HISTORY OF IRELAND
majority of the population. Much of the initial impetus for the use
of print was political and administrative, but it became an important weapon in the struggles between the energetic new Protestant faiths and the Catholic Counter-Reformation.”
71 . ENGRAVING OF LINEN- MAKERS, 1782
“This engraving, one of a set of 12 by Irish artist William Hincks, is a rare artefact: it acknowledges the work of women. It is, as the title explains, a view ‘taken on the spot in the County of Downe, Representing Spinning, Reeling with the Clock reel, and Boiling the Yarn’. The work was hard, but the relative prosperity of the cottage depicted in the engraving hints at the enormous impact the linen trade had on Irish standards of living in the eighteenth century. Irish people had been growing fl ax
and making linen since the Bronze Age. With Ireland largely pacifi ed in the early-eighteenth century, the authorities promoted the development of linen as the primary Irish industry. The wool industry was discouraged to avoid competition with England, and linen was an unthreatening substitute. In the second half of the century
production expanded dramatically, and by 1800 linen exports had risen to between 35 million and 40 million yards. Linen had a particularly dramatic effect on the economy of Ulster, transforming a hitherto poor province into the most prosperous in Ireland.”
75. PENROSE GLASS DECANTER, LATE-EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
“This glass decanter is striking for its elegance of form and luxurious, almost sensual curves. Its applied cutting is a variant of the more typical style of semi- circular pendant arch motif, with a star underneath and pillars running around it—typical of the work of the Penrose glass factory in Waterford. It also tells a poignant story: the fl owering of an Irish industry in the two decades before the Act of Union and its withering after. In 1811 fl int glass made in Ireland and
exported was made liable to duty; in 1825 a very heavy excise tax was imposed on glass manufacturers, which devastated
the industry in Ireland. Ireland had eleven glass factories that year, and by 1852 it had only two: one in Belfast and one in Dublin. The decline of the glass industry is part
of a larger pattern: the failure of Ireland under the union to catch up with the British industrial revolution. If anything, Irish industry declined.”
82. EMIGRANT’S TEAPOT, LATE- NINETEENTH TO MID-TWENTIETH CENTURY
“This humble object tells two stories of wandering people. It is a tin teapot, with a pouring lip soldered onto one side and the internal wall of the cup punctured with holes to make a strainer. Preparing for the long sea voyage to America, and unwilling to do without the tea for which the Irish had acquired an insatiable thirst, emigrants would buy these specially- designed pots. It is telling that Irish folk culture developed its own objects specifi cally for the act of emigration. Between 1856 and 1921, between 4.1 and
4.5 million adults and children emigrated. At one level, these experiences were part of European life: 26 million Europeans left for the New World between 1840 and 1900, and emigration was a signifi cant aspect of life in every country except France. Ireland, however, was an extreme case—in the proportion of the population that emigrated, in the persistence of
mass
migration, in the number of women who went and in the very low rate of return, even from nearby England.”
»
86. YOUGHAL LACE COLLAR, 1906
“This exquisite needlepoint lace collar, made in Youghal, Co Cork and exhibited at the Royal Dublin Society in August 1906, epitomises one of the more remarkable achievements of Irish women in the second half of the nineteenth century—the creation from scratch of a world-class craft industry. In 1847 a nun at the Presentation convent in Youghal, Mary Anne Smith, ‘conceived the idea of getting up some kind of industrial occupation amongst the poor children attending the convent school such as would help them to earn a livelihood or, at least, keep them from starving’. Smith found a piece of antique Italian point lace and was struck by the idea that lace-making was a potentially lucrative activity that needed little in the way of initial capital. She unravelled the Italian lace, worked out its complex patterns and began to teach the techniques to those of her pupils most adept at needlework. Within fi ve years, the convent had
developed a regular lace-making school, and by the turn of the century, with Sr Mary Regis heading the school, up to 70 women and girls were making needlepoint and crochet laces at the Youghal Lace Co- operative, with many others working at home. From Youghal, the
craft of needlepoint lace spread to Kenmare and New Ross. Youghal needlepoint lace
was marked by the Italianate techniques developed by Smith,
Issue 7 Autumn/Winter 2013 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 77
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