In 1855 the number of workers employed numbered 1,500. In 1869 there were less than 500. In 1869 Mrs. Palliser writes of the tambour lace industry: "The existing depression of the trade has been partly caused by the emigration of girls to America and the colonies, while glove-making and army clothing employ the rest; and indeed the manufacture aiming only at cheapness had produced a lace of inferior quality, without either novelty or beauty of design, from which cause Limerick lace has fallen into disrepute."
No account of Limerick lace would be complete which does not make some reference to the work of the Sisters of Mercy at Kinsale, Co. Cork, where so much is now being done to revive those industries which were originally started with the object of coping with the famine of 1846. This revival is largely due to Mr. A. S. Cole, who originally suggested the establishment of an art class in connection with South Kensington, with Mr. Brennar, of the Cork School of Art, as its master. The studio is in connection with the workroom, which secures constant touch between the designing, alteration, and adaptation of patterns and their execution. (Pall Mall Gazette, May 8th, 1897.)
Various schools have been established throughout Ireland. Lady de Vere taught the mistress of a school on her own demesne at Curragh, Co. Limerick, the art of making application flowers, giving her own Brussels lace as patterns. The work was so good as soon to command a high price, and the late Queen of the Belgians actually purchased a dress of it at Harding's, and took it back with her to Brussels, The fabric is known by the name of "Irish" or "Curragh point."
The school set up at Belfast by the late Jane Clarke exhibited in 1851 beautiful imitations of the old Spanish and Italian points; amongst others a specimen of the fine raised Venetian point, which can scarcely be distinguished from the original. It is now in the Vict. and Albert Museum (1869).
From the tradition that a Jesuit procured the first Venetian lace pattern used in Ireland.