Schiesser factory's contribution to Carrick-on-Suir will be celebrated on Culture Night

Carrick-on-Suir’s main Culture Night arts project celebrates the important contribution of the former Schiesser textile factory to the social and economic life of the town for a quarter of a century.

The project called, It Started With A Stitch, comprises a performance arts piece and multi-media exhibition and takes place in Carrick-on-Suir’s Sean Healy Library this Friday night.

It will be an enjoyable and nostalgic trip down memory lane for the many local people who once worked in the German owned factory that made men’s underwear.

Such has been the demand to attend the Culture Night event that the two shows scheduled for 6.30pm and 7.30pm were booked out within 48 hours.

The Tudor Artisan Hub, which has spearheaded the project, has put on two extra performances next Wednesday, September 27 and they too are fully booked out.

It’s not surprising to see why this Culture Night event is attracting such public interest.

The Schiesser factory was a major employer in Carrick-on-Suir between 1971 and 1996. It employed 150 people, mainly women, and was located on the site of Carrick’s Lidl supermarket on the Clonmel Road.

The wages from the factory played a key role in supporting families and businesses in Carrick-on-Suir during those years, particularly after the closure of the town’s biggest employer, Irish Leathers Tannery in 1985.

The first part of the Culture Night arts project is an original performing arts piece written and directed by Mary McGrath in collaboration with actor Paula O’Dwyer. They both worked in the Schiesser factory in the 80s/90s.

The performance is a blend of their own personal memories, with dramatised extracts from recorded stories generously shared by 19 other former textile employees. Maria Clancy is the acting/directing consultant and the Tudor Artisan Hub is the producer.

The cast includes Helen Murphy, who is another former Schiesser employee in the 1990s, Jayne Tennyson, Sheenagh Raggett, John Corcoran, who was a contractor to Schiesser, Paula O’Dwyer and Maria Clancy. Sound support is provided by Glascott.

It Started With A Stitch project's multi-media exhibition, meanwhile, is now open to the public but is evolving.

The exhibition includes memorabilia from the factory and a 50 minute film, which is a compilation of footage from wonderful videos taken by videographer Liam Barry blended with photographs and news stories submitted by former Schiesser employees.

The film features footage of employees working in the factory in the 1990s, several St. Patrick’s Day parades in the 1980s, the late Kitty Dwyer’s retirement party in 1991 along with photos from factory annual outings and Christmas parties etc.

The exhibition space is set-up in imaginative ways to represent various aspects of working life in the Schiesser Factory.

There is a collection of vintage Paddington Bears, owned by former Schiesser employee Elaine Carroll, dressed in outfits and accessories to represent different types of workers at the factory.

Former Schiesser workers have also contributed memory boxes to the exhibition that are filled with items, symbols and stories representing their working lives at the factory.

Linda Fahy of the Tudor Artisan Hub said It Started With a Stitch multi-media exhibition and film will remain on display at Carrick Library until the end of September