THE MODERN IRISH LACE INDUSTRY. 429 



become so degraded as to be with difficulty recognizable. Until lately, one 

 of the great obstacles to the improvement of the crochet industry has been 

 to find workers capable of translating crochet pattern into work. Give a 

 worker a piece of made crochet, and she will have no difficulty m copying it, 

 while she will probably find it impossible to work from a drawing. When I 

 visited Clones a few years ago, I could only hear of one worker who could 

 make crochet from a paper pattern. I am happy to say that some improve- 

 ment has taken place in this respect. The work produced in different 

 districts varies in character. That made m the South of Ireland is more 

 open, and contains larger forms than the northern crochet. The Clones 

 ■crochet is very beautiful, has a distinctive character, and is in my judgment 

 capable of great development. The chief centres for crochet making are 

 Cork, Youghal, Kinsale, Crosshaven, Clones, Ardara, and several other 

 places, where it is made in small quantities. 



Fig. 20 is a border of old crochet. This example does not exhibit the 

 •degradation of form, of which I have just spoken, to the same extent as one 

 may see it exhibited in the large antimacassars or pieces of ecclesiastical 

 crochet of former days. Many of the old crochet forms were evidently 

 derived from Venetian or Spanish rose-point ; and owing to the facts thai 

 the designer could not draw, nor the worker render them properly, they 

 gradually, but surely, deteriorated into the unmeaning shapes observable 

 in crochet. In this lace, the forms are made separately by the worker, and 

 the practice has been, as I have myself witnessed, for the worker to take a 

 large sheet of brown paper cut to the size of the flounce or trimming, and on 

 this to scatter crochet forms, keeping them pretty evenly distributed : they 

 were then secured to the paper, and joined by a ground made in imitation of 

 the ties or bars seen in the rose-point lace. There was no serious attempt 

 at arrangement, and such principles of ornament as repetition, alternation, 

 ■etc., were not considered. 



The piece illustrated is a border made up of a curious trefoil-shape sus- 

 pended from a horizontal bar, having a pattern at one end. This is appa- 

 rently meant for a stalk carrying a leaf and a flower ; then there are three 

 shapes, which I think are intended for flower forms, on the ends of stems 

 which project with great energy from a common centre. The only attempt 

 at arrangement appears to be that of alternation, when the trefoil is below, 

 the three-armed form is above, and vice versa. I am sure you will recognise 

 this style of crochet pattern as one that was in vogue for many years. Now 

 turn from it to Fig. 21, which also exhibits a border, made at Ardara from 

 an improved design. There is no difference in the method of working ; the 

 forms are made separately as in the former instance, secured in their places 

 on the pattern, and the ground worked between them. The edge of the 

 border is carefully considered ; the small scolloped forms are well rendered. 

 We have the principles of alternation and radiation exhibited in this pattern 

 Observe the six little trefoils, they are well made and arranged. One feels 

 instinctively, on looking at this pattern, that thought, order, method have 

 all been at work in the preparation of the design. The ground is more 

 carefully rendered than in the preceding example ; the weight of the 

 pattern is at the edge of the border; and from the fact that the ties are 

 lighter, cloudiness of effect in the ground is prevented, and greater contrast 

 between the ground and pattern is secured. 



Fig. 22 is an example of New Ross crochet, which is made up of simple 

 forms, and yet exhibits the richness to be secured when these forms are 

 well arranged with due regard to contrast. The edge is made up of small 



