This post is part of a series of posts detailing the talks and panels scheduled for the Amazing Lace Symposium 2024 on 23 March in the Absolute Hotel. To see the whole programme, go here.
Talk title: ‘Kenmare and other Irish Lace Laces, A historical perspective’ by Nora Finnegan.
Talk summary: The speaker will discuss the development of lacemaking in Ireland with an eye to needlework carried out in this country pre 19th Century and the development Kenmare Needlepoint Lace with the attendant unique set of Kenmare designs associated with Kenmare and other Irish laces.
Speaker’s bio: Nora Finnegan was born in Co Cork in 1952. She attended the Mercy Convent in Macroom and studied at The Crawford College of Art in Cork, completing her art teaching studies at the NCAD in Dublin. Nora came to Kenmare as an art teacher and married a local man in Kenmare. She learned Kenmare Lace from the Poor Clare Nuns, founding the Kenmare Lace and Design Centre in 1992. Nora Finnegan has been teaching, demonstrating, making, and selling Kenmare and other Irish laces at The Centre and nationally and internationally until now.