Irish Embroidery Ypres. Irish Benedictine Nuns

"Mary Joseph Butler was the first Irish Abbess of the Irish Benedictine Abbey Ypres Flanders 1641 - 1723. Butler was born in Callan County Kilkenny Ireland. The Irish nuns Remained in Ypres until the German soldiers practically flattened Ypres in 1914 at the start of the First World War. The Irish Benedictine Nuns fled Ypres and were helped to safety by the soldiers who secured their safe-passage to England. They remained in England for a few years until Kylemore Abbey was purchased in 1920. A boarding school was set up in Kylemore Abbey the great and the good families from around the World sent their children to be educated by the nuns. This lace embroidery depicts the burning of the Medieval Cloth Hall Ypres with embroidered symbols of Ireland The shamrock the rose and daisy depicted. Expertise in sewing by the nuns."