“Are you a stitcher or a knitter?” This is one of the first questions Dolores Dempsey asks visitors to the Mountmellick Embroidery and Heritage Museum.
As the voluntary curator of this small museum in the Co Laois town, Dempsey has been pivotal in keeping alive the craft of Mountmellick Work – white stitching on white fabric – 200 years after it was first taught in the town.
Visitors (usually stitchers but sometimes knitters) – some from as far as North America and Australia come to see the intricate bas-relief needlework on display in heritage sideboard cloths, bedspreads, nightdress cases, pillow shams (protective covers), as well as contemporary pieces including a delicate embroidered fabric wreath made to commemorate those who died during the Covid pandemic.
Deemed to be the only 19th century embroidery completely Irish in origin and design, Mountmellick Work – sometimes inaccurately described as lacework – was first taught to girls in a school set up by Joanna Carter in 1825.
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At that time, Mountmellick was a thriving industrial town where many Quakers (including some of the Bewley and Goodbody families) had settled and set up flour mills, maltings, breweries and tanneries. Once dubbed the Manchester of Ireland, it was also a centre of national importance for the production of cotton and wool.
A competent draughtswoman, Carter taught the girls to create patterns with thick cotton thread on the strong cotton fabric made in the town for flour bags. Carter displayed her new designs at the Irish Industrial Exhibition in Dublin in 1853.
The durable materials used has meant that some of the early Mountmellick Work – with beautiful floral designs – has survived.
A 19th century bedspread purchased by the Dunraven family was donated to the museum after they sold Adare Manor in the 1980s. And a bedspread given as a wedding gift to Lydia Pim and Jonathan Goodbody in 1889 was donated to the museum more recently by the Goodbody family.
A short audiovisual show at the museum gives visitors a whistle-stop tour of the fascinating history of Mountmellick – which at one point had three Quaker schools including the first boarding school for poor Quaker families opened in 1786.
Some visitors to the Mountmellick Embroidery and Heritage Museum come to trace their ancestry (the museum holds the digital records of all Quaker families in Ireland) as many of the Quaker families from the town emigrated to Australia and the United States during or after the Great Famine in 1845.
Other women pivotal in the preservation of Mountmellick Work were lacemaker and embroiderer, Margaret Beale (whose family emigrated to Australia), Anne Jellicoe, who had an embroidery and lace school in Clara, Co Offaly (and later moved to Dublin to found Alexandra College in Milltown) and Deborah Milner who employed more than 50 women to produce Mountmellick Work in an industrial association in the town in the late 19th century.
Like so many heritage crafts, lace making and embroidery fell into decline in the 20th century. And it was a Presentation Order nun, Sister Teresa Margaret McCarthy who revitalised the craft in the 1970s, by teaching it to primary school girls and visitors to her convent. Dolores Dempsey was one of her pupils.
At the opening of the Mountmellick Museum in the former Quaker grain mill (now Mountmellick Development Association) in 2003, Sr Teresa presented her collection of heritage pieces of Mountmellick Work and patterns to the museum. In 2019 Mountmellick Embroidery was added to the national inventory of intangible cultural heritage.
As well as occasional collaborations with contemporary fashion designers, Dempsey hosts a weekly class for local stitchers. The teaching of Mountmellick Work is on the Junior Certificate home economics curriculum at Mountmellick Community School (built on the site of the original Quaker boarding school). She also travels to hotels to teach international visitors as they travel throughout the UK and Ireland to understand the historical context of needlework crafts.
Dempsey and her stitchers also contributed Mountmellick Embroidery to the soon-to-be-completed Irish Lace Meadow, co-ordinated by the Laces of Ireland group for display in the Limerick Museum.
On Saturday, November 1st, a group of enthusiasts will gather in the Mountmellick Embroidery and Heritage Museum to celebrate the 200th anniversary of this craft, interest in which is now on the rise again.
Speakers include National Museum of Ireland textile conservators, Alex Ward and Lorna Rowley, Quaker needlework historian, Clodagh Grubb, local historian, Roy Meredith and Dolores Dempsey. Admission free. Tickets available at mountmellickmuseum.ie
