Category: Research

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A Lace-Focused Winter Trip

My last visit to the Nano Nagle Place happened in September 2005, and my memories are blurred. The new Nano Nagle Place is a really interesting and inspiring architectural ensemble, with a modern entrance through a shop, gardens, an old graveyard, a museum, and not one, but two cafés.

In August, Friends of Lace Limerick were contacted in relation to the use of a photo of Limerick lace. The photo was to be included in the digital presentation available to see in the exhibition and online “Lace Revival in Ireland: Weaving Heritage into the Present”.

The exhibition includes some remarkable needle and crochet lace pieces coming from the collection of the Presentation Convent in Youghal.

We were told that the current exhibition will remain in place until August 2025.

In 1987, a pivotal chapter in the story of Youghal Lace unfolded. Sister Mary Coleman and Veronica Stuart, from Carrigaline, undertook a meticulous task. They unraveled a piece of Youghal Lace, delving deep into its intricate patterns and techniques to ensure the craft’s survival.

I have attempted to learn the first steps in Youghal lace the previous year, and I was keen on studying more pieces and meeting actual lacemakers. Veronica Stuart had an outstanding contribution to its revival in 1987, when together with sister Mary Coleman, they unraveled a piece of Youghal Lace and deciphered the various points.

We had met a few members of the Needle point lacemakers group from Youghal at different events, and I got permission to join the group on Wednesday, 11 December 2024, in the Youghal Library. The Library also has some exquisite Youghal lace pieces on exhibit.

The group gave me a very warm welcome and told me many interesting stories. The most interesting one was the one of the lace train gift made by Youghal lace-makers for Queen Mary to wear at the time of the Delhi Durbar (a mass assembly in Delhi to mark the coronation of the king and queen.) This train is said to be the largest lace creation ever – it contained 5,250, 000 stitches made from nearly 12 miles of thread.

The train was going to be gifted to the Queen on behalf of Northern Unionists. The Youghal lacemakers had the Gaelic reflection, ‘Deanta (made) in Eireann’ embroidered in the train. It was discovered, removed and replaced by a shamrock.

This is a recording of Bridgid Keane , who has been teaching Youghal lace since 1989. I had the honour to meet the lady and hear about the local efforts to establish a possible museum. She also showed me some exquisite pieces from her collection.

The video below shows some of the faces behind the lace – a rare feast, as so many lacemakers remain completely unknown. I found a lot of useful information on the Youghal Online website.

And this article by Erin Frumet uses the name Cork’s “Point de Venice” for Youghal lace.

The Cork Public Museum was entrusted with the storage and preservation of many patterns that were used by the Presentation Convent in Youghal.

The V&A has some impressive pieces of Youghal lace in its collection.

It was a bitterly cold day, and we stepped into the Tourist Information Centre, just to discovered there is a Heritage Centre next to it, which also has a few lace pieces on display.

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Researching the sources of Limerick lace

An article brought to our attention by one of our members – the text of a lecture titled “The Timeless Prestige of Kilrush Lace”, delivered by Tom Prendeville to the Kilrush Historical Society at An Teach Ceoil on Tuesday, September 23rd 2014 and stored in the Clare County Library was the starting point.

Around the 1800s, the Vandeleur family was involved in “planning a new modern town with broad commercial thoroughfares, a Market House constructed in 1808 as the centrepiece in a quadrangular confluence of the streetscapes.” Kilrush was a thriving town, but structured education was missing.

The article speaks about Colonel Crofton Vandeleur’s initiative of approaching Charles Walker, “the man credited with being the founder of Limerick lace.” “Walker, it seems, had chosen Limerick, a garrison town, because of its tradition of sewing gloves, military uniforms and white embroidery worked for shops in Glasgow and London. The history of Limerick lace shows that Mr Walker brought 24 young ladies from Nottingham and Coggeshall to Limerick to teach, at the outset, six local girls the lace-making skills of Nottingham and Coggeshall lace.”

According to the article, Vandeleur persuaded Charles Walker to visit Kilrush in the late 1830s and offered him rent-free premises for “a lace factory at the area known as the Manse, at Factory Lane, Lower Moore Street”. Walker opened his lace factory in Kilrush in 1839 bringing along Nottingham and Coggeshall lace-making tutors/trainers.

First, we had never heard there was lace ever made in Kilrush, and there are barely any traces left in the memory of locals (after all, this was almost 200 years ago!). Let us know if you have come across any lace piece made in Kilrush or have any family stories about this!

The “Amazing Lace” history of Limerick lace published in 2014 by Dr. Matthew Potter tells us:

“Charles Walker, the founder of Limerick lace, was born in Oxford, studied to become a clergyman but was never ordained.13 Possessed more of an aptitude for business than the church, he completed an apprenticeship with an engraver and copperplate printer in Oxford. He moved to London where he met the owner of a lace factory in the village of Marden Ash, near the little town of Chipping Ongar, Essex. He married Margaret, a widowed daughter of the owner, and moved to Marden Ash to manage the family lace factory. The newly established Essex lace industry had begun in 1816 when a French- Belgian lace maker named Drago and his two daughters introduced tambour lace making to the town of Coggeshall in Essex, near Chipping. Later the manufacture of Coggeshall lace spread to other parts of Essex. For this reason, it can be said that Limerick lace is directly descended from Coggeshall lace and as shall be seen below, to a lesser extent from Nottingham lace.”(Amazing Lace, p.26)

Was this French- Belgian lace maker named Drago from Lier? Or Luneville?

We don’t know for sure. But he seems to have brought to Essex the style known as Coggeshall lace, that was later on brought to Limerick by Charles Walker.

But when did the needle-run style emerge? 

“Walker and many of his successors produced tambour work, but needlerun, the second category of Limerick lace, was introduced to the city by Jonas Rolf (or Rolph), a lace merchant and manufacture of Coggeshall and Nottingham, and a director of Courtaulds, the British textile manufacturers. In the late 1830s, he established a factory in 20-21 Clare Street (which subsequently relocated to Patrick Street) and brought over Mary Mills, an experienced lace maker and designer from Coggeshall to train his workforce. Her husband also worked in the business as an accountant. In the 1870s and 1880s, Mary Mills had her own lace business in St John’s Square, which was eventually taken over by Cannock’s department store on George’s (now O’Connell) Street.68 Thereafter, the production of Limerick lace was divided between both tambour and needlerun lace.”(Amazing Lace, p.33)

And let’s not forget the Italian ricamo su tulle, and the Plauener Spitze in Germany.

Limerick lace is a proud member of the European family of embroidery on net style laces!

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South Armagh Lace Collective visiting Limerick

Between 4 and 6 October 2024, a delegation of The South Armagh Lace Collective came to visit Limerick , following the invitation of Friends of Lace Limerick.

Day 1 of the visit was spent in the Limerick Museum, studying and discussing pieces from the Florence Vere O’Brien and the Maude Kearney collections.

On Day 2 of the visit, Eva Ryley taught a Limerick lace workshop in the Limerick Museum in the morning.

In the afternoon we paid a visit to the Sisters of Mercy Provincial Heritage Centre in Charleville, hosted and guided by Sr. Bernadette Knopek. Sr. Bernadette was an amazing host, bringing artefacts to life with the stories she told us. We are really sorry to hear that the Heritage Centre closure is imminent – it is such an important repository of Ireland’s lacemaking history!

Day 3 was dedicated to a Limerick city walking tour, with an emphasis on “places of lace”: Todd’s, Cannock’s, the different sites of Florence Vere O’Brien s lace school (Bank Place, 112 and 48 George Street), Thomondgate where Thomond Lace Industry was based, Clare Street, where the David Kinnear and the David McClure manufacturers were based, and finishing with the site of the Good Shepherd Convent.

On the way back, we paid a visit to the Antique Loft at the Limerick Milk Market and had coffee together in The Savoy Hotel . Less photos, as we were too busy making plans!

We had a wonderful time together, and we are all looking forward to meeting again soon!

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Looking for lace traces in West Cork

This post is of a more personal nature, as it summarises my own experience (Gabriela Avram’s) during a recent vacation in Bantry, West Cork.

I have been attending the West Cork Chamber Music Festival almost every year, so I am very familiar with the Bantry and Glengarriff areas. But this year I decided to make a few inquiries about Glengarriff Lace, as I was quite intrigued of its scarcity and close resemblance to Limerick lace. The first mention I heard of Glengarriff Lace was from Veronica Stuart a few years back when I first attended the International Lace Festival in Kinsale. The only photograph I could find online was the one of a collar from the Headford Lace Project collection.

We stayed in a new place this year, and when I tried to question our landlord about Glengarriff lace, he promptly introduced me to his wife, who has been an art teacher in the area for many years. She hadn’t heard anything about Glengarriff lace, but told me that the Sisters of Mercy had created a Lace School in Bantry that was active many years in the 20th century.

Embroidery and lacemaking class with examples
The Lacemaking class in the Convent of Mercy in Bantry, West Cork pose with their samples to celebrate the end of year! From the Fergus O’Connor Collection .

A bit of online research led me to the above photo from the National Library of Ireland Collection, showing a group of pupils with their work. Further research led me to the photo of the school – I am not sure if the building still exists. The former site of the Sisters of Mercy is now an assisted living establishment.

"Institutional style building in an unknown location" is a convent in Bantry
 Sisters of Mercy Convent and school in Bantry, County Cork. Fergus O’Connor collection.

The following day I went to the Bantry Library, where I got more help. The Bantry Historical and Archaeological Society publishes a journal, and in the second volume I found an article on The Sisters of Mercy in Bantry, signed by Jenny McCarthy. The article states that the Lace School was open in 1902, and it was an effort of the Sisters to teach the young girls useful skills.

On one of the following days, I visited the tiny Bantry Museum and discovered there was quite a bit of lace there – of various types – although the origin of the pieces is mostly unknown.

Also, an article on a website belonging to the Sisters of Mercy presented a more detailed history of the Bantry convent. And this is not the only place where the Sisters of Mercy were active in West Cork.

But what about Glengarriff Lace?

The UCC Library preserves, as part of the Bantry Estate Collection, typed correspondence concerning a site to be leased from the Leigh-White Estate by the Congested Districts Board, Dublin for the Glengarriff Lace School, 4 – 15 Nov. 1913. Land was leased for the construction of a Technical School of Lace Making & Hand Weaving in Glengarriff, and a photo representing a group of students is available in a private collection.

A Dáil Éireann debate on the Arts Bill from 1951 mentions:

The type of excellent lacework that you can get in little cottages around tourist spots like Glengarriff is of immense artistic quality, and has been a heritage of the people and of families. This is something that could be encouraged and developed so as to make available things of beauty and quality instead of the awfully loud, garish and unfortunate souvenirs that are plastered around this country and which are meant to be representative of something typically Irish or something produced in Ireland.

Further discussions on the characteristics of Glengarriff Lace on the Laces of Ireland Facebook Group led to a number of other contributions.

Fidelma Cosgrave, lacemaker from Limerick, told us:

“Below is Glengariff lace my brother and I bought it in 1957 or 1958 as a present for our mum. Nora Finnegan knows who made it – the lady is dead for many years. My memory of buying it is: I was 4 or 5 we went into the lady’s thatched cottage to see this old lady dressed in black making the lace. She had a large frame and she worked away on the lace. It was in the Glengariff area.”

Nora Finnegan, Kenmare Lace and Design Centre:

“I believe the Limerick Tambour Lace you had on Facebook was made by Sheila O’Sullivan from Ardgroom village. Ardgroom is near Glengariff. Sheila regularly supplied Tambour Lace to the Convent in Kenmare and after that to The Kenmare Lace and Design Centre. She passed away a few years ago.
If you look at the piece she is working on , it is very similar to the piece you had on Facebook. I have kept the other piece, because I wanted to have something made by her.

Nellie Brooks was a very talented lacemaker. She also made some lace for The Lace Centre. She lived up a steep road above Glengariff town in a lovely old cottage. She learned to make Limerick Tambour, or Glengariff Lace, from her mother in law. Nellie in turn taught it to her daughter in law, but her daughter in law passed away at a very young age and so did not get to make much of it.”

Veronica Stuart, Traditional Lacemakers of Ireland:

“A lady called Peggy Brooks used to teach in Glengarriffe, I was lucky enough to have met her a few times. Lovely lady. RIP. I have a newspaper article about her . Must look it up.”