Irish Crochet: A Vintage Technique
The lovely, unusual techniques used in Irish crochet have long been appreciated for their unique beauty and admired for the incomparable needlework skills used to create them.
Known as early as 1743 when the Royal Dublin Society awarded prizes for it, Irish crochet gained worldwide recognition during the days of the terrible potato famine in the mid-1800s, when it became a successful means of financial support for suffering families. Nuns in the Irish convents and the wealthier members of the general population taught Irish crochet to the masses as a means of survival. The crocheted laces were sold to wealthy families in England and France, who considered owning these exquisite pieces of fine lace as symbols of high social position. Using the thinnest of threads and the smallest of hooks, the lace makers made individual dimensional motifs, such as shamrocks, roses and other flowers, leaves and padded circles, which were arranged and joined with a grounding mesh crochet fabric. It was traditionally worked only in white or off-white and occasionally in black for mourning. These beautiful Irish crochet pieces were highly valued and have been handed down through the generations. In the Edwardian period, wedding gowns and other fine dresses made with Irish crochet were the fashion. An entire convent might work for a year or more on one dress, or several workers would work individually in their homes on the same piece, creating the basic motifs and then delivering them to a central location for other workers to turn into the completed piece with the grounding work.
It’s difficult to believe, when looking at the delicate, detailed work they did, that their crochet tools were often very primitive, fashioned from a simple piece of bent wire inserted into a wooden or cork handle. The patterns were shared and circulated by way of sampler books, since many of the workers had difficulty understanding written instructions. The almost infinite array of textures and patterns produced in traditional Irish crochet are still popular and beloved by many today and can be seen as exquisite, romantic accents in a variety of today’s contemporary fashions. Much as it did for the Irish in the 1800s, it continues to be a cottage industry today in some Asian countries, including India, and others such as Spain, Italy and Greece.