17th century Quaker artefact returns home to Kildare
The stitched sample created by 11-year-old Sarah Sparrow in 1692
CASTLEDERMOT Local History Group has revealed that a lost piece of the village’s heritage has been rediscovered and is coming home this summer.
In 1692, the year after the Battle of the Boyne, an 11-year-old Quaker girl called Sarah Sparrow completed stitching her sampler, which is a piece of cloth embroidered with a variety of stitches and patterns.
This sampler is, to our knowledge, the only surviving material artefact of the Quaker community that lived in Castledermot from the 17th century.
In June, it came up for sale at an auction in Shrewsbury, England, and the Castledermot Local History Group succeeded in facilitating the purchase of it for Kildare County Council.
The asked researcher Dr Sharon Greene how this came about.
“I’d signed up to a website for auctioneers called ‘Sale Room’ with a couple of keywords like 'Castledermot' and up this popped,” she explained.
“It’s not that these things come up very often, but this one did,” she said.
However, she had to work very fast at getting organised as the flagging of the item happened only two weeks before the actual auction.
“I contacted the local history group and Kildare County Council Archives, and they agreed with me that this would be wonderful for the county,” she said.
“I must say that Karel Kiely, the county archivist, has been extremely supportive throughout the whole process, and has been really excited to get this back in the county.”
Samplers would often include the alphabet and numbers and sometimes the name of the girl and a date of when she made it.
“It’s a little bigger than a handkerchief. This one is longer and thinner than a sheet of A4,” Dr Greene described.
This sampler has the words ‘SARAH SPAROW HER SAMPLER’ in a row beneath the alphabet and, in the bottom right-hand corner, the date “1692”.
This item would have been used to display her skills in needlework, an important part of a girl’s education at the time.
Sarah was the daughter of Alexander and Mary Sparrow of Castledermot.
She was born in 1681, the oldest of a family of five girls and seven boys.
In 1704, she married Timothy Forbes, a Dublin linen draper, and they went on to have nine children.
The sampler would have been passed down through the family and was eventually sold or given away.
It is a charming and rare example of women’s craftwork of that time and has brought to light the story of a forgotten Castledermot woman and her family.
Castledermot History Group are looking forward to uncovering more about their history and perhaps making contact with descendants.
The sampler is a delicate object that requires careful handling and will need to be displayed in suitable conditions.
Kildare County Council have agreed that it will go on display in Ballitore Quaker Museum, however, it will first be coming home to Castledermot, where it was made.
This will take place during National Heritage Week, on Wednesday 19 August only between 2pm and 7pm, the public are invited to call in to Teach Diarmada Community Centre to view the sampler and learn a little more about it and Sarah Sparrow, the girl who made it.
