The beautiful illumination of the Book of Kells, the Book of Mac Durnan, and numerous other old manuscripts, proves that the ancient Irish were very skilful in colours: and the art of dyeing was well understood. The dyestuffs were not imported: they were all produced at home, and were considered of great importance. The people understood how to produce various shades by the mixture of different colours, and were acquainted with the use of mordants for fixing the dyes. One of these mordants, alum, is a native product, and was probably known in very early times. Dyeing was what we now call a cottage industry, _i.e._, the work was always carried on in the house: as I saw it carried on in the homes of Munster more than half a century ago. The cloth was dyed by being boiled with the several dyestuffs. The dyestuff for black was a sediment or deposit of an intense black found at the bottom of pools in bogs. A crimson or bright-red colour was imparted by a plant which required good land, and was cultivated in beds like table-vegetables, requiring great care. There were several stages of preparation; but the final dyestuff was a sort of meal or coarse flour of a reddish colour. The stuff for dyeing blue was obtained from the woad-plant (called in Irish _glasheen_) after several stages of preparation, till it was made into cakes fit for use. A beautiful purple was produced from a sort of lichen growing on rocks, after careful preparation. A still more splendid purple was obtained from a little shellfish or cockle. This method of obtaining purple was practised also by the ancient Britons or Welsh; and by the same process was produced the celebrated Tyrian purple in still more distant ages. For sewing, woollen thread was usually employed. Women sewed with a needle furnished with an eye as at present. From an early time needles were made of steel, but in primitive ages of bronze. In those days a steel or bronze needle was difficult to make; so that needles were very expensive: the price of an embroidering needle was an ounce of silver. The old Irish dressmakers were accomplished workers. The sewing on ancient articles of dress found from time to time is generally very neat and uniform: one writer describes the sewing on a fur cape found in a bog as “wonderfully beautiful and regular.” Embroidery was also practised as a separate art or trade by women. An embroiderer kept for her work, among other materials, thread of various colours, as well as silver thread, and a special needle. The design or pattern to be embroidered was drawn and stamped beforehand, by a designer, on a piece of leather, which the embroiderer placed lying before her and imitated with her needle. This indicates the refinement and carefulness of the old Irish embroiderers. The art of stamping designs on leather, for other purposes as well as for embroidery, was carried to great perfection, as we know from the beautiful specimens of book-covers preserved in our museums.