A womens gown from Mog bog
This is a very poorly preserved womens garment found my an irish
farmer in 1931. We marked the preserved parts grey in the picture, and
the rest of it is mostlty our construction.
According to the irish law, the gown became the property of the
finder, and he could be paid for it. Thus, he saved his correspondence
with the irish historians. The farmer dated the costume to the
medieval times, but the historians argued that a similar type existed
in Ireland at least up to the 17th century. The dress really has never
been exactly dated. Similar garments with big armpits appeared no
sooner that the 1st half of the 14th cenrury.
Though the armpits were quite wide, the sleeves were made tight around
the arms. The dress had a high waist line, which was positioned right
under the breasts, and we hypothesize that the dress was closely
fitted to the body on the breast down to that waist-line. If that
hypothesis is true, then the 7 preserved buttonholes on the front
whould be sufficient to button up the costume, contrary to some
suggestions that the dress had more buttons than that. The quality of
workmanship and of the material suggests that this was not an
every-day garment. On the other hand, it probably was not the best
gown of a noble lady either.
Based on: Dress in
Ireland; Mairead Dundlevy; London; 1989; B.T.Batsford Ltd.
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