This exhibition displays clothing and jewellery worn in Ireland principally from the 1760s to the 1960s.

Although many still think of ‘Irish Dress’ in the context of woollens worn in the West of Ireland, this exhibition shows that in the past the majority of Irish people, even those who wore locally woven fabrics (silk, linen, wool and cotton), dressed in styles that competed with the fashion conscious of Europe. The exhibition of jewellery features some of the materials from which jewellery has been made, the variety of reasons for wearing jewellery, and the range of styles that people have bought and worn over the last few centuries.

This exhibition shows that although some Irish men and women dressed in a traditional manner, particularly in remote rural areas, the majority of the population wore clothing which reflected changing fashions and was influenced by fashionable dress in other parts of Europe.

On display are examples of the dress and costume accessories worn by people who lived in relatively comfortable circumstances and could both aspire and afford to dress well.   It is their clothing that tends to survive, and many items have lasted because they were treasured, put away and passed down through families; garments such as the embroidered pink velvet coat and silk breeches worn during the 1770s by a member of the Worth Newenham family in Carrigaline, Co. Cork; or the ivory silk wedding dress worn by Hannah Woodcock Perry when she married Marcus Goodbody in the Friends’ Meeting House in Monkstown, Co. Dublin, in 1848. Not everyone had the luxury of clothes that could be put away and remain unused, with the result that the clothing of the less affluent rarely survives.  

Fashion for the Middle Classes

The aspirations of Ireland’s growing middle classes during the last two centuries were often reflected in choices of clothing, as were notions of respectability and conformity. These themes and others,  such as dressing for comfort and practicality, patronising local or national manufacture, and the display of wealth through sartorial choice, are also explored.

The garments on display illustrate how stylish dressing became accessible to the population as a whole with the increasing availability of affordable fashionable fabrics and the dissemination of the most up to date styles through illustrations in magazines and papers.

Technological advances, such as the invention of the sewing machine in the mid-19th century, also helped to democratise fashion, enabling both professional and home dressmakers to adapt and copy the latest fashions more easily. The exhibition also examines the important economic role of the textile and clothing industries, and how goods produced in Ireland competed on the world market.  The town of Balbriggan in north county Dublin, for instance, became synonymous with quality hosiery, while Irish lace and crochet were internationally renowned in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Irish Jewellery

The jewellery gallery displays pieces dating from the 17th to the 20th centuries and explores a number of themes relating to this form of personal adornment, from the diverse reasons for wearing jewellery to the range of materials used to create it.

Popular trends in jewellery are represented, such as the 18th century fashion for jewellery set with paste stones; the early 19^th century vogue for semi-precious stones like amethyst, agates and turquoise; and the enduring taste for finely carved cameos and corals from Italy.  The fashion for historical revivalism can be seen in the gothic style of Berlin iron work jewellery and in the collection of archaeologically inspired pieces by Italian goldsmiths, Fortunato Castellani and Carlo Giuliano.

This 19th century fashion for revivalism took a particularly Celtic form in Ireland, when firms such as James West & Son, Waterhouse & Co., and silversmith  Edmond Johnson, began to reproduce recently discovered archaeological finds like the eighth-Century ‘Tara’ brooch found in Bettystown, Co. Meath, in 1850. These reproduction brooches were often worn to demonstrate patriotism and nationalist sentiment.

The costume and jewellery displays are supported by contemporary illustrations, advertisements and archive photographs.