Morning journal and courier., 1889-06-22
AFOOT IN IREL AND.

Women - The Endless Toll of the
 Lace and Needle Workers of the
 Emerald Isle-VarIeties of Lace and
 Their Perfectness of Design and
 "ork-The IntroductioR of she In.
 dustrY-PenurIous CemPensatfon O1
 the Nimble Fingered Workers.
 THE GLENTIEs, Ireland. June 10.
 To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 In my tramping through every county O
 Ireland have had opportunities eaualed b,
 few for observing the industrious character
 of women. I presume there are nearly tws
 million five hundred thousand women left 1T
 Ireland. Whatever proportion of these
 may have seen, certain it is I have neve,
 come upon lazy one nor an idle one. The
 insignifcancs of the pittances they receive in any labor to which they may be able tc turn their hands makes no difference with the energy in that labor. Your knittsr of the Connamara Alps may work whole month for thirty pence; the factory-girl of Belfast, week in the murder pen of linen spinning mill for fron four to six shillings; your Limerick tambour lace maker, a month for ten shillings; your Innishmacsaint, or
 Youghal, point-lace maker, six months for a pound; or your white slave of the flax or potato fields, for three months for her board and character" still they all work and that with right good will Their labor hes nothing nearer insubordinatien in it than "a bit of taste for blackguarding," or a song that will vie with that of the mavis or lark Nor are these like the dull, sodden women of the peasantry of continental Europe. I have seen in Bavaria women yoked at the side of heifsrs. dragging loads in carts through the pleasant vales near Bsyreuth. Somehow one has contempt for such natures. But the Irish woman or girl has spirit and fire in her, which, while keeping her out of every form of real degradation, hold her loyally to all lines of humble striving, and give her energy and brightness, and not infrequently lovely grace and beauty, at her ever-tremendous efforts to add to the humble home store. Indeed such cheeriness and hope, such scofing at difficulties to be overcome, and such downright hardihood and gaiety in the face of endless toll, would be difficult to match among the women of any other land.
 So having visited and occupied, if oeca- sionally but for moment, the s'stranger's seat" by the hob in oyer three thousand Irish cabins, 1t has been easy to know something about the reality of Irish lacs-making and many other pursuits of kindred nature, which help keep the horror of evi etion from the lowly home. Lace making in Ireland is the remnant of @ lost art, or, more properly speaking, partial renewal among the peas- antry of once noble art among the ladies of the ancient Irish nobility. There are we'll authenticated instances of marvellous work of this kind which have come down through families as heir-looms, in "sam- ples'' of pillow and point lace, as beautiful and artistic as those examples which set King Louis XIV, of France, in raptures and assured the fortunes of the talented Colbert, and Madame Gilbert of AIencsn. But the political history of Ireland is enough, in word, to explain the past destruction of lace-making. Not until about seventy years ago was any form of art needlework found to be reviving in Ireland. The near est approach to this was species of embroi- dery known as Mountmellick, originating, enough, among 6 settlement of Irish Quakers, at the pretty village of Mount mellick, at the confluence of the Barrow and Owenass rivers, at the edge of the romantic 5lieve Bloom mountains, in Queens county, about seventy five miles southwest of Dub- in. This embroidery consists of open raised flowers in white on white satteen, in stitches initiative of the things represented. This work has gone on after the quaint Quaker ashion for over half century. and as there las always been an organized association for the sale of Mountmellick embroi- iery, about fifty workers have always found employment at about twelve shillings per week.. In the re-introduction, or beginning 'mong an entirely different class, of lace making in Ireland, the order of development las been as follows: The Carrickmacross aces are the applique, copied from the Brus- els and begun in 1920, and guipure, in i'm proved copies of the original Cretan, intro luced in 1846. Limerick lace comprises ,hiefy the tsmbour, drawn and run, and was begun in 1929. Crochet laoe-making, plain, ,r lace and crochet stitch combined, in imi- ation of the old needle-made lace, was in- reduced in counties Cork, Monaghan and Armagh, in 1840 46. At Youghal, the old nome of Sir Walter Raleigh, and the point ,f final authorization of the destroyer, Crom- we'll, the famous .tIrish point" has been made since 1849; while the quite as famous point lace, the latest devel- ,pment in Irish lace-making, was gun be in