01 irish renaissance

by K. L. Bevan

In times of austerity, fashion often bucks iconic Lacemaker comes to mind, a great pillow of the trend as if it could make up for what is pins, with bobbins of infinitely fine threads weaving back and forth. Actually, lace can be divided into lacking in our lives. Where there is less, let three sorts, the twisting and plaiting of pillow or us have more; where there is drabness, let , the twisting and looping of us have decoration. So it is in the current and of course, the crocheted kind. climate that the little-known art of Irish crochet lace is coming back into fashion would have been little seen in England, much of the fashionable lace coming from Venice, after many years of being carefully Brussels, Rome, Antwerp or Cologne. Some came archived in acid-free tissue paper. In fact, from England, mostly pillow lace from Honiton, this particular form of embellishment Buckingham or Ripon and this was often from grew out of deprivation in the 1840s continental patterns. In the 19th Century Parisian fashions were de rigeur including the French when it became an opportunity for “ d’Irlande”, actually from – you guessed it industry and income bringing about a lace – Ireland. One thing commonly made from lace 02 renaissance. were matching collar and cuff sets. This may seem antiquated, costume wise, however numerous Irish crochet lace is distinguished by its raised motifs fashion houses are currently selling collars, worn often worked with padding or a cord foundation separately to plain round-necked dresses or T-shirts. within the stitches. Three-dimensional motifs consist Back then lace was a luxury most people could not of flowers, with petals layered over each other, afford. shamrocks, leaves and almost any other shape you can think of. Rather than working in straight rows, Crochet lace was quicker to make than needle lace motifs are made individually and joined by means of and utilised skills that women already had. In her picot, stitches or bars (known as brides). Older Book of Polonaise Lace, written for people to copy pattern books give only the motif designs and expensive styles of lace for home use, The expect the reader to be adept at joining them Silkworm writes that this style of lace is: “…easily together – fortunately for us we can now expect and quickly executed with the crochet needle, will directions for both – while using just the motifs be welcomed by many ladies whose positions allows one the freedom to invent designs as you go require, for their own toilette and that of their along. Because of its modular nature, work can be children, a style of dress trimming in keeping with made be any number of people, garments can be the mode of the day, but whose incomes are taken apart and remade or sections replaced if they insufficient for the purchase of the real wear out. It also gives scope to undo the pattern themselves.” and remake the motifs in a different arrangement, another sign of thrifty thinking. A state of hopeless confusion Needlecraft: a practical journal of Irish Crochet, The Lacemaker published by the Manchester School of When thinking of lace, an image like Vermeer’s in 1909, advises keeping your worked motifs and 01. A young girl watches as a 9 year old boy, Joe Cafarella, his 10 years old sister Lena and his 13 years old cousin, Mary Lazzaro crochet in a Somerville alley, Massachusetts, 1912. Photographed by Lewis Hine, American photographer and sociologist 1875 - 1940. 02. Two women and a young girl making Irish crochet lace cuffs and collars in a tenement apartment. Photograph by Lewis Hine c.1990 03 threads in a neat basket as “...there are few kinds of 04 work to beat Irish crochet lace in its facility for getting into a state of hopeless confusion.”

Up to three different weights of thread can be used in one pattern, for the motifs, padding and the background netting joining it all together. The overall design is made on tracing paper and transferred onto fabric. The motifs are then tacked in place on this backing material and then the mesh worked from the centre outwards. Once the mesh is complete, the tacking stitches are removed and the design can be lifted off the background. As with other kinds of raised work must be done by steam on the wrong side, so as not to flatten the texture of the pattern, laying it face down on a thick, clean towel.

Abbreviations are the same as usual, watching out as ever for the annoyingly different US terms, with the addition of blocks (blks) and more kinds of picot that you can shake a hook at. Stitches are generally worked into the front of the previous stitch, as the work is one sided. Padding is used to create a raised central motif, sometimes with cord wrapped around a cork, or a finger, in the centre of the work. You may recognise some of the filling where it was known as nun’s lace, the trainers constant vexation. In the Needlecraft journal, one the famine. stitches, frequently mesh chains with the addition bringing their skills from France, emigres from the pattern for a child’s dress extends over 20 pages. A group of philanthropists decided that this cottage of picots, while some techniques are new, like the violence of the French revolution. In the 1750s Written instructions would have been difficult to industry could raise people above the breadline and Clones Knot, a kind of padded picot. The region a Honoria Nagle, a young nun, opened two lace follow before images were used. As with most set about to modernise the industry. It was felt that piece comes from may be identified by the way the teaching centres in Cork and in Youghal. At that things, learning would have been easier with the skill was there, but that the patterns used were motifs are joined, with netting, knots or brides. time Catholics were not allowed to own land or someone to follow and by seeing examples of the dated. In 1884 a committee was set up with the work in education, so much of her life had been lace itself. prime objective of obtaining new patterns for Irish History of making spent in France. When she came back to open lace makers and to boost the business of lace-making The original development of crochet as a schools, and to found the Presentation Order, she Co-operative working in Ireland. “The making of lace in Ireland is a technique is still hotly debated. It was not a popular brought French lace skills with her. The ‘great hunger’ of the 1840s known in Irish as domestic industry, practised by some hundreds of craft or evident skill until the 1880s and little is an Gorta Mór, coincided with a fashion for lace peasants in their homes, by communities in known about the early history as few examples are Invention of crochet lace is generally attributed to and opened up an opportunity for lacemakers in Convents, by children in Industrial and other extant. Shepherd’s knitting, an early form of crochet Mademoiselle Riègo de la Blanchardière who Ireland. Workers made lace out of doors, or in poor Schools and by others.” The treasurer of the using just simple slip-stitches, may have been a published instructions in 1846 to replicate Spanish candle light in the evenings. Light from a single committee is named as the Hon Alan S. Cole Esq of precursor. Sometimes known as ‘Scottish’ knitting, needlepoint lace, a simpler variation of Venetian candle was reflected by a glass globe filled with the South Kensington Museum, son of Sir Henry colours were travelled along the back of the work raised needlepoint lace that uses varying thicknesses water, a lacemaker’s lamp. Work passed between Cole the first director of what we now know as the or interestingly worked into the stitches as a kind of padding cords covered by buttonhole stitches. makers who specialised in one particular part of Victoria and Albert Museum, and the V&A still of padding. In bobbin lace a small hook would Although she was a prolific publisher and self- the process – making certain styles of motif, linking holds in its collection a number of fine examples of have been used to pull the threads and this may proclaimed originator of the style, Irish makers had them together or planning and design – in an early Irish crocheted lace. The committee gave prizes for have been the basis of the first crochet hooks. no need of books as they would copy work from version of a co-operative conveyor belt system. The new designs and brought about a second renaissance Similarly tambour work would have used a hook each other and original samples. A string of popular final task was to launder the work – grubby having in crochet lace and numerous schools were set up to to push thread through a base fabric. pattern books fed the popularity of crochet and passed through a number of hands – and flatten it educate the next generation of makers. publishing patterns became popular at this time, with a glass smoother. The extra funds earned in Irish girls learnt the craft in school or in convents, although the writing of the ‘in between’ parts was a this way were crucial in helping families survive Good ideas travel 03. Marie Connelly makes clones knots between the main motifs in a piece of hand crocheted lace. Photograph by Jacqui Hurst. 04. The lace class at the Convent of the Poor Clares in Kenmare, Ireland was visited by Alan Cole Esq. from the South Kensington Museum in 1886. Image courtesy of Crawford Art Gallery, Cork. In England Irish lace was much popularized by the 05 06 08 09 travel writer Mrs S.C. Hall. However the influx of Irish immigrants to Ellis Island in New York meant that all things Irish were linked with poverty and hardship so coming from Ireland was a double edged sword. It was this same mass emigration from Ireland that depleted the skill base back at home and took lacemaking skills to the US and as far as Australasia. “Crochet, with the exception of the Irish School, has hitherto held a very humble, not to say despised ! Position as a lace... But now the little hook as entered the lists!” writes Mrs Edwin Field in Australian Lace Crochet, Easy and Artistic, in 1900. The Australian method Mrs Field pioneered puts the needle into the spaces, rather than the stitches, claiming this was easier on the eyes.

“Do not stoop”, was Mrs Edwin Field’s good advice for the novice crocheter: “Hold the work easily, not in a cramped or nervous manner. Make the lace neither too tight nor to loose, but neat and elastic. Be satisfied at first to work slowly and accurately. By keeping to the good rule, speed will come, perhaps sooner that you expect.”

The Franco-German war in the 1870s meant that the import of lace was interrupted and the 07 homegrown industry came to the fore. Then in 1908 The Daily Mail sponsored an exhibition of British and Irish Lace at the Royal Horticultural Hall where we still have textile fairs today. “The object of the promoters in organising this Exhibition has been to demonstrate to the British people the great beauty and worth of laces of Home manufacture.” One of the most popular features of the programme included live music, mostly waltzes and the odd gavotte: contemporary fair organisers take note.

Lace was exported to America, Canada, Vienna and France as “Point d’Irlande” until two world wars dampened the market for such frivolities. The Irish Crochet lace industry, such as it was, collapsed as quickly as it had grown up. In times of great hardship it has reappeared, in Hungary, China, India and most recently Russia and the Ukraine.

Freeform crochet and scrumbling While other kinds of lace have given over to mechanical manufacturing processes, Irish Crochet

05, 06 & 07. Bolero - 'No style of coat known to the present generation has been so generally admired, so universally adopted and so entirely becoming as the bolero. The fetching little garment of Spanish origin, without which the woman of fashion cannot get on for any considerable length of time, and most women will be pleased to know that it is as fashionable as ever.' Pricilla Irish Crochet Book No 1, 1912. 08 & 09. DThis dress was bought in the 'made-up lace department' of Harrods for 50 guineas, and may have been used as a wedding dress. A guinea was £1 and 1 shilling pre-decimalisation, a lot of money in 1900. 10 & 11. Capelet - this little capelet has split sleeves and many motifs that are joined closely together. The padding is quite visible in the raised flowers. 12. Cuff - lace collars and cuffs were popular. This one has triple layered flowers and picot netting. 13. Lizard jacket and bag - abundant with baubles, this shirt is cleverly constructed so that the undergarment tucks in and the crochet drapes above the waist. The lizard on the front is from Madame Hardouin's 'Guipure d'Irlande' and may be a later addition. The bag is thought to be a drawstring wedding bag or pocket and was bought for £50 by the Guild in 2000.

All the antique garments featured have been kindly loaned from the Knitting & Crochet Guild's archive collection at Lee Mills, near Holmfirth, Yorkshire. www.kcguild.org.uk

is not so easily replicable. These days there are 10 11 13 clusters of makers keeping the skills alive, particularly in Ireland and Eastern Europe. Máire Treanor still organizes the annual Clones Lace Summer School in Clones, County Monaghan, a gathering place for designers and students wishing to learn and preserve traditional patterns and share innovative ideas, where tutors visit from Russia and the Ukraine and link up online.

Traditional techniques have evolved into the new ‘freeform’ crochet styles, using bright colours and organic designs. Patterns are made-up as you go along, known as scrumbling and although there is no pattern to follow, at least you are not in danger of getting it wrong. Freeform pieces are reminiscent of Coptic weaving where the lines follow the shape of the patterns, not the contours of the garment. The most recent inheritor of this freeform energy is the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef that uses crochet to demonstrate hyperbolic space and other problems of theoretical physics that are difficult to describe in any other way than through this fascinating technique that continues to live and grow.

The Knitting and Crochet Guild 12 All the items photographed on the model were kindly lent by the Knitting & Crochet Guild. Set up in 1978 the mission of the guild is to promote and improve hand and machine knitting along with crochet. Since 1990 they have collected about 2000 examples of knitting and crochet that are archived at their Lee Mills home in Holmfirth, Yorkshire. The collection houses historical items from the 1800s as well as designer garments from the knitting boom in the 1980s preserved for textile enthusiasts of the future.

Further reading Hybrid stitched textile art: contemporary interpretations of mid-nineteenth century Irish Crochet lace making, PhD thesis of Heather Castles of the Art and Design School, University of Ulster at Belfast. www.kcguild.org.uk

Studio Photography: Sheila Rock. Art Direction & Styling: Marie Wallin. Hair & Make Up: Frances Prescott (One Make Up) Model: Alex Glenday (M and P Models) London.