The Last Hand Weaver of Irish Linen Damask

The Last Hand Weaver

Sorry for the gap since my last post, but I was back in Ireland attending to family things. While I was there I took the opportunity to visit a couple of local museums, both of which have amassed a huge amount of information on the linen trade and its importance to both the cultural and industrial heritage of Northern Ireland.

The Ulster Folk and Transport Museum in Cultra, near Belfast houses a vast and varied collection of linens, some used to furnish the outdoor museum. One of the recreated buildings is the Ballydugan weaver's cottage, complete with earthen floor and thatched roof.

 

There I was very privileged to meet the last hand weaver of linen damask on the island of Ireland.  John McAtasney has been a weaver for 65 years, starting at the age of 14. His knowledge and skill are unparalleled. He explained how the designs were transferred from the artist's drawing to a point paper or chart, which then enabled the punch cards to be made allowing the damask designs to be woven on the loom. Each point or square on the paper corresponded to the raising or lowering of a weft or warp thread.

Creating a set of punch cards from a point chart could take up to 6 months for a napkin design or 18 months for a tablecloth. It would then take the hand weaver 4 hours to weave just one napkin. It really brought home to me the incredible skill and patience needed to produce these beautiful designs. No surprise that hand woven Irish Linen damask was the most prized of cloths.

John has been working for both the Lisburn and Ulster Folk Museums for the past 40 years or so and you can really tell how important the craft is to his daily life.  I was amazed at how fit he is, climbing up 3 or 4 feet to fix a malfunction on the loom with the agility of a man 50 years his junior!

We chatted for a while, then with a twinkle in his eye he said - "It is lovely to talk to you, but all this chat is keeping me from my loom. You won't mind if I get back to work!" 

He was working on a beautiful design of napkins, with deer and game birds intricately woven into the cloth. It was a delight to watch him at his craft and to learn first hand of all it entails.  

Mill Marks and Proof Cloths

When Irish Linen damask was being produced, one of the most important stages was the weaving of a "proof cloth". This was a sample which would allow the design to be examined in detail and any alternations made before the weaving of the cloth would begin.

Irish Linen damask is usually white and it would have been almost impossible to inspect the design sufficiently closely if the sample had been woven in just one colour. The proof cloth would be woven in 2 contrasting colours, and it could then be viewed and inspected more easily.

On a recent visit to the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum near Belfast I was shown a number of proof cloths in their collection. Although I knew about them, I had never seen one first hand before. The plain part of the design was in an unbleached natural colour and the design was woven in a brick red colour, providing a great contrast. Although not the finished article, they were really quite impressive in their own right!

Above is an example of a napkin proof cloth, which recently formed part of an inspiring project undertaken by the BBC's Radio 4 and the British Museum. In 2010, with the collaboration of schools, museums and individual listeners, a list of 100 objects was collated and resulted in 100 15 minute programmes entitled "The History of the World in 100 Objects". A detailed account can be found on the BBC's website.

I think it just wonderful that a piece of Irish Linen Damask should have been deemed important enough to have been submitted for consideration to this project.

To each of the 4 corners of the napkin you can just make out a tiny shamrock shape. This is known as a Mill Mark. John Shaw Brown was one of the first weaving mills to include this subtle branding on their linens, and it was usually applied only to their finest quality damasks.

Each mill would have its own distinct emblem, a Fleur de Lys or a Lion Rampant for example. Sadly there was no central record kept of which mark related to which mill and only a few are known about and recognised today. 

I am fortunate enough to have come across a wonderful monogrammed set of napkins recently which carry the distinctive shamrock mill mark of John Shaw Brown's factory. Snowy white with an intricate design of irises and passionflowers, they are fine examples of the most lovely Irish Linen Damask. They have been skilfully monogrammed in red and white stitching.

They date from the 1920s I believe and are just beautiful. I would love it if they could tell us some of the dinner party conversations they have overheard through the years!