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Fig. 3. Mary Cottenham Yeats (1863-1947) Fig. 4. Lily Yeats in Greenhouse at Cuala. “O, Wind, O Mighty Melancholy Wind” (Illustration of John Todhunters verse) Hand coloured Cuala print

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In 1883 the Yeats family moved from Howth to Terenure, and that year both Lily and Lolly Yeats entered the Metropolitan School of Art. Lily took lessons from (1862-1938), daughter of (1834—96), a prime mover in the English arts and crafts movements. After six years, she began exhibiting her own embroidered pieces, mostly focusing on artistically stylized flower compositions. In 1902, the sisters settled with their father at ‘Gurteen Dhas’, Dundrum, Co. Dublin. Ms Evelyn Gleeson also settled in Dundrum, and she founded the Dun Industries, Lily working at embroidery and Lolly mainly at printing. About 1906, Lolly widened the scope of the Press, and began to specialize in hand-coloured prints, Christmas cards, pamphlets, and she executed many of the designs. was adapted after a break with Evelyn Gleeson and her brother Willie. Lily continued to teach local girls in a wide range of expressive stitches, and some were framed, or incorporated into cushions, table or bed linen or furnishings. Many were sold at nationalist art fairs, art and crafts exhibition in Dublin, London and New York, or given as presents far and wide.

Mary Cottenham White was known to all as Cottie as a fellow art student of Jack Yeats whom she married in 1894. Lily Yeats executed a number of her designs for embroidery, the best known of which were the banners for the cathedral in Loughrea.