What Aran Sweater Market is known for
Selling hand and machine-knit Aran sweaters from Irish knitters, with its original shop on Inis Mór and further stores in Galway, Killarney and Dublin; a hand-knit sweater can take a knitter up to sixty days and roughly 100,000 stitches, using undyed báinín wool in cable-stitch patterns.
The Aran sweater itself is a relatively modern craft: knitting historians date its development to the 1890s-1930s, when the Congested Districts Board sent fishing instructors to the Aran Islands who introduced guernsey-knitting techniques already used in Britain; island knitters adapted them using thicker local wool, arriving at the cable-stitch, cream-colored báinín style recognized today. A popular story claims each family or fisherman had a unique pattern for identifying drowned bodies; that claim has been traced to John Millington Synge's 1904 play 'Riders to the Sea' and has been rejected by knitting historians including Richard Rutt and Alice Starmore as folklore rather than documented tradition. Commercial demand took off in the 1950s-60s after the Clancy Brothers wore Aran sweaters on television, including on The Ed Sullivan Show. The Aran Sweater Market sells both hand-knit and machine or hand-loom-knit sweaters sourced from Irish knitters and designers, from its original premises in Kilronan on Inis Mór alongside stores in Galway, Killarney and Dublin. A genuine hand-knit sweater, the company says, involves roughly 100,000 stitches and can take a knitter up to sixty days to complete.
Best for — Aran Sweaters, Traditional
Ireland
Where next
- Salamanca Wool Shop — Hobart
- Northampton Wools — United States
- Cotswold Woollen Weavers — United Kingdom
In the Journal
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