Studio: international art (81.1921)

STUDIO-TALK

LEATHER COVERED CIGARETTE
CANISTER FROM WEST AFRICA

(Lent by Mrs. Onabolu, St. John's
Wood Art School—see p. 114)

sources in the endeavour to relieve their
wants. It was then that Mother M. A.
Smith, chancing to discover a small piece
of old Italian lace in the Convent treasure-
chest, was inspired with the idea that here
lay the means of helping those who were
incapable of helping themselves. Taking
the old lace carefully to pieces, she ex-
amined all the stitches till she succeeded in
mastering their details, devised a method
by which they might be reproduced, and
then teaching the new art to a few of her
cleverest pupils, she soon had a number
of expert lace-makers under her instruc-
tion. From copying, the workers before
long progressed to originating stitches and
designs, and now Irish Point is justly cele-
brated for its beauty and artistic merit, 0

It is characteristic of the lace that it is
entirely worked with the needle and is
therefore sometimes called " Needle-
point," and in making it the utmost care is
shown. This lace has the great merit of
being very durable as well as exquisite in
texture and design. The chief centres of the

118

industry are at Youghal, New Ross, Ken-
mare, Killarney, Kinsale and Waterford.
The work of the Convent School at
Youghal, where it was first made, is, in-
deed, so favourably known that when the
ladies of the City of Belfast decided, at the
time of the Coronation, to offer to Queen
Mary the gift of a Court Train of Irish
Needlepoint, Messrs. Robinson & Cleaver,
who were entrusted with the carrying out
of the order, gave the work into the hands
of the Sisters, and in the record time of six
months the almost impossible task was
completed, 60 highly skilled workers being
continuously occupied in the production
of this most beautiful and costly example
of the lace-makers' art. 00a

Limerick lace, originated by Charles
Walker, an Englishman, in 1829, formerly
ranked next to Irish point in popularity,
though that is no longer the case, Carrick-
macross having at the present time the
greater vogue. Limerick lace is more
strictly an embroidery than a lace if one
uses the term lace in any very restricted
sense. Carrickmacross has been produced in
Co. Monaghan since about 1820, when
Mrs. Grey Porter, wife of the then rector
of Dunnamoyne, taught her maid Ann
Steadman to copy a specimen of applique
lace brought from Italy. 000

Rose Point, or Inishmacsaint, is another
lace copied from an old Italian model, in
this case Venice Rose Point being the
original employed, and it also owes its in-
troduction into Ireland to the great Famine.
In 1855 the centre of the industry was
removed from Co. Armagh to the shores of
Lough Erne, and it is from its picturesque
second home, Inishmacsaint in Co. Fer-
managh, that the lace takes its Irish name.

Irish crochet is perhaps the most dis-
tinctively Irish product in the line of lace.
It was originally an imitation of Spanish
and Venetian guipure, but has far out-
distanced its originals in point of beauty,
grace and ingenuity of design, all of which
it owes to the skill and artistic sense of the
Irish worker. Most of this lace comes from
Co. Monaghan, while the Carmelite Con-
vent, New Ross, is also noted for its
manufacture ; but, indeed, there is scarcely
a cottage in the country where at least one
member of the family is not engaged in
plying a crochet hook. 000