Humble Hands in Humble Homes': The Irish Homespun Society, Women's Labour, and Craft Co-operatives in Ireland, 1935-65

• Author / Creator

  Goddard, Brandi S.

• This dissertation provides a historical analysis of the Irish Homespun Society (IHS), a female-led craft advocacy group active in Ireland between 1935 and 1965. Established to slow the steady decline of traditional craft manufacture in poverty-stricken western counties, the IHS worked directly with rural artisans to improve the quality of homespun tweed textiles, a significant portion of which were produced by women working and raising families on rural farms. Based on extensive analysis of archival papers, journals and periodicals, exhibition catalogues, and governmental debate transcripts, I contend that the IHS was an intensely ideological organisation guided by nationalist and traditionalist values in line with the governing Fianna Fáil party.
  Despite the eventual failure of the IHS in their mission to “Keep Women Spinning in Their Homes,” it should be noted that the system of homespun manufacture advocated for by the organisation bears striking similarity to contemporary calls in the developed world to overhaul our own destructive textile and clothing manufacturing industries. The Irish Homespun Society envisioned a system of homespun manufacture which had crafted objects at the centre of an imbricated nexus of relations; the author has coined this nexus an ecology of homespun. Understood more generally, these ecologies of craft are indicative of an alternative manufacturing vision which foregrounds the tenets of local materials and environments; community and native identity; and a unified treatment of the artisan’s body and mind through stimulating and meaningful education, training, and labour opportunities.
  Despite the inevitable loss of cottage-produced homespun, the legacy of the Irish Homespun Society may be its advocacy for a system of manufacture—an ecology of craft—relevant in light of our current catastrophic environmental situation, caused in no small part by our contemporary obsession with clothing and fast-fashion.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Irish Homespun Society
  • Craft
  • Co-operative
  • ecology of craft
  • craft education
  • Irish homespun
  • cottage industry

• Graduation date

  Spring 2024

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-habs-qb46

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.