Irish Lacemaking

Art, Industry and Cultural Practice

Molly-Claire Gillett (Concordia University, Canada)

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Hardback

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English

Bloomsbury Visual Arts
18 September 2025

History of Art & Design Styles; Handicrafts, decorative arts & crafts; Lace & lacemaking

Series: Critical Craft Studies

Following the career of the Irish lace designer and inspector Emily Anderson (1856-1948), and exploring the contemporary relevance of her work, this book charts a path through the many institutions, organizations, philanthropic initiatives and government bodies that supported, promoted and monitored the crafting and design of lace in Ireland from the late 19th century onwards.

The story of lace’s introduction in Ireland to provide work and sustenance during the Irish Famine is a well-known element of social history, yet the development of the craft – as a set of techniques and designs, with a supporting infrastructure of inspection and education – has never been the subject of a comprehensive study. Where did designs for Irish lace come from? Who decided how and to whom it would be taught? How were the aesthetics and institutions of lace design and lacemaking shaped by contemporary concerns about gender, politics and class? This interdisciplinary book gathers little-studied textual and material sources to explore these questions, informed by recent critical work in craft and design studies as well as by pattern books and local, embodied knowledge from practitioner communities.

This narrative highlights the craft’s development and cultural meaning as well as its interconnectedness with deeply politicized, gendered and class-based discourses surrounding design, education, taste and industry. Weaving together a network of exchanges between Irish institutions such as the Cork School of Art, Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, and Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, and by following Anderson’s career, author Molly-Claire Gillett traces early feminism in craft and how lace facilitated a path to female professionalization in Irish industry.

The book concludes with a consideration of contemporary Irish lacemaking – now proudly claimed as a part of Ireland’s intangible cultural heritage – and charts a shift through the 20th century in the conception of lace design as ‘art for industry’, and lacemaking as an economic necessity to both practices as expressions of identity, creativity and networked community-building.

By: Molly-Claire Gillett (Concordia University Canada)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9781350465510
ISBN 10: 1350465518
Series: Critical Craft Studies
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 18 September 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

List of Figures Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction 1. Lacemaking and Design Education in Ireland to 1883 2. Lace on Display: The Mansion House and Cork Exhibitions of 1883 3. ‘A Renascence of the Irish art of Lace-Making’: The Growth of Lace and Design Education 4. Co-operation and Community: The IAOS Home Industries Societies 5. The Lace Inspectress: Emily Anderson at the Department of Agriculture and Technical 6. Three Bonnets: Lacemaking as a Twenty- and Twenty-First-Century Cultural Practice Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

Molly-Claire Gillett, PhD, is Scholar-in-Residence in Interdisciplinary Studies and Practices in Fine Arts in the faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University, Canada. She lectures in Fine Arts and has published on Irish craft in journals Text and Performance Quarterly, New Hibernia Review and The Collections of Alfred Morrison, and has contributed to The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of World Textiles (forthcoming).

Reviews for Irish Lacemaking: Art, Industry and Cultural Practice

Extremely persuasive and engaging, carefully crafted to provide us with a dynamic forward movement of the story with extra details interwoven where they further deepen the immersion into the rich world of Irish lace and crochet. * Lynda Fitzwater, Senior Lecturer in Communication and Culture, University for the Creative Arts * A highly original and exciting approach to an unresearched area of textile craft history. * Andrea Peach, Professor of Craft History and Theory, Konstfack University College of Art, Sweden *