The businessman, Pádraig Ó Síocháin, used the drawings to illustrate a brochure to promote Aran knitwear worldwide during the 1960s and 1970s. The exhibition focuses on the unique marketing story of the Aran knitwear as well as highlighting some of the traditions associated with the stitches.

Aran jumpers were made in their thousands and exported and sold all over the world as a symbol of Ireland and a product of traditional folk art. The Aran jumper, the Aran sweater, the Aran gansey or geansaí were the names by which it was known from Kilronan to Dublin and from New York to Tokyo. The women lived not just on the Aran Islands, but also in many other places especially along the west coast. They worked for the small merchants who sold the garments locally and also for the bigger businesses which helped develop the industry to one which achieved worldwide appeal.

Two of the main business people who drove the industry during this era were Muriel Gahan & Pádraig Ó Síocháin. Muriel Gahan was a multi-talented lady, who ran the Country Shop on St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin from the early 1930s to the late 1970s. She encouraged the knitters by recognising their talent and skill. She persuaded them to continue to add new stitches and produce a unique product which had both aesthetic appeal, and also comfort and style. Lawyer turned businessman, Pádraig Ó Síocháin, through his company, Galway Bay Products, gave the knitters a ready outlet for their product in the 1960s and 1970s and built up a customer base in Europe and the United States.

Romantic stitches

The jerseys that the women knit are white or indigo... and on these square shaped garments with round necks they improvise, as a musician will improvise on some simple melody, their own individual fancies. There are circles and ellipses and zigzag lines and dots like a chain of pearls, and loops and lovers’ knots and lines like rippled water.
C.C. VYVYAN, On Timeless Shores, 1957

Clara Vyvyan visited the Aran Islands for the first time in the 1930s. Her words describe so eloquently the way in which the knitting of richly patterned jumpers developed. Traditional knitters did not use written patterns and they found their influences from their local environment and events in their lives. As the numbers of knitters grew from the mid 1930s, and as the knitters explored their own creative abilities, the patterns became more intricate. Some of the stitches were given names – honeycomb, trellis, cable, tree of life – and romantic meanings.
 

The evolution of a commercial business

Muriel Gahan set up the Country Shop on Dublin’s St. Stephen’s Green in 1931. For the next forty eight years she provided the women of Aran with a retail outlet for their jumpers.

Muriel was a lifelong supporter of Irish traditional crafts. She supported the women in the discovery of their own creativity and helped them to develop their craft. She believed that tradition survived by “ever starting afresh and moving onwards.” She actively encouraged the designing of new patterns.

The Country Shop was the first premises in which Aran jumpers were sold. Ó Máille’s of Galway followed in the late 1930s and Cleos, which was then situated on South Anne Street, Dublin, followed in the late 1940s.

In the early 1950s, the businessman, Pádraig Ó Síocháin started selling Aran jumpers through his company, Galway Bay Products. By the late 1950s he was exporting jumpers to the UK. His Japanese customers held him in particular regard and the last Aran knitwear from his company was sold in Japan in 2002.

Marketing the product

In the late 1950s Pádraig Ó Síocháin met the artist Seán Keating, RHA, who was also a frequent visitor to the Aran Islands. He commissioned Keating for drawings to illustrate a marketing brochure. The brochure was in four languages, English, Irish, French and German and was titled Sculpture in Wool – Aran, Loch Garman. It was designed and written to appeal to a romantic vision of the knitters and their lives.

In this brochure Ó Síocháin described Aran knitting as, “creative folk art of exquisite beauty and quality, and is the only one of its kind in the world. Its origins are both distant and fascinating... In their art and craft work are designs associated with their Far East ancestry, and with the great Celtic Empire and Civilisation” Ó Síocháin made a point of never interfering with the knitters’ traditional patterns. He believed that the patterns had a direct link with an ancient past. From the late 1950s he supplied the knitters with knitting wool from Dripsey Woollen Mills in Cork. He also taught the knitters to manufacture a product to fit standard sizes.

Pádraig's son Ruairi made a video of life on the Aran Islands in 2001. See below:

Knitting in Ireland

Knitting was introduced to Ireland sometime in the 1600s. Philanthropists rapidly established knitting schools throughout the country to teach the skill to local workers. Once established as an industry in the 18th century, the production and sale of socks and stockings took off a pace and provided a ready and welcome cash income for thousands of households.

The wearing of knitted garments other than socks and stockings was not traditional in Ireland. The preference until the beginning of the 20th century was for garments made from woven wool and linen.

One theme of this exhibition is one of Ireland's great exports in recent decades – the Aran jumper and its romantic stitches. A second theme of the exhibition is the reality of traditional clothing at the beginning of the 20th century as illustrated in a series of ink drawings by the artist Seán Keating, RHA.

Realist sketches

Seán Keating, PPRHA, HRA, HRSA (1889-1977) was born in Limerick where he undertook his initial artistic training. In 1911 Keating moved to the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin where he continued his training under luminaries such as William Orpen, Oliver Sheppard and James Ward. Keating first visited the Aran Islands in 1913 with his friend, Irish stained glass artist Harry Clarke.

Throughout his life Keating used his academic artistic training to develop a very particularised method of work which is best described as Irish Realism.

Keating became well known for his work on the Aran Islands and the group of drawings included in this exhibition are based on earlier sketches, paintings and photographs of the area. This was not unusual for the artist as he often re-used material that he found to be successful. Elements from this group of sketches are to be found in well-known work of various dates including Seascape with Figures (c.1960), Ulysses in Connemara (1947-1950) and Economic Pressure (1950).

Aran knitwear today

Aran jumpers were hand knit in their thousands every year and are now machine knit in their thousands every day. Their story is that of the women of Árainn whose creativity at the beginning of the 20th century was initially promoted sensitively and later developed commercially. The image of a densely patterned Aran jumper became an iconic image of Ireland by the middle of the 1950s when the folk group, The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, adopted the jumper as their stage dress.

Is it still an iconic image today? The introduction of fleeces and micro fibre outer wear for warmth and protection have impinged on the sales of knitted jumpers worldwide. The patterns and the stitches of the original knitters do remain, however, and they have become part of the vocabulary of fashion design both at home and abroad.