Carrickmacross lace has been made in the neighborhood of that town, in
County Monaghan, since the year 1820, when it was brought from Florence
by Mrs. Grey-Porter, wife of the rector of the parish church, and
introduced among the peasant women as a means of earning a livelihood.
It is made upon a foundation of net. There are two varieties. In
appliqué the pattern is traced out on fine muslin and sewed down round
the edges to the net. So far it is not strictly a lace, but rather a
sort of embroidery or net. Open spaces, however, are generally provided
for, which leaves the effect and which are filled with lace stitches
like those of flat point. In Carrickmacross guipure, much the same
procedure as in appliqué is adopted, only that instead of the foundation
being allowed to remain it is ultimately cut away, the figures of the
pattern, which, as in appliqué, are wrought on muslin, being joined to
each other by lace stitches known as "brides." A very interesting and
striking development of Carrickmacross lace is found in a combination of
appliqué and guipure, the main design being appliqué, while the panels
of guipure are introduced into it.
A little to the northward of Cork is the famous Trappist Monastery of
Mount Mellery. It was founded here about thirty years ago upon the site
of an ancient monastery by Cistercian monks who were expelled from
France. They have about seven hundred acres of rich woodland, fertile
pastures, and vegetable gardens, with large and comfortable buildings
which they erected with their own hands. They maintain two schools, one
free for poor children, and another for boarding pupils whose parents
pay moderate fees for the instruction. There is a guesthouse in
connection with the monastery, where all travelers are welcome to
shelter, saint and sinner, Catholic and Protestant, Jew and Gentile, and
no questions asked and no bills presented. Any person can have a bed
with clean, sweet linen and a hard but comfortable mattress, coffee and
rolls for breakfast, cold meat and milk for luncheon, soup and a roast
and a tart or pie for dinner, without charge, although there is a box at
the door where the guest at his departure is expected to drop a coin,
large or small according to his means and disposition. There are limited
accommodations for women, which are sparsely but comfortably furnished,
and, what is more important, as clean as a Danish dairy--an unusual
condition for Ireland.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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