iS3 ART AND COTTAGE INDUSTRIES. 



ART AND COTTAGE INDUSTRffiS. 



After Home-spun, the principal cottage industry of Ireland is that of 

 lace-making. This being fully dealt with in a special article, it remains to 

 mention a few other art and cottage industries which are more or less widely 

 practised in Ireland. The work of amateurs, excellent as it may be, is not 

 taken into account here. Reference is only made to industries which are 

 carried on upon commercial principles. The chief of these are Hand- 

 knitting, Hand-embroidery, Iron Work, Stained Glass, Woodcarving, 

 Stone and Marble Carving, Carpet Making, Metal Repousse Work, Cabinet 

 Making, Porcelain, Silver and Goldsmith's Work. 



Hand-knitting, in spite of the growing severity of the competition of the 



knitting machine, is still widely spread over the 



w , , ., ,. . country, and is the means of bringing in earnings 

 Hand-Knitting. ^^^^^ ^^ l^^jj^ •£ ^^^^j ^^^^ ^-^^ p^-^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ 



individual worker. The wild district of Kincasslough, 

 in County Donegal, and Glenties, in the same county, are important centres 

 of this industry. The Arran industry in County Mayo turns out elaborate 

 and beautiful specimens of hand-knitting, and at Baronscourt (County 

 Tyrone), Courtown (County Wicklow), and Howth (County Dublin), it is 

 practised with a success which is, in no small degree, due to the market 

 provided by the depots and sales of the Irish Industries Association. 



Hand-embroidery, in its more artistic developments, is still, fortunately, 



incapable of satisfactory imitation by machinery, and 



, u • J must rank in Ireland as a very considerable and by no 



Hand-embroidery. ^^^^^ decaying industry. The so-called Swiss 



embroidery " has, no doubt, killed some of the 

 cheaper and poorer forms of white embroidery or " sprigging," but the better 

 forms have shared in the benefit of the reviving taste for genuine hand- 

 work in industrial art ; and up to a certain point, the work in coloured 

 embroidery produced in obedience to a large and steady demand, by the 

 Royal School of Art Needlework in Dublin, or the Garryhill, Turbotstown, 

 Dalkey or Kenmare industries, is as good as any that we know of in the 

 history of the industry in Europe. The white embroidery and drawn-work 

 produced for the large Belfast firms, as well as at various independent 

 centres throughout the country, such as SHgo, Ardara, Strabane, Ballintra, 

 is also of admirable quality in design and execution. In this whole depart- 

 ment of Irish art-work it may safely be said that nothing approaching it for 

 excellence is to be found anywhere else in the United Kingdom, and not 

 very much even in France or Belgium. The splendid embroideries of the 

 East, with their inimitable peculiarities of style and material, and such 

 examples of mediaeval European work as were not only designed but 

 executed by workers of high artistic training — these indeed remain un- 

 rivalled ; but any other comparison Irish art needlework of to-day may 

 safely endure. 



