread lace made with knitting needles."
A certain Mrs. Rachel Armstrong, of Inistioge (Co. Kilkenny), is also
awarded a prize of £11 7s. 6d. "for having caused a considerable quantity
of bone lace to be made by girls whom she has instructed and employed in
the work." Among the premiums granted to "poor gentlewomen" we find: To
Miss Jane Knox, for an apron of elegant pattern and curiously wrought, £6
16s. 6d., and silver medals to two ladies who, we suppose, are above
{439}receiving money as a reward. The Society recommend that the bone lace
made be exposed for sale in the warehouses of the Irish Silk Company. In
consequence of the emulation excited among all classes, advertisements
appear in the _Dublin News_ of ladies "very capable of instructing young
misses in fine lace-making, needlework point, broderie en tambour, all in
the genteelest taste."
Lady Arabella stood not alone as a patroness of the art. In 1770 we read
how "a considerable quantity of bone lace of extraordinary fineness and
elegance of pattern, made at Castlebar in the Co. of Mayo, being produced
to the Society, and it appearing that the manufacture of bone lace was
founded, and is at present supported there by Lady Bingham, it was ordered
that the sum of £25 be paid into the hands of her ladyship, to be disposed
of in such encouragements as she shall judge will most effectually conduce
to the carrying on and improvement of the said manufacture at Castlebar."
The thanks of the Society are at the same time voted to her ladyship. In
consequence of the large quantity fabricated, after the lapse of a few
years the Society, in 1773, found themselves compelled to put some bounds
to their liberality. No prizes are given for any lace exhibited at less
than 11s. 4½d. the yard, and that only to those not resident in the city of
Dublin or within five miles of it. Twenty per cent. will be given on the
value of the lace, provided it shall not exceed £500 in value. The Society
do not, however, withdraw the annual premium of £30 for the products of the
"famishing children" of the city of Dublin workhouse,[1226] always directed
by the indefatigable Lady Arabella Denny.[1227] From that period we hear no
more of the Dublin Society and its prizes awarded for point, Dresden,
Brussels, or bone lace.
The manufacture of gold and silver lace having met with considerable
success, the Irish Parliament, in 1778, gave it their protection by passing
an Act prohibiting the entry of all such commodities either from England or
foreign parts.
{440}And now for forty years and more history is silent on the subject of
lace-making by the "famishing children" of the Emerald Isle.[1228]
No existing Irish lace industry is as old as the appliqué lace which has
been made in the neighbourhood of Carrickmacross since the year 1820. The
process of its manufacture is simple enough, for the pattern is cut from
cambric and applied to net with point stitches. Many accounts have been
given of its origin. Some assign its genesis to India or to Persia, while
the Florentine historian, Vasari, claims the artist Botticelli as its
inventor. In any case, there can be no doubt that vast quantities were
produced in Italy from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries. Such a
specimen it was that Mrs. Grey Porter, wife of the then rector of
Dunnamoyne, taught her servant, Anne Steadman, to copy, and also spread the
art amongst the peasant women in the neighbourhood with such success that
Miss Reid, of Rahans, gathered together the young women round Culloville
and taught them to make lace on the same model. The girls flocked in from
the surrounding districts to learn the work. It was, however, only
dependent on private orders, and gradually suffered from over-production,
and threatened to die out, until it was revived after the great famine of
1846. By Mr. Tristram Kennedy, the manager of the Bath estate, and Captain
Morant, the agent of the Shirley estate, a vacant house was turned into a
school, and this gave rise to the Bath and Shirley School, which has done
so much to hand down this industry to the present day. Some samples of
Brussels and guipure lace were brought to the school, where the teacher had
them remodelled and placed in the hands of the best workers: and
Carrickmacross became identified with some of the finest "guipure" that
Ireland has produced.[1229]
In the year 1829 the manufacture of Limerick tambour lace was first
established in Ireland. Tambour work is of Eastern origin, and was known in
China, Persia, India and {441}Turkey long before it spread to the United
Kingdom. This work is still extensively carried on in the East, where it is
much appreciated for its varied colours, as well as the labour expended
upon it. Until the middle of the last century, tambour lace was unknown in
Europe, with the exception of Turkey. It was about that time it was
introduced into Saxony and Switzerland, but the knowledge of the art of
making the lace did not reach England until 1820. Lace, in the strictest
sense of the word, it cannot be termed. It is called tambour from the fact
that the frame on which it is worked bears some resemblance to a drum-head
or tambourine. On this is stretched a piece of Brussels or Nottingham net.
A floss thread or cotton is then drawn by a hooked or tambour needle
through the meshes of the net, and the design formed from a paper drawing
which is placed before the worker. _Run_ lace is of a finer and lighter
character. The pattern is formed on the net with finer thread, which is not
drawn in with the tambour, but run in with the point needle. (This
description of lace was made in Nottinghamshire during the eighteenth
century, and appears to have been copied from foreign designs, chiefly from
those of Lille.) It came into fashion after Nottingham machine net had made
the work possible, and is still called by old people Nottingham lace. This
fabric was first introduced into Ireland by one Charles Walker,[1230] a
native of Oxfordshire, who brought over twenty-four girls as teachers, and
commenced manufacturing at a place in Limerick called Mount Kennet. His
goods were made entirely for one house in St. Paul's Churchyard, until that
house became bankrupt in 1834, after which a traveller was sent through
England, Scotland and Ireland to take orders. Her Excellency Lady Normanby,
wife of the Lord Lieutenant, gave great encouragement to the fabric,
causing dresses to be made, not only for herself, but also for Her Majesty
the Queen of the {442}Belgians, and the Grand Duchess of Baden. The
subsequent history of Limerick laces bears a close resemblance to that of
the other Irish lace industries. Mr. Charles Walker died in 1842. Many of
his workers returned to England;[1231] the stimulus of constant supervision
was gone; old designs deteriorated from inferior copying, and new designs
were not forthcoming. It was mainly due to the Convent of the Good Shepherd
that this lace industry was saved from absolute extinction. Mrs. R. V.
O'Brien has, however, done valuable service in its revival by her energy in
establishing and maintaining the Limerick lace training school, which may
be said to owe its origin to a lecture delivered by Mr. Alan S. Cole at the
Limerick Chamber of Commerce in September, 1888, where photographs of
ancient and modern lace and a loan collection of Limerick lace was shown.
In this collection the work of the early days of Limerick, when the design
was of the highest order, was contrasted with the more modern
specimens.[1232]
The first attempt to adapt the point de Venise to the necessities of the
Irish people was made at Tynan, in Co. Armagh, on the borders of Tyrone.
Mrs. Maclean, the wife of the Rev. William Maclean, then rector of the
parish, was the owner of some old point de Venise, and she resolved to turn
her collection to some practical use. The lace was examined and
re-examined, until the secret workings underlying every stitch, every
picot, every filling, and every relief, had been grasped and understood.
Steps were taken in 1849 to teach the people this industry, and by 1851 a
handsome flounce was ready, which was purchased by Lord John George
Beresford, then Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland. It was
exhibited at the great exhibition of that year in London, and attracted a
large amount of attention, and brought many orders in its train. The
business was thus considerably extended and enlarged, and the Primate and
his nieces, Mrs. Eden and Mrs. Dunbar, did all they could to promote the
sale of the work. The good fortune and prosperity of Tynan was, however,
but of a temporary character. The Rev. William Maclean died in 1865, and,
with his death, the local industry died out from want of supervision and
organisation.
PLATE XCI.
[Illustration: IRISH, CARRICKMACROSS. INSERTION AND BORDER OF APPLIQUÉ
LACE, made at the Bath and Shirley Schools. End of nineteenth century.
Width of insertion, 6 in.; border, 9¼ in.
Victoria and Albert Museum.]
PLATE XCII.
[Illustration: IRISH. LIMERICK LACE. TAMBOUR EMBROIDERY ON NET, made at
Kinsale. End of nineteenth century. Width, 17 in.
Victoria and Albert Museum.]
_To face page 442._
{443}Irish point[1233] also owes its genesis to the failure of the potato
crop in 1846, and its original inspiration was given by a piece of point de
Milan which fell into the hands of Mother Mary Ann Smith, of the
Presentation Convent at Youghal, Co. Cork. She there conceived the idea of
setting up an industry for the children attending the convent school. She
studied the lace which had come into her possession, examined the process
by which it had been made, unravelled the threads one by one, and at last
succeeded in mastering its many details. She then selected some of the
convent children who had shown a taste for fine needlework, and taught them
separately what she herself learned. The convent school was opened in 1852.
The main characteristic of this lace is that it is worked entirely with the
needle.
Though Irish point lace owes its origin to Youghal Convent, its workers
have done much to spread their art in other parts of Ireland, and in few
districts more effectually than in the neighbourhood of Kenmare, Co. Kerry,
where the late Mother Abbess O'Hagan introduced the industry into the
Convent of the Poor Clares in 1861. The work is {444}based upon the same
lines, though the Kenmare work claims as its speciality that it is entirely
worked in linen thread, while at Youghal cotton is occasionally used. The
Convent of the Poor Clares devote themselves chiefly to the production of
flat point, appliqué, and guipure laces. Many other convents and lace
centres in Ireland have had their teachers from Youghal and Kenmare. Flat
point has been made for fifty years under the supervision of the Carmelite
convent at New Ross, Co. Wexford, though the workers are now better known
for their adaptation of Venetian rose point and the perfection to which
they have brought their crochet than for their plain Irish point. For the
first ten years the Carmelite nuns confined their attention to cut-work,
flat point, and net lace. As the workers grew more expert, a heavy rose
point was introduced. This style proved too heavy for the fashion; hence it
was that, in 1865, the nuns turned their attention to finer work.
It was about that time that a travelling Jewish pedlar called at the
convent with a miscellaneous assortment of antique vestments, old books,
and other curiosities, among which were some broken pieces of old rose
point lace. The then Prioress, the late Mother Augustine Dalton, purchased
the specimens from the Jew, as she realised that they would give her the
opportunity she wanted of varying the quality of the lace, and making the
design finer and lighter in the future than it had been in the past. For
weeks and for months she devoted herself to the task of ripping up
portions, stitch by stitch, until she had mastered every detail. From this
time dates the production of that fine rose point for which the convent at
New Ross has deservedly earned so high a reputation. This rose point has
gone on increasing in fineness of quality and in beauty of design. The
defects in the earlier specimens were mainly due to the want of artistic
culture in the girls, who could neither appreciate nor render the graceful
sweeps and curves, nor the branching stems.
Irish crochet is another widespread national industry. Its main centres
have been Cork in the South and Monaghan in the North of Ireland. The
industry can be traced as far back as 1845, when the sisters of the
Ursuline convent at Blackrock, Co. Cork, received £90 for the work done by
the poor children in their schools. It may indeed be said that {445}the
growth of this great industry spread from this centre; so much so, that
within the space of a few years it formed part of the educational system of
almost every convent in the land, and spread from the southern shores of
Co. Cork to Wexford, to Monaghan and to Sligo.
Cork City was itself the natural centre of the industry, which extended so
far and wide through the country that some thirty years ago there were no
less than 12,000 women in the neighbourhood of Cork engaged in making
crochet, lace collars, and edgings after Spanish and Venetian patterns. On
the outbreak of the Franco-German war a further impetus was given to the
industry, when the supply of Continental laces was cut off. Several years
of unique prosperity followed, until the competition of the machine-made
work of Nottingham and Switzerland ousted the Irish crochet from the
market. At the present there has been a reaction against the usurpation by
machinery of the place that art ought to occupy, and the Cork work is now
once more coming to the fore.
As Cork has been the centre on the South, so is Clones in the North, and
yet the industry which has for so many years done so much for the people of
Monaghan owes its origin to the philanthropic efforts of Mrs. W. C.
Roberts, of Thornton, Co. Kildare, who helped the poor to ward off the
worst attacks of the famine of 1847 by the production of guipure and point
de Venise crochet. After a few years of prosperity, the industry languished
and disappeared from the neighbourhood, but twenty-four of the best-trained
and most efficient of Mrs. Roberts's workers were sent out to other
centres. One of these came to Mrs. Hand, the wife of the then Rector of
Clones. This parish is the biggest in the county, and the poor from the
surrounding mountains flocked down to learn the crochet; and knotted and
lifted as well as ordinary guipure, Greek and Spanish, and also Jesuit
lace[1234] has been produced with the crochet-needle in Clones, which still
continues to be the most important centre of the industry.
At the Killarney Presentation Convent at Newton Barry,[1235] and Cappoquin,
drawn linen work in the style of {446}the Italian reticella, and at
Parsonstown pillow laces of the same character as Honiton are made. In
Ardee, a novel lace is made with braid and cord.[1236]
The rose point lace is often called "Innishmacsaint" from the village in
the county of Fermanagh where the industry was transplanted on the death of
the Rev. W. Maclean, of Tynan, by his daughter, who went to live with her
sister, Mrs. George Tottenham, the wife of the rector. What was Tynan's
misfortune proved a boon to Innishmacsaint, and it became the chief centre
of the Irish rose point industry. Both the heavier and finer kinds are made
there. As at Tynan, the art of making the lace has been learnt by the
unravelling and close examination of Venetian point.
As in English work, some of the Irish is spoilt by the woolly cotton
thread. Foreign lace likewise in these days suffers from the same fault.
The workmanship at the present time can be so good that every effort ought
to be made to use only fine silky linen thread. In Ireland, where flax can
be grown, there should be no excuse for employing any other.
PLATE XCIII.
[Illustration: IRISH. CROCHET LACE.--End of nineteenth century. Width of
cuff, 5 in.; length of plastron, 12 in. Victoria and Albert Museum.]
_To face page 446._
{447}CHAPTER XXXVI.
BOBBIN NET AND MACHINE-MADE LACE.
[Illustration: Fig. 162.
ARMS OF THE FRAME-WORK KNITTERS' COMPANY.]
BOBBIN NET.