A weekly knitting club that started in a nun’s kitchen almost 30 years ago has grown into an enterprise that looks set to be Ireland’s first Traveller-women-led craft business.
Shuttleknit, based in Wicklow town, employs 14 people, 12 of them Traveller women drawing on what they love and value to inspire their work.
They believe their success could be a blueprint for Traveller women interested in entrepreneurship everywhere.
Showing The Irish Times around their workshop, co-founder Kathleen Berry and her daughter Anne, describe their inspiration for the designs, colour choices and yarns amid a mesmerising array of gloves, scarves, hats, headbands, ponchos and jumpers.
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Kathleen recalls how, in the mid-1990s local nun Sr Catriona Geraghty invited Traveller women, many living by the roadside, into her home “for knitting and a chat”.
“I had four young children. You were just rushing all the time, get them out to school ... Then you were looking forward to going up, to them two hours to yourself in Sr Caitríona’s kitchen.”
Sr Caitríona got funding for several knitting machines, found someone to train the women, and soon they were producing jumpers, cardigans and accessories.
In 2001, with the support of the Wicklow Traveller Group (WTG), the women set up a workshop in the WTG premises at Ceart, in Crinion Park, Wicklow. The following year Shuttleknit was founded.
Kathleen recalls producing fine-yarn knitwear for the Avoca Handweavers label, as well as designer Lyn Mar whose designs were sold in the United States and Harrods in London.
A desire grew to design and produce their own ranges. “It was myself and [coworker] Patricia at the start,” says Kathleen. “We’d be out and see something. We’d get ideas that way – look at stuff, come back here to the machines and try it, see if it worked out.”
Although it is a small social enterprise – the women’s roles are funded by Pobal – Shuttleknit is punching high and has big ambitions.
“We really feel Shuttleknit’s time has come,” says community chief executive Emma Connors. “I cannot think of anything that symbolises heritage more than what these women do.”
Despite having neither a marketing manager nor a budget, it has secured sales contracts from participation in events such as Showcase at the RDS. It now has funding from the Irish Heritage Council, which will imminently publish its first Traveller heritage strategy, to further develop its brand.
Anne has worked at Shuttleknit since leaving school, and her daughter Maggie (18) is following her into the craft.
“I enjoy working here. I work with Mammy, my sister in law, my best friend. I love seeing the newer designs. I do feel pride in it. We know what we are making, we choose the colours. They are ours,” she says.
Their Traveller identity, essential to Shuttleknit, is seen in their choice of bold colours and the horse and wheel designs in some of their pieces. Anne at times has been nervous about whether people would react positively.
“People know they are buying from Travellers but there is always a fear,” she says.
Kathleen would “never hide” that she is a Traveller. “But it is a bit harder when you are a Traveller.”
Asked did she ever think, knitting in Sr Caitríona’s kitchen, that she would one day be a heritage fashion designer and supervisor in a uniquely indigenous social enterprise, she smiles.
“No we did not think it was going to come to this. It had been a very long road, But I am a very determined person. I always say it to my own girls: ‘If you want something bad enough you will achieve it.”
Emma Connors believes not only that Shuttleknit can flourish further, but that it can be replicated.
“It would be fantastic if it led to really supporting more Traveller women, in other counties, who are interested in enterprise.”
Shuttleknit will be at Gifted in the RDS from Wednesday.
