Irish Viking Age silks and their place in Hiberno-Norse society

The context: From the beginning of the ninth century AD people from Scandinavia, many from present-day Norway began to settle in Ireland. They founded the modern Irish cities and towns of Dublin, Waterford, Cork. Limerick and Wexford and developed lively and successful trading settlements that flourished until the Anglo-Norman invasion in 1169 AD. We know from the literature that the Irish prized and used silk cloth at that time but at present excavations have not disclosed any remains of silk in what can be identified as specifically vernacular contexts. The situation is different for the Viking Age settlements. In particular Dublin and Waterford over the last twenty-five years or so have yielded up enormously rich organic remains including textiles that have illuminated in an amazing way the lifestyle of these incomers. They were enthusiastic traders and their wealth was well known in Ireland. Probably slave-trading played a major role but there was also much commerce in silver, furs, perhaps foodstuffs, silk and other cloth. An Irish account of the sack of Viking Limerick by local people in The Wars of the Gaedhil with the Gaill contains this passage. \u27They followed them also into the fort and slaughtered them... They carried off their jewels and their best property, and their saddles beautiful and foreign; their gold and silver; their beautifully woven cloth of all colors and of all kinds; their satins and silk cloth, pleasing and variegated, both scarlet and green, and all sorts of cloth in like manner. They carried away their soft, youthful bright, matchless girls; their blooming silk-clad young women; and their active, large and wellformed boys.... everyone that was fit for a slave was enslaved.\u27 It is interesting that there are so many references in the passage to silks and beautifully woven cloth; they must have made a deep impression on the Irish fighters and chroniclers The material: Finds of silk from Dublin are far less numerous than those of wool; this is a pattern that is repeated in excavations in other Irish towns, and indeed in Europe generally at this time. There are however remains of compound weave cloth, of tablet woven braids, thread, ribbons, cords and filets. Three types of plain silk cloth were found, some were made up into bands, scarves and caps. There are at least twenty-five fragments of weft-faced compound twill of 2/1 construction, with paired Z-twisted main warps, single Z-twisted binder warps and untwisted wefts. Many are made with red or natural color silk probably patterned, and survive in narrow strips that seemingly were used to trim other garments. Four tablet woven braids use gold metal thread with a silk core as does one silver braid. A second silver braid does not seem to have a silk core but some of the brocading was executed in silk. Four tablet woven braids use gold metal thread with a silk core as does one silver braid. A second silver braid does not seem to have a silk core but some of the brocading was executed in silk. Silk thread to be used for sewing or embroidery was found; some in a small amount tied to a cylindrical needlecase. Other lengths were wound around thin pieces of wood or in small skeins. Thread was made up into plyed and plaited cords. At least seven knotted filets or hairnets were found. What may be the earliest example of sprang made from silk was found in Dublin in single S-twisted silk thread with alternate rows of 1/1 and 2/2 interlinking. This example of interlinked mesh sprang has a finished width of 130mm. Bands, scarves and caps: The plain silk items, together with similar pieces in wool, all in tabby weave, make up very interesting, cohesive group of finds. For example, Viking literary sources record that headbands were worn by men as well as women. When Skarp-Hedin in Njal\u27s Saga rides to the Althing \u27his hair was well combed back and held in place by a silk headband. He looked every inch a warrior\u27. Earlier in the same saga Gunnar was given by King Harold Gormsson in Haithabu \u27his own robes, a pair of gold embroidered gloves, a headband studded with gold and a Russian fur cap\u27

Heavens\u27 Embroidered Cloths - textiles from the Honan Chapel, University College Cork, Ireland

University College Cork was founded in 1845 as Queen\u27s College, at that time a secular state institution for third level education for men. By the end of the century the College had prospered and was taking in students not only from the city but from the whole county. Since Queen\u27s College was non-sectarian, initially there was no Chapel built for College use. The Honan Chapel was built by private bequest to fill this gap and to provide a spiritual base for Roman Catholic students attending College. Robert, Matthew and Isabella Honan, brothers and sister, were the last of a wealthy Cork merchant family who wished to make a bequest to College; leaving its disposition to John O\u27Connell, their lawyer. It is to John O\u27Connell, a devout man who later, after the death of his wife became a priest, that we owe the unique composition that is the Honan Chapel and its contents. He was supported by the President of College at the time, Bertram Windle. At the end of the nineteenth century Irish ecclesiastical architecture, fittings and liturgical textiles were strongly influenced by other Catholic European countries and in many cases materials were brought in from abroad. The startling innovation of John O\u27Connell\u27s concept was to look back to Early Christian Irish buildings and artifacts for inspiration, and to insist that Irish artists and craftspeople would design and make almost everything in the Chapel.

A Horsehair Woven Band from County Antrim, Ireland: Clues to the Past from a Later Bronze Age Masterwork

Introduction This paper has as its subject the narrow woven horsehair band from Cromaghs, Co. Antrim in Northern Ireland It is about two thousand eight hundred years old which places it in the Irish Later Bronze Age. Farming was well established in the country and skilled metal workers were producing tools, weapons and ornaments in bronze and gold. The horsehair ornament merits analysis because of its intricacy and outstanding artistry. It is also important to explore what clues may lie within the band and the other finds associated with it. These may explain what the ornament represented to the people who made it, and to those who deposited it so carefully into a bog in County Antrim all those years ago. Since the theme of this symposium is Creating textiles: makers methods markets it is appropriate to see whether something can be understood of the priorities in these areas of the weavers and users of the Cromaghs band. In the present prehistoric context, markets must be loosely interpreted since Later Bronze Age society is far removed from the industrialized and capitalist economies of the late twentieth century. One factor clouds modem interpretation of the part played by cloth in prehistoric and early historic societies; this is the amazing availability of textiles today. In this late twentieth century people have at their disposal unlimited quantities of cloth of any quality desired. Planning how to make and use cloth, and how to acquire clothes need not take up any serious time and so their former importance is forgotten. To clear away this modem valuation of cloth as a minor ingredient of most people\u27s lives a useful exercise is to consider the role of cloth from the ethnographic standpoint. A review of the properties of cloth may certainly include the following: In traditional societies cloth is often a standard of value and a unit of currency; as such it becomes part of the treasure of rulers, shoring up their political power. Cloth manufacture itself may have spiritual resonances for its makers linking past and present, the living and the dead. After manufacture ceremonies of bestowal and exchange of cloth, and of investiture underwrite the authority and sanctity of new powerholders. Once cloth has been transformed into garments, it becomes a potent agent to represent or misrepresent images, identities, ranks and values. (Weiner and Schneider 1989,3-10). In prehistoric societies it is likely that all of these factors also had a part to play

Effective management

"The papers in this book originate from presentations given at a summer school on "Effective management" organised by the British Association of Social Workers in 1988.