Open Collections

Abstract

Irish Lace refers the forms of lace-making created in Ireland ca. 1830, which were then used to create small, delicate pieces that could be sold for supplemental income by poor families and individuals during the Great Famine and the years that followed. This project attempts to bridge the gap between these examples of Irish Lace and the artisans who created them, who were rarely mentioned, or accused of undervaluing the art form, in narratives found within works written during the next fifty years. The portfolio segment assembles several articles written by art critics and collectors between 1840 and 1920, visual materials of rural Ireland, examples of Irish Lace, and examples of the tools used by crocheters and other fibre artists in the mid-19th century. This project consults these materials to examine where lacemakers were working, the conditions they were working under, the tools they were working with, with the goal of “filling in” the experiences of these individuals that is absent in written narratives. To further analysis work, the author draws on their familiarity of crochet and fibre arts, along with their family's experiences in rural Ireland. In doing so, this project traces the history of Irish Lace from the Great Famine in 1847 to the series of famines in county Donegal in the 1870s, and explores how artists were isolated from the success of their artistry abroad and illustrates how these pieces became divorced from the context that produced them.