Donegal Tweed and Handweaving

Donegal tweed is a wool cloth with coloured flecks spun into it, and the flecking is the point: seen close, a plain-looking brown jacket turns out to be shot through with green, rust and blue. It was a cottage industry across the southwest of the county, woven at home on wooden looms and collected by agents who paid by the length. Most cloth sold as Donegal now comes off power looms in mills, but handweaving survives in and around Ardara, where you can watch a loom worked and see the difference in the selvedge and the weight of the finished cloth. Hand knitting, particularly the heavy sweaters, runs alongside it in the same villages.

What you actually see

• The hand loom - a wooden loom worked by foot and hand, still in use.
• The flecked yarn - the coloured nepps that give the cloth its depth.
• Ardara - the village at the centre of what survives of the trade.
• Hand knitting - the heavy sweaters produced in the same households.

When to go

Year-round, since this is indoor work and Donegal weather makes tweed easy to appreciate in any month. Demonstrations run mainly on weekdays and are less reliable at weekends and in deep winter. A tweed fair is held in Ardara in the warmer months. Ring ahead if you want to see a loom actually running rather than standing idle.

Honest expectations

Most of what is labelled Donegal tweed is mill-woven, and the difference is not obvious to an untrained eye, so you are relying on the seller being straight with you. Genuine handwoven lengths are expensive and usually sold by the metre rather than made up. Some demonstrations are short and pitched at coach parties. Shops outnumber weavers heavily.

Nearby

Slieve League and the Glengesh Pass are both within half an hour of Ardara.