Irish Industries.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 22, 29 May 1902, Page 15

Irish Industries.

The Irish sale held recently at Lord Salisbury's London residence was a great success. Over £500 was taken for entrance money on the first day. ' The beginnings of all the enterprises scattered throughout Ireland that unite their forces in the general association, (Bays the London correspondent of the Manrht/tter Guardian) tell very much the same tale of a few ladies teaching the peasants how to knit, weave, or make lace incessantly helping and encouraging them, and finally leaving them able to make a living in an entirely new industry. In 1882, for instance, Miss Dorothea Roberts began to send yarns to the straggling parish on the rocky shore of Donegal, known as the Rosses. The good offices of the parish priest were then sought, and when the yarns arrived every month or so his little room was throTiged with women, many of whom had walked weary miles along the cliffs or bad crossed in the boat from Inisfree or Owey, in the hope of receiving some of the yarn. For eight years thin work went quietly on ; but in 181*0, when Mr Ealfour, then Iri?h Secretary, went round the coasts, he asked Father Bernard what was mrst wanted in the district, and the answer was, " more knitting." The upnhot of this conversation was that the Secretary for War telegraphed for particulars, and since then each year ban brought an oriier from the War Office for 13 000 or 14,000 pairs of army socks. In the lace-making districts the material results are even better. At Lndy Londonderry's stall 1 was shown a needle-point dress front made by peasant women of Carrickmacrops marked £150, and. according to the opinion of experts, worth more. It had probably taken two women a whole year to complete it, but the Association pays them a weekly sum in advance and then they receive the balance due to them upon the sale of the article, no dfduction being necessary, as the entrance money pays all expenses of the sale of work and leaves to the workers the entire benefit of their labors. The whole Bcheme, therefore, though conceived in phi'anthropy, is entirely free from any economical heresy. It may be, as Sir Boyle Roche said, but "a fleabite in the ocean " of Ireland's dit-tressfulness ; but within its obvious limits it does a most praiseworthy work, and its limitations do not lessen the title to public appreciation of the work done by ladies who, whilst their husbands confront each other on opposite political benches, have, under the guidance of Lady Aberdeen, found common ground in a practical effort.'