TradeNames: One of the last communion dressmakers in Dublin won't give in to cheaper Chinese imports, says Rose Doyle

Carmel McDonnell reckons she's the last person in Dublin, if not the country, making personally designed, individual communion dresses to order.

"I'd nearly say I'm the last at it," she says with more than a hint of regret, "and I'm all my life at it. Years ago I used do wedding dresses too. Now my wedding dress customers are coming back with their daughters for communion dresses. All my customers come back."

The high season for communions is winding down but, for months now, she's been rising at 5.15am, travelling the road from Co Meath to be in Little Angel, Quality Communion Wear, her shop/workrooms at 11 Blessington Street, Dublin 7, by 7am. She's been in number 11 since 1972, having started up the road in number 32 in 1962. The area, she says, has been good to her.

Carmel McDonnell's life, and career, has been one of hard work, diligence and loyalty to her craft, customers and co-workers in the crowded, reassuringly old-fashioned Blessington Street premises. "The lads, my sons, say I should do up the shop," she says, eyeing the hanging satin ensembles, the matching bags and shining ornamentation. "I say no! No! I like it and my customers like it." Helen Carty, who works with her in the shop, likes it too. "Helen's lovely," Carmel assures, "and all the customers love her. She lives up the road. I couldn't keep the place going but for her."

Marie Sheridan worked in Little Angel for "a long, long time too", until she retired last year. She has, literally, been irreplaceable. "No one's training or wants to do the work anymore," Carmel says. She does all of the cutting and sewing herself these days. As she did in the beginning.

Carmel McDonnell studied dressmaking and design at the Grafton Academy. "Then I worked in Avril's, on St Stephen's Green. They made beautiful dresses for Brown Thomas. Then I went to London and worked in Lily and Skinners in the children's department. Then I came back and started my own little business in number 32 Blessington Street. I was making children's dresses for a lot of companies. I married Jerome (in 1964), a farmer from Donegal and went to live in Co Meath. But I still came in to work every single day. I always worked, even when I had the children, two lads, John and Jerome jnr."

She "drifted" into making ladies' dresses in the late 1960s, "when the mini was in fashion". But in the early 1970s, realising "it had to be one or the other", she decided to specialise in communion dresses. She does "little christening gowns too, and a suit for little boys. They keep us going out of season. And you get such a variety of customer here! So many stories."

But Carmel McDonnell is discreet and is not telling. She had a "very big business in the 1970s and 1980s, selling to all sorts of shops. People came from every part of the country and my husband Jerome used travel all over the country with deliveries. I worked twice as hard then as now - but of course I was younger."

Anything but diminished by age, she shows the back room where she does the pattern lay-out and cutting, then the downstairs room where hanging rows of Little Angel dresses await collection and where four sewing machines lie idle. Carmel's own machine is the only one in use these days.

Styles have come full circle. "First there were short dresses, then long and then midi length (a couple of inches off the ground)came in and has stayed in. People like fairly traditional styles, with gathered skirts. We do a straight one too, which people like."

Together we look at flouncy numbers, at the pattern she is presently working on and cutting. Time was when she used make to the customer's own design, but not any more. She uses mostly shiny satin, with a diamantebraid. Tulle and dull satin are popular too. But the devil is in the detail and there's a hellish amount of finely worked detail in a Little Angel communion dress.

Children have changed, Carmel McDonnell says. "They give the orders for their dress these days, telling their mothers what they'll wear. People still know we're here and come from all over. We do a great deal for customers who want dresses to fit, if a child is fat. There are more fat children than there used to be. Every fat child that comes in is eating and has a can in its hand."

We go through the order book, look at measurements recording a child with a 41" chest, another measuring 38".

"It's all the food they eat," Carmel says. "I've only noticed it in the last few years. When I started making communion dresses the average chest size went from 22" to 26". Now they start at around 26/28". Girls have got taller too. Though of course you still have slighter, small girls."

Blessington Street hasn't changed a lot, she says, but nearby Dorset Street certainly has, with many of the older shops closed now. Her serious working year starts in October, when she starts cutting and making dresses. Orders start coming in December. Things wind down at the end of April, when the last of the dresses are collected and paid for. "I never leave the shop once the season starts," she says. "When it gets seriously under way in January I'm here from 7am until 5.30pm every working day. It's a long, long day. When Helen is here (she works a three-day week) I might go at 4pm."

Carmel McDonnell is saddened by what she sees as the inevitable death of her trade. "Everything is being bought in from China," she says. "There are no girls training as dressmakers. They're all educated these days to go into offices or become fashion designers. They don't want to do the work - the ones who do work are the ones who make it. The trade has been very good to me - though I suppose it's been hard work too. When I retire there's a great business here to be taken over by anyone who is trained and prepared to work. But I'm not retiring yet! I've plenty of work still in me. I don't need to do it but I like it."

When the selling season ends she loves to "get out into the open again. I love gardening. I've got two acres and I've grown a magnificent herbaceous border, 130 metres long and 12ft wide. No TV for me, just let me out!" The death of her husband Jerome six years ago, "only made me keep on working. This is me. I'm happy and I enjoy what I'm doing."