Nollag na mBan January 6th marks the 12th and officially the final day of Christmas. In Ireland, this day is known as Nollag na mBan or women’s Christmas. Traditionally it is meant as a day of rest for all the women of Ireland, who have been working tirelessly over Christmas preparing food, cleaning the house and […]
The origins of Irish Lace are without doubt traced to European lace samples. In the mid 19th century Italian Lace was unpicked by Irish nuns in order to work out its complex patterns. This provided the starting point and a sound framework for hundreds of women to learn about lace technique. It didn’t take long however […]
Fabric Memories My father recently sold our family home. Because of this there was a need to venture up into the attic and go through the bags and boxes which had accumulated over the years. There were many years in this house and there were 7 of us living in this home so as you can imagine […]
When we think of lacemaking, we can all be forgiven for having an image of a poor unfortunate peasant girl, sitting by a fire, needle and thread in hand with the last light of the last candle flickering away. Indeed this was the situation for many a lace maker. However, I’m going to be quite […]
Small wonders put new twist on old tradition Wednesday, August 20, 2014 Today we are so technologically-minded we can hardly remember a world where everything was not accessible at the click of a mouse, where a desired item was not instantly purchasable online, but took days,weeks, months to create. Yet scarcely two or three generations […]
Small wonders put new twist on old tradition Wednesday, August 20, 2014 Today we are so technologically-minded we can hardly remember a world where everything was not accessible at the click of a mouse, where a desired item was not instantly purchasable online, but took days,weeks, months to create. Yet scarcely two or three generations […]