Chainmaille Night

On November 9 and 10, 2009 from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. in Marrs Mclean 177 the Gaelic Cultural Society held an event called Chainmaille Night. This was an event where the officers taught all who came how to make projects, mostly jewelry, out of chainmail. Pliers and many different colored rings were provided. There were videos with history and descriptions of different styles of chainmail and there were plenty of examples laid out for everyone to look at.


Chainmaille, or chain mail, or chainmail, was originally used to make a type of armor formed out of the little links to make a mesh. The word chainmail is recent; it has only been used since the 1700s.


To start, I used black and green rings to make one of the easier patterns called European four in one. I started with the idea of making a necklace. However, I was unable to attend the second night so I’m not finished yet. I’d done some beadwork before, but I found this more time consuming and repetitive. This is not a negative; this activity was really fun! It does, however, usually take a while to complete a project. There has been a recent increase in interest in chainmaille projects, so there are some books out if you’re interested in trying it.





Irish fact of the day: Ireland really doesn’t have snakes (except in zoos and such). Personally, this pleases me. However, they also don’t seem to have hummingbirds.

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