Art and Handcraft in the Woman's Building
of the World's Columbian Exposition

189 IN THE WOMAN’S BUILDING. of Irish lace-making, as well as its results is yell worthy of the attention of those interested in the revival o home indust;r Most of the lace-making centers were started during.the ten* famine times of ^47 by charitable ladies intent on finding som opening for work for the starving poor. Such was the on what became the wide-spread crochet industry w the Souitherf Ire- land and round about Clones in the North, arising fiom the imtia- X of the good Ursuline Sisters at Blackroek ^h-ne in the other of Mrs. Hand, the rector s wife, at Clones. Mrs. iviaiy Ann Smith of the Presentation Convent at Youghal found an o X oTlaee and mastered its art herself, and then set to work to teach it to the poor girls around who were striving. to sistence on a sort of muslin embroidery long out of date, and which a moderately good worker could earn a penny per ten hours. "thiTeffort has sprung the far-famed beautiful Irish pomt lace. Many other instances might be quoted of laee industnes ansmg out of famine times, but there are two laces which have different histories the Carrickmacrossand the Limerick. In the year 18.0 Mrs Grey Porter, the wife of the rector of Dunnamoyne taug! her servant to make lace from a specimen'she had brought from Italy The circumstance suggested the idea of teaching ace-m int/to the poor, to a Miss Reid of Radance, near Carrickmacross. Classes were started, and you can now find scores of ““age-worker in that district depending mainly on this industry foi their lix mg. it t scareety possible to conceive how these beautiful laees come so clean and dainty for bridal array from such poor homes. The Limerick lace is the one Irish lace which owes its birth a spirit of commercial venture. Mr. Charles Walker brought over twenty-four teachers to Limerick, about 1829, to teach lace-makmg, and it became a flourishing business employing some fi ftee hundred hands. A short time ago I saw one of the original workers at the lace, an old lady of over eighty, who is(proudH.0 tell of how she is the one survivor of the four women who made Her Majesty's wedding-veil. Limerick lace is the least expense e Irish laces and when worked out well in a good design is very pretty light, and effective. But it fell off in quality of late years unti/ili-s. R. Vere O'Brien set to work to revive it by means o able supervision and good designs. We greatly hope> that tins lace will again come into popular favor, and that our friends in America will find it suitable for the Easter offerings they give then clergy, as well as in the embroidered vestments, of which we make so brave a show at Chicago.