Intro to the Aran Islands and the History of the Aran Sweater

Beauty and Mythology

With their gorgeous cable stitches with lovely names like honeycomb, moss, trellis, and tree of life, Aran sweaters have become a symbol of Irishness around the world. They also have beautiful folklore attached to them. Some sellers have been so skilled in their use of myths to market their goods that it’s now difficult to discern fact from fiction.

I wanted to purchase an authentic Aran sweater, like any good Irish-American would, so I began to research how to go about that. My first search was on Amazon, just for giggles. I found a listing for a gorgeous sweater that my husband would look great in! The description said, “Irish Aran Knitwear 100% Irish Merino Wool …authentically Irish – Made by [name of company redacted.] This wool sweater is proudly made in Ireland.” The price for the sweater was (and I am not making this up!) $29.37 with free shipping. The 1-star reviews of the poor-quality sweater shipped from China were not surprising to me. The odd thing to me is that it had been at all surprising to the buyers. $29.37? Really? What were you thinking?

I will admit that my concept of what “authentic” means has changed and actually softened quite a bit after doing this research. Few things are as clearly black and white as the above example (but that’s for another post.) Although you can’t be sure you are getting an authentic Aran or Irish sweater just because you pay a lot for it, believe me when I tell you that you will never get one for $29.37.

The questions I saw online from others looking for an authentic Aran sweater and the questionable and sometimes-bizarre responses they received, convinced me that others would like to know the info that I researched. In this series of four posts (reflecting my latest obsession) I’ll share what I’ve learned and delve into the history of Aran Sweaters within the context of the history of the islands. 

• Part 1. – Intro, the Aran Islands and the History of the Aran Sweater
• Part 2. – Myths, Facts and Fictions – I’ll examine the many claims made and see how true they are.
• Part 3. – Authenticity – How do I know if I’m getting an authentic sweater?
• Part 4: – Where can I buy one? (now that I know what I’m buying!)

Well, let’s get started!

1961: Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem make America swoon
(over their sweaters!)

Even before the Irish folk musicians, the late Clancy brothers and Tommy Makem, appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in March 1961 wearing what would become their trademark Aran fisherman sweaters, the demand for them in the US was rising. After their Ed Sullivan performance, the demand skyrocketed!

The demand had long ago exceeded the ability of the small number of women hand-knitting on the Aran Islands to keep up with the supply. Many were being made and exported by others on the mainland of Ireland. The Clancys’ sweaters were knit on the mainland by Betty McGillivray née Duggan in the Aran style for a shop (called Babington) in their hometown of Carrick-on-Suir in county Tipperary. They were purchased by the Clancys’ mother who sent them to the musicians in New York during a cold spell. 

Mist, Magic & Melancholy?

Writing about the Celts of antiquity, in his book Celtic Mythology, scholar Proinsias Mac Cana wrote,

“…the popular notion of them…has undoubtedly been colored by eighteenth and nineteenth century romanticism with its susceptibility to mist, magic, and melancholy.”

The same might be said of the Aran Islands and their namesake sweaters in the 20th & 21st century.

Despite frequent claims that the Aran sweater is an ancient Celtic design, there is simply no evidence for that. Although the Aran Islands have been populated since about 3,000 BC, and the Celts first arrived in Ireland about 500 BC ,the sweater’s origin dates back only to the 1890s!

The evidence supports that the Aran sweater design is based on the less complex patterned blue Fisherman’s Ganseys worn by fishermen in the coastal areas of Britain, across the Irish sea, since the end of the 18^th century. These ganseys were, in turn, developed from an even simpler predecessor- the fisherman’s jersey or guernsey originating from the Channel Islands in about the 17th century (and some say earlier.) The translation for the words “sweater” or “jumper” in Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx, are “geansaí“, “geansaidh,” and “gansee“; all loanwords from the English words “guernsey and gansey.”

Oileáin Árann / The Aran Islands

The Aran Islands, or Oileáin Árann in Irish, are three small islands that lay in the North Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of Galway Bay, in Ireland, between county Galway and county Clare. They currently have a population of about 1,350 people. They are known for speaking Irish; however, they are also fluent in English and it, too, is commonly spoken. Ferries and small planes operate between mainland Ireland and the islands. The islands are mostly limestone with no naturally occurring topsoil, and therefore no trees. There are seven prehistoric forts on the islands as well as other prehistoric sites.

• Inis Mór / Inishmore – “Big Island” (Árainn is the official name but is rarely used.)
  • Although it is only about 12 square miles in size, it is the largest of the Aran Islands and the second largest off-shore island in Ireland. It has a population of about 900; it was 2,500 in 1841. Historically, the people farmed, raised cattle and sheep, and fished for subsistence. It is now a popular “staycation” destination for the Irish people and vacation destination for people across the world. Tourism is its primary industry. It is the farthest west of the islands, and two small islets lie off its northwestern tip. A lighthouse stands on one of them.

• Inis Meáin / Inishmaan – “Middle Island”
  • The second largest and middle island, with a population of about 200, it is the least populated and least visited island. It has been called a “precious sanctuary of Irish Cultural tradition.” The Irish author and playwrite, J.M. Synge, spent summers here and wrote about the place.

• Inis Oírr / Inisheer – “East Island” (sort of, the tranlation is a little murky.)
  • Called “the little sister of Aran,” it is the smallest and the most easterly/southernly of the three islands with a population of about 350.
    
    

The Islands in the 1800s: Send us boats or send us coffins.

Life was hard in Ireland in the 1800s, and the Aran islands were no exception. In his 2018 book, On the Edge, Diarmaid Ferriter paints a detailed picture of life on the islands. Worsening poverty existed for decades before the famine. The islands escaped the worst of horrors of the famine since the potato blight never reached them. But an Irish agricultural and economic crisis in 1879-1880, opportunistic landlords led to land wars, and another economic crisis in 1885-6 created a dire situation on the islands. The population was at its peak and the subsistence small farming and fishing methods were not enough to support the residents. In 1886, the islands’ new Catholic priest, Fr. Michael O’Donoghue, sent his famous telegram to the chief secretary in Dublin: “Send us boats or send us coffins.”

The telegram, along with many other similar pleas for help throughout Ireland, eventually worked. The islands received a grant to improve their harbor facilities and in the following years, the Inis Mór fishing industry was created. In 1891, the government wrote off the islanders’ tax debt and set up the Congested Districts Board (CDB) to help and encourage economic growth. In a report from an inspector in the spring of 1893, The Aran people were deemed to be “fairly industrious and hard working and may, I think, be depended upon to take advantage of any opportunity that may be afforded to improve their circumstances.” They supplied a pier and a fishery store and brought in Scottish Fisherman (who no doubt, wore their ganseys) to teach better fishing methods. The CDB encouraged the local people to weave and knit garments to sell. They eventually bought out the Aran Islands from its owners and resold the land to the tenants, but not until about 1922.

Across Ireland, weaving and knitting and spinning were in decline due to the industrial revolution being long underway and the arrival of mass machine-spun textiles to the mainland. I always thought it was curious that it was knitting that the CDB encouraged at that time. That is worth some future research I think!

A woman interviewed by Alice Starmore (and quoted in her book, Aran Knitting,) recalled that Aran women, including her mother, were knitting “navy blue Scottish ganseys,” when she was a child. She recalled, “The Scottish fishermen were always back and forth, and wore fine ganseys with many patterns,” which her mother and the other women attempted to copy. She stated despite the knitting of ganseys being commonplace on the islands, “no one considered what they did to be anything but a Scottish gansey.”

The women eventually began creating similar sweaters using simple bainín– which is undyed yarn – rather than the traditional navy blue they had been using to copy the Scottish ganseys. Initially, the yarn was made with unscoured course wool made from the fleece of the Galway sheep that were raised on the islands and in the west of Ireland. The sweaters retained much lanolin which gave them waterproofing and insulation qualities.

The 20th Century Boom

In 1907, writer John Millington Synge published his book, The Aran Islands after spending five summers there. Synge reported that some of the younger men on Inis Mór had taken to wearing “the usual fisherman’s jerseys.”

Muriel Gahan, with a group of other Irish women, established the Country Shop in Dublin in 1935 to sell local crafts to the public. Muriel visited Inis Mór and purchased sweaters to sell in the shop. The following year, German textile historian Heinz Edgar Kiewe found an Aran Sweater for sale in the shop.

Unfortunately, Kiewe later published books in which he made some fantastical and impossible claims about the origins and history of the Aran sweater. Despite knowing that they were untrue, he never rescinded his claims. Those stories still circulate freely today. We will examine some of them in the next post in this series. 

By the 1940s, the unique Aran sweaters made of undyed Aran wool had established their own identity. It has been said that the first Aran knitting pattern was published in the 1940s by Patons of England. The word was out, and the Aran sweater was about to become iconic.

In 1950, Princess Grace Kelly was photographed wearing an Aran sweater while sailing. Steve McQueen and other Hollywood stars were also photographed wearing them which foreshadowed the Aran Sweater craze in the US.

Cottage Industry

Una McDonagh, an Inis Oírr native, in an article posted on KnittingTours.com, describes a visit from Irish lawyer, language activist, journalist, and entrepreneur, Pádraic Ó Siocháin to her her grandparents‘ home on Inis Oírr. He had come to inquire about setting up a business relationship to market and export sweaters to America.

Ó Siocháin incorporated Galway Bay Products, Ltd. In 1955. He recruited knitters from all three islands to knit the sweaters. They were provided the wool and taught about sizing. They were paid for their handwork by the ounce. The sweaters were marketed in the US and Canada

Padraic’s efforts resulted in a 1956 Vogue magazine feature on the Aran sweater, and what followed was a sales boom of Aran Sweaters that had Marilyn Monroe wearing them in her 1959 film “Let’s Make Love,” and Steve McQueen and other Hollywood stars photographed wearing the garments. The sales boom lasted for decades. 

By the time the Clancy brothers appeared in New York in 1961 wearing their sweaters, America was already in the midst of this growing sweater craze; when they appeared on Ed Sullivan, they mightily fueled the fire. Americans couldn’t get enough, and the women of the Aran Islands couldn’t keep up with the demand, leading to other local stores and larger companies on the mainland hiring more women to knit the sweaters for them. This trend has only increased over the past six decades. Most of the sweaters you see for sale at quite affordable prices-and some expensive ones as well – may not even be made on in Ireland at all, but rather machine knit in China or somewhere else. (Another post about authenticity is in the works!) 

Six decades later

The popularity of the sweaters has waxed and waned in cycles over the years. The sweaters are far more popular outside of Ireland than inside. There are few sheep left on the Aran islands and most (but not all) of the sweaters today are made of the softer Marino wool, rather than the coarser wool from the Galway Sheep, which used to be plentiful on the islands and supplied the bainin that was used in the early sweaters.

Currently there is high demand for Aran sweaters, which has a few explanations.. A character played by Chris Evans In the 2019 film Knives Out wore a traditional Aran sweater that made many swoon. Taylor Swift wore one in promotional photos for her 2020 album, Folklore, which sparked a British Vogue article. The demand was increased more by the 2022 film Banshees of Inisherin; and the wonderful sweaters that Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and Barry Keoghan wore in the film. While they were certainly beautiful hand-knit Irish sweaters, they were not Aran sweaters. They were original creations knit by Delia Barry, who lives in the east coastal town of Greystones, south of Dublin. 

Symbol of Irishness

In the 130 years since the CDB encouraged knitting on the islands, the Aran sweater has developed a rich history, inextricably linked to the history of the islands and people from which it originated. It ranks high among the most well-known symbols of Irishness. Traditionally hand-knit Aran sweaters are treasures that can demand a high price, which many people are willing to pay to add a piece of Irish history and tradition to their wardrobes.

Although most sweaters today are machine-knit, one can still find a few women on the Aran Islands carrying on a tradition with knitting needles in hand, selling their handwork in small shops. We’ll meet a couple in the final post of this series.

If you got this far, thanks for reading! I’d love to see your comments. 😊

NEXT: Part 2. – Myths, Facts and Fictions – What’s the Truth?