Morning journal and courier., 1889-03-02
AFOOT IRELAND.

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 The Haudwork of she Women i'm the Southwestern Portion of Connama. ra The PerambulatinE Human Newspapers of These Wild Regions A Genuine Irish s'Whoep''-The Aperture Beneath the Waterfall.
 ARRAN ISLANDS, Ireland, Feb. IS. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 In the southwestern, wilder and least known portion of Connamara the s'hand' work" of the women in spinning, weaving,
 knitting, and in ''tueking' and mapping the famous ''Connamara flannel" or frieze,
 is everywhere observable. In every hut oI cabin one or more of the female occupants
 will be found so employed. l have seen
 children but six years old seated on rude
 stools, or upoa the "stranger's seat"-a rude
 stone block beside or cut out of the chimney knitting away for hours as if for dear life
 upon gigantic stockings bigger than their own pinehed little bodies. Every other fe-
 male of the household knits with precisely
 the same apparent frenzy at all moments
 which can be snatched from other duties.
 Each process is of the rudest. The spinning
 wheels are counterparts of those used in our own colonial times. The old reels snap and crack just as did those of our foremothers.
 And find hand-looms here which were un-
 doubtedly constructed from three to five
 hundred years ago. Age and change have
 never modified these methods. Capital and
 machinery stand aghast and sink into ruin in
 attempts at innovation. The twenty-five or thirty thousand people of Connamara will never themselves tolerate stockings and fam
 nel, and these comprise every particle of
 clothing they wear, made in any other man.
 ner than "by hand;" while the Irish of Ire
 land and America, who cherish sort of stubborn pride in the rude stuff, just as the Scotchman cherishes his plaid and kilt, are numerous enough to give @ moderate though steady demand for what these humble hands may do. As we reckon values they receive the most beggarly pittanoe for this labor. The most renowned spinner, weaver, ''tuck- CT" or ''napper" in Connanara is never more than able to barely exist; that is to just live while starving. The more there is to do the less they get. Two or three pennies for a pair of stockings, great, huge, Brobdigna- giau stockings at that, are all they receive. But they knit away night and day so long as their strange lives run.
 Among them are those forming distinct class of "knitte1s," as distinguished from the knitters of the home. They are widows or maiden danes, incalculable ss to age, finger and tongue. Perhaps they have 6 bunk at the cabins of two or three relatives. May be they own shell of hut in the mountains. Again they may have no home at all. But in any event their home is wher- ever the night finds them. They are the ir
 repressible scandal-mongers of all Con naught. Thus they are welcome everywhere, not only as an institution as old as the Bre- hon laws; but they are the articulated per ambulating newspapers of these wild re- gions Nor do they grow stale from once reading. They come and go and possess pe- renuial vim and freshness. Read every page of them; turn back and begin again; do this so long you like; and every time you do it you will find a new, sparkling. marvellous ''latest edition." And what Headers" on government, ethics, sociology, are there in their editorial pages. Their news columns are a perfect wonder of tremendous affairs, gloriously graphic or sententious1y con- densed Their commercial quotations on goats, pigs, geese, hake, haddock, herring, conger eels and kelp would make the ink of your vaunted American dailies turn green with shame and envy. What matchless "readers" must conduct their exchanges" :" How varied and extraordinary are their de- partments. Study their "Persons and
 Things" column, their Religious column, !"
 their Births, Marriages and Deaths," their
 "Cues for the Curious" their "Maxims for
 Marines" their "Oid Folks Department"
 their "Frolics for Fairs" their Boys and
 Girls" column, their s'Neighborhood News, their "Leaves for Lovers," their "Fairy Lore
 Legends" their Gathered Here and There
 by Our Own Reporters" column, their "Fash-
 ion's Frailties" corner, their "High Life
 Hilarities," their "Leaves for the Lowly" and their "Weather Prognosticstions;"
 say study this ''live" Connamara "knitter" newspaper; and for the first time you will
 realize from whence your all knowing
 American editor plagiarized his model for
 his great, alliterative, departmental one hundred column sheet of today. Indeed it's mystery, perfection and power are tame beside the subterfuge, expediency and re- source of this original type to be found in the Connamara wilds. She brings hurt to this one, happiness to that one, a fever of unrest to all. The church may pronounce maledictions against her; the law may threaten her; Cennamars society may re- nounee her; but, like her distinguished prototype in paper and ink, she has 8 back-door out of every libelious difficulty and emerges from every Connamara cloud with more voluble tongue, more volumi- nous departments of news and gossip, and with steadily increasing circulation and prosperity, unsullied by affidavit or mort gage.
 Two other interesting characters will bs found among the Connamara women. These are the ''tuckers" and ''nappers." The 'tuckers" are those who take the rough n Il xI oI~s, l. sk as to increase its thickness and weight l The tuck mills'' are outlandish affairs al | the side of lone mountain streams, where I old hags of ttuckers" live in sheds or hut | in dreary loneliness. The "mill" is simply l rough, slightly inclined flat trough. througt which water runs and flannel is fed in wrink | ly folds to wooden hammer lifted ana 1 dropped by the revolution of rude wate l wheel. This beating, or "tucking the clotf closer together" i" takes up from one-seventl
 to one-fifth of the original cloth; but make an article of clothing with which the peas l ants defy the widest mountain storms.
 I My study of the 'nappers" was pursued under some difficulties; because in nor than one instance my friendly inquisitive
 ness was given abrupt set-backs through tn Il suspicion that was @ disguised and l0athet emissary of the law. The ''nappers" ar those who give the heavy woolen frieze 1t shaggy appearance. The process is simpl | one, carried on in all sorts of out of the wa. places, and is not at all times gu1itiess or .h l added charm of poteen-brewing. Tn ! .tucKed" flannel is laid upon rude bencne and combed until ragged and furry. The, | with flat blocks of wood or cork, wse W.ss | sticky treacle the rough surface of the seun | Ia gone over ssby hand" with Ignt, wnir. ing motion. now this way and now enas twisting the furry surface into 'nnamsssoi'