How a small isle in Galway Bay inspired the Inis Meáin knitwear brand.

There are three Aran islands in the mouth of Galway Bay and Inishmaan sits southeast of Inishmore and northwest of Inisheer. Dubliner Mr Tarlach de Blácam was in his twenties when, in 1973, he and his wife, Ms Áine Ní Chonghaile, moved to Inishmaan. They loved life on the island, despite its rigours, but were initially unclear about how they would make a living. Clarity came in the form of the knitwear brand they founded together – Inis Meáin, a variation on the island’s name – which is now in demand from Mayfair to Munich, and from Texas to Tokyo.

The island’s women had been hand-knitting at home for centuries, and made classic Aran sweaters for tourist shops on Ireland’s west coast. Mr de Blácam wasn’t particularly excited about the sweaters, which he describes as “bog standard”, but he was interested in the possibilites a viable knitwear business could offer young islanders, many of whom were leaving to pursue opportunities on the Irish mainland. It was quickly clear to him that he needed to drive up the quality, which is why, he remembers, “we brought in knitwear designers and technicians to help us with the latest machinery”.

It’s worth pausing to note that when Mr de Blácam first arrived on Inishmaan, the island had no electricity and no running water. The Inis Meáin workshop was initially powered by a generator. Supplies were unloaded from a ferry but, because there was no harbour, islanders had to row out to it in small wooden boats to collect their purchases. “It was pretty hairy in the winter to be taking cargo off the boats,” he says. Once they’d made it back to the shore, the islanders picked up their vessels and carried them up the beach beyond the water’s reach, an activity that inspired the Inis Meáin logo (an upturned boat being carried by three men). Mr de Blácam also explains something that’s long been a mystery, at least to this writer – the impractical colour of the classic Aran sweater. “In Inish, this was Sunday best,” he says. “That’s why they’re white and had these intricate patterns. Otherwise it makes no sense.”

Inis Meáin’s contemporary sweaters carefully balance two concerns. The first is a faithful adherence to the culture and colours of the island itself, and the second is Mr de Blácam’s determination “to use the best fabrics we can find”. Anyone who is expecting a brand so rooted in tradition to produce heavy and scratchy clothes will be astonished by the tactile sophistication of Inis Meáin’s knits. The linen, which is made from European yarn, deserves a special mention because Inis Meáin’s linen jacket is one of the company’s best sellers. “We had a long-time US retailer who bought our knitted jacket, which was always part of the islanders’ clothing, and advertised it as a ‘pub jacket’,” says Mr de Blácam. It’s been sought after ever since. While the fabrics used by the company are luxurious, and include Mongolian cashmere, silk and South American alpaca wool, the colours are inspired by the island. “Our palette is what we see in the landscape around us,” says Mr de Blácam. The resulting collection of knits is as individual as the place in which they’re made.