"Storying" Landscape and Material Practice: Clones Crochet Lacemaking as Irish Intangible Cultural Heritage

"Storying" Landscape and Material Practice:Clones Crochet Lacemaking as Irish Intangible Cultural Heritage Molly-Claire Gillett (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Crocheting the diamond-pattern mesh ornamented with Clones knots to join crocheted motifs, constructing Clones crochet lace. Crochet and photograph by the author [End Page 36] ________ on august 4, 2020, Catherine Martin, the Irish Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, announced the addition of eight "Living Cultural Heritage" practices to Ireland's National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage (INIICH). Martin's statement highlighted the importance of teaching, community building, and placemaking in selecting the practices for inclusion on the registry: "These eight living cultural heritage practices require knowledge and skill, and foster our sense of community and place. These practices thrive through the dedicated communities who sustain and pass on their skills and way of life to succeeding generations ensuring the continuance of these important traditions."1 One of the living cultural heritage practices added to the list was Clones Crochet Lace Making, which the inventory describes as "an Irish crochet lace characterized by use of a crochet hook with the motifs joined by a distinctive 'Clones Knot'—a ball made by turning the hook ten to twelve times around the thread" (Figure 1).2 Clones crochet lacemaking is a distinctive regional technique and tradition of Irish crochet, a fine crochet lace typically assembled from small motifs—such [End Page 37] as roses, shamrocks, and harps—joined together with chains of single crochet that create a diamond-shaped mesh. Introduced to the Clones, County Monaghan, area by a philanthropic clergyman's wife in the mid-nineteenth century, it provided small-scale employment opportunities for women of the region. It came under the supervision of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction in the early years of the twentieth century, but lost its economic importance as a result of increasing mechanization, cheaper production elsewhere, and changing fashions after the First World War. However, families in Monaghan and the surrounding counties kept pieces of lace from their mothers, grandmothers, and aunts, and some women continued to make lace for gift giving and personal use. In the 1990s a group of Clones women drew inspiration from this living archive of skills and historic lace specimens to revive the techniques and designs of a century earlier and to begin teaching the craft to new makers. Máire Treanor, a member of this group who is still active in teaching, designing, researching, and making Clones lace, is listed in the INIICH as "an authority on Clones lace."3 This article documents Treanor's work as an educator, designer, and promoter of Clones crochet lace, framing the craft as an intangible cultural heritage practice and considering the ways in which it "fosters [a] sense of community and place." Drawing from my own experience designing and making lace under Treanor's tutelage, both in Ireland and online, from Canada, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I also consider the question of how learners engage with intangible cultural heritage from afar. If lived cultural practices "foster our sense of community and place," what does this look like when they become global phenomena? Can this function be maintained as skills are shared internationally on digital platforms? ________ The notion of intangible cultural heritage (henceforth, ICH) is a relatively new one in heritage discourse, emerging from a long history of attempts—primarily by Asian, African, and South American nations—to challenge the Eurocentric conception of heritage as being primarily material, or tangible.4 The 1972 World Heritage Convention of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) outlined a strategy to protect cultural and natural heritage, prioritizing the built environment and sites of natural beauty or ecological importance, but neglecting to consider safeguarding cultural practices or [End Page 38] more transient forms of material cultural expression.5 It was not until 2003 that UNESCO introduced the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, defining it as "the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills—as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith—that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural...

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