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Sourcing fleece for Irish grown and Irish woven cloth

  • 04-06-2012 12:37pm
    #1
    ladhrann
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 445 ✭✭


    Hello all,

    As you may or may not be aware, due to the rise of disposable fashion and synthetic fibres, very little Irish cloth is still woven. Due do the rise of air-conditioning and car centred suburbs what is woven is made from ultra light imported Australian fibre.

    I am investigating the possibility of having yarn spun from locally reared sheep and then having a Donegal tweed cloth woven from that yarn. I have a mill in mind, and am waiting to hear back from the spinners.

    In order to produce a high-quality cloth ideally I would need to work with a farmer or farmers in order to manage the quality and make-up of the raw fleece before it is sent to the spinner.

    This cloth would be a newer version of the hard-wearing tweed of the past and ideally be an example of adding value locally instead of shipping fleece off to be mulched or turned into insulation/felt as is the current situation.

    I would also like to incorporate rare breeds such as the Galway (our only native) in the mix but would be open to other longwools such as the Leicester or Wensleydale to add lustre or handle to the yarn.

    I'm floating this idea here to see if anyone's interested.
    For Irish farmers to get or add value for their fleece means adhering to stricter controls, i.e. sorting and grading as each animal is shorn, pulling put kemp or belly hair and leg wool and crutching (cutting off the stained tail hair) the animal before shearing. Black or pigmented animals could not be shorn with a main flock of white sheep. Marking/painting an animal should not be done at all

    Anyone who was interested could of course get a piece of cloth for themselves.


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