Textiles of Ireland: Gold lace found in sacked castles

The flood of gold from the mines of the New World caused gold and silver lace to become fashionable in European courts during the 16th and 17th centuries. Almost all of that lace was recycled. However, a few fragments of gold and silver lace have been discovered in Irish castles — including one in Cork — destroyed during the Cromwellian Wars

Castledonovan, County Cork, Ireland. Picture: Photographic Archive, National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland/ Rubicon Heritage

The term ‘lace’ has a long history that pre-dates the use of the word as understood nowadays. In the English language the noun 'lace' and the verb 'to lace' are related to the Old French word 'laz'. This usage may have accompanied incomers from Normandy into England after the conquest of the Anglo-Saxon kings in the 11th century (AD 1066). The words lace and to lace have been used for the thin bands made from textile strands twisted together. These laces tied together the bodices of doublets and dresses; doublets and hose (stockings) were also tied together this way. Modern French still uses the verb lacer in ‘to lace, or to do up’ shoes. Lacet is used in chaussures à lacets (lace-up shoes). Modern English also continues to use ‘shoe-lace’ as the correct term for the flat or rounded cord put through the several holes in a shoe, and tied together tightly.

Examples of both expensive and cheap metal lace have been found in three Irish castles. These date to the time of the 17th-century European religious wars, and most especially to the dreadful war in Ireland, waged from 1649 to 1660 by Oliver Cromwell, known in England as 'the lord protector'.