Maire Treanor, an authority on Clones Lace, a form of Irish crochet that she has re-intorduced, visited me on Friday at the museum to bring me up to date on her research. She was in Manhattan for a class with the NYC Crochet Guild before traveling on to Kansas City for a public program and class sponsored by the Irish Center there.
Maire uses the money from her teaching tours to finance further research into Irish crochet. She is particularly interested in Irish crochet that has developed outside of Ireland. She made a research trip to Orvieto to study the Irish crochet there, has written about the Irish Crochet made in Japan in the early part of the 19th century, and is interested in continuing her research pursuing contacts in Central and South America. She was also traveling with some pieces of contemporary Irish crochet made by a Ukrainian friend which were rather nice tops. They were were pretty and contemporary looking and were it not for my figure problems I would have wanted to find out more about how to obtain such a garment.
Maire showed me the project that she would be teaching in Manhattan. It is a mask based on the concept of the Venetian carnival masks. I thought it was a good idea for a project, because it is pretty, and it is not too big, and each mask will be unique. Each student will make various Irish crochet motifs and then join them to make a personal mask.
Maire told me that she would be particularly interested in teaching in the Boston area and asked me if I know of a contact there. (I am assuming her interest in the Boston area may stem from the idea that there are a lot of people of Irish heritage there.) If anyone would be interested in contacting her for a future class, her email is Maireslace@gmail.com. I think she is already lining up future tours in the US.