Southern Cross (Adelaide) 16th February, 1894 p.8
By a Gort Man.(abridged)
There was a time when, for quality and output, the linen and other industries of Ireland pressed those of England pretty close in the race, for supremacy. Whether the Union be admitted the cause of their decadence or not, the fact is beyond question that, in the days when Dublin was the city of the Irish nobility and gentry, when rents were spent freely in the land which yielded them, the Irish capital was a great manufacturing centre, and the home industries of the smaller towns were beginning to acquire a reputation outside Ireland. Those days are past, but not necessarily, if I may use the language of the song, beyond recall. The industries of Ireland may be revived again, and revived even without the help of a paternal legislature, upon which, however effective for good it may become with its site in College Green, too much reliance for all purposes must not be placed.
For a few years there has been a marked revival of several of the home industries of Ireland in some of the provincial towns. I dare say many of your readers will recognise a familiar ring about the names, Skibbereen, Cork, Queenstown, Kinsale, Ballayhadereen (sic.), and Gort. Well, through the industry, intelligence, and affectionate devotion to the interests of those under the charge of the Sisters of Mercy, these towns are acquiring a reputation for linen weaving and other industries suitable to girls. These industries are carried on in the convents under the management of the Nuns. They have been started “without capital, without previous experience, almost without sympathy,” by the Sisters of Mercy in a few local centres. The Sisters, with that splendid confidence bred of a perfect reliance upon Providence, believing, in the words of one of their reports, “that all help required would be forthcoming, if God willed their efforts to prosper, provided they worked with zeal, generosity, sincerity, and earnestness.” We must admire the pluck and sympathise with the spirit of those who with little capital beyond self-reliance, and that animating patriotism which expresses itself less in words than in effective service of the people within the circle of their daily duties, could attempt to make a reputation in England for the convent industries of Ireland.
On the whole, the efforts of the Sisters have been successful. In a little pamphlet, written by Mr. Joseph A. Glynn, Hon. Sec. to the Convent Industries of Gort, we are told that on the counters of Ryland & Co., Manchester, may be found hosiery from the Ballaghadereen Convent Industries. The Gort industries, on whose behalf, for they are hampered in their hitherto successful career by lack of capital, Mr. Glynn’s pamphlet is written, were started in 1891. Two Nuns went from Gort to Skibbereen to learn the business, and returned with a determination to do for their beautiful and beloved convent on the Sinking River what their Sisters had done elsewhere. The services of a competent teacher were procured from Belfast, and the work was started. The industries comprise weaving and
several others suitable for girls, such as advanced needlework, knitting, hosiery, scientific dressmaking, embroidery and vestment making. Let me quote from the pamphlet:—
“The looms turn out towelling, linen and lawn, and since the beginning the work finished comprises 70 dozen towels, 70 dozen cambric handkerchiefs, 800 yards of linen, and 1,300 yards of lawn, all of which have been
pronounced of first-class quality.”
The success in hosiery has also been remarkable. Of the handkerchiefs I can speak from experience. The arrival of half a dozen of them as a Christmas box has made my annual cold quite a luxury. I can now enjoy a good blow without going to Port Elliot, The Bluff, or a meeting of
candidates for the Legislative Council.
It is impossible to overrate the good, to be accomplished by these industries. In the first place, we know what the supervision of the Sisters means. Love, purity, and duty. In the next, there is no whining for State subventions, no clamour for that premium upon carelessness and shoddy which goes by the name of a protective tariff no array of State inspectors and supervisors, no company floating with its list of directors who are ready to lend the prestige of their names to anything, from an association to breed kangaroos at Hindmarsh to a society to propagate beer in the interior. In fact, the convent method is the antithesis of that followed in not far distant countries, where the State endeavours to bottle-feed the rising generation into imbecility, and patriotic speculators float themselves
into fortunes and credulous shareholders into the insolvency court.
However, the extension of the Gort industries is hampered by lack of cash. The bill for yarn is heavy; if there is a delay in payments the discount is lost and interest accumulates and thus a big percentage of the profit disappears. The stock is running out and the Sisters have not the wherewithall to replenish it. “Here we have,” says the pamphlet, “five or six distinct branches of industry established, giving employment to some score or so of girls, and teaching hundreds and yet for want of a few hundred, pounds there is every likelihood of work having to be stopped. I feel it due to the Irish in England to say that ninety per cent, of the orders came from them, and a bare ten per cent, represents home consumption.” It is a national question; and if some sons of the old sod who are now being baked by the sun of South Australia, but who remember a country where the fields are green, the clouds beautiful, the streams as merry as a second season hunter, the wind not always dancing a hornpipe round the compass, and the girls—well, perhaps I had better leave them alone—care to send their mites to help the good Sisters of Gort, they will find their donations gratefully acknowledged by Sister M. Philomena, Workroom, Convent of Mercy, Gort, County
Galway, Ireland.
The Burren and Beyond 