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HISTORY OF LACE.

Irish Brussels is made at Clones, Co. Monaghan ; Irish guipureat Carrickmacross , 14 in the same county; and the finest Valen-ciennes in the schools of the Countess of Erne, at Lishnakea,Co. Fermanagh. The Irish Valenciennes closely resembles theYpres manufacture.

There is a school at Mallow, Co. Cork, under the superin-tendence of the nuns of the convent.

Those of the St. George family, at Headford, Co. Galway ;of Miss Latouche, at Killmaule, Mrs. Kavanagh, at Borris, Co.Carlow, and others, are so many centres whence the lace manu-facture is extending throughout the kingdom.

The Irish “ lacet ” is also of great beauty. It is made of flaxthread, the ground-work crochet, into which are introduced flowersand patterns filled in with lace stitches of admirable finish.

Still a considerable depression exists in the Irish lace trade,caused by the impossibility of competing with inferior and machine-made lace.

It is to be regretted that the ladies presiding over the schoolsdo not strike out into a new path, and cause such lace only to beproduced as may prove remunerative to the manufacturer.

The Irish guipure might be successfully applied to the trim-ming of curtains, toilets, and other objects of furniture, for whichladies now purchase “Greek” and other “torchon” laces at farmore extravagant prices.

14 Atone of the drawing-rooms of thisyear, a lady’s dress is described as havingthe train, corsage, and petticoat “ trimmed

with Carrickmacross point lace.”— Morn-ing Pott, 16th May 1864.