The necessity of giving Christmas presents is the mother, not only of inventions, but of revivals. Among the latter I have been pleased to descry the re-appearance of the wall satchel. They have, on the one hand, utility; for what more convenient receptacle could be imagined for the hundred and one oddments that accumulate in male pockets and feminine vanity-bags than a deep and decorative pouch hanging upon the wall of the flat or tiny villa of to-day? This is not the age of drawered desks, and we have no space for the clutter of furniture or of anything else. The wall satchel is, of course, embroidered - work for busy fingers while the ear-phones are on. The chandeliers by which our grandmothers saw to perfect these labours of love, it is true, are past, but the task may well recapture for frayed modern nerves something of the sedate quiet that they enjoyed without undue fatigue to the eyes. These satchels have their possibilities, too, in the way of art, and they offer a way to win back, with needle and coloured thread, some of those variegated intricacies of design that beguiled the heart of the old Gaelic illuminators.
The Irish Times, December 20th, 1930