Weaving began at Ardfinnan with the arrival of monasteries, with Ardfinnan Abbey opening up the riverbank for pasture, where sheep produced parchement for books and wool for clothes. The monastic infrastructure was entrusted to the Knights Templar after Henry II came here in 1171 and supported possibly Ireland's oldest castle built by the Norman Crown in 1185, with Ardfinnan Castle's watermill tur
ned to fulling cloth that was woven and spun from sheep on the monastic grounds as an early woollen mill and one of the oldest in Ireland. In 1869 it was transformed from a mill that fed saints and clothed knights to a mill that clothed gentlemen. Ardfinnan had a strong tradition of wool spinning and weaving in the cottages surrounding the castle and the production of woollens as an early example of a vertically-integrated woollen mills, but had struggled after the devastation of the Great Famine. He saw how the Irish nation was once flourishing with the woollen industry under the Templars. By devoting himself to his labour of love with 12 employees and continuing the old-fashioned fulling methods used at Ardfinnan for hundreds of years, he was within a few years giving large employment to the skilled villagers and supported the shepherds from the banks in the river banks of the valley to the hills of the Comeragh, Galtee and Knockmealdown mountains. In days gone, the original mills on the bridge was patronised by the charitable Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller who could banquet with fresh bread in the round tower above and don themselves in warm tabards and mantle cloaks. A task of the knights was to protect pilgrims and travellers, which they welcomed openly in their great hall, giving loafs of bread and safe lodgings. The Knights Templar introduced woollen cloth fulling at the mill operating as a woollen mills in the 12th century it is said to impress the arrival of Prince John in 1185, explaining the continuous history of weaving traditions among the locals of Ardfinnan. One such local named William le Teynturer (William the Dyer) is recorded in the village in 1295. This was not the beginning of the woollen mill, for a monastic centre had been established here since the 6th century by Saint Finnan, to whom Ardfinnan is named after. It was here too that Saint Carthage took refuge and was granted the similar place of Lismore where he established his revered monastery and great centre of western learning. Indeed one of the oldest watermills in the world was uncovered downstream, also in the Suir Valley, at Killoteran, dating to the 4th century. The strategic crossing between Eastern and Southern Ireland being on the River Suir, it was one of the best trout and salmon fishing rivers in the British and Irish Kingdoms, naturally ideal for washing wool with its soft mountain water. Mrs Mulcahy's family had started the Rossmore Woollen Mills in Tipperary (once the wool mill of the Templar preceptory at Clonoulty) and the Dripsey Woollen Mills, Bluebell Woollen Mills and Glanworth Woollen Mills in Cork, a dynasty that went back to the old fulling mills. There's a story that she fell in love with the familiar picturesque scene of the medieval bridge and elevated castle as unique to Ardfinnan as Glanworth. Least to say of the Templar origins between Ardfinnan and Rossmore. Her father at Rossmore had famously exhibited Irish frieze for gentlemen's clothing and horse blankets, internationally for the first time, at the Great Exhibition in London, 1851. Frieze was the traditional Irish cloth at the time, highlighted when Daniel O'Connell wore a rugged frieze coat to represent the Irish people at his first sitting at the British parliament in London. The Ardfinnan hills were still flocked with the sheep breeds cultivated by the knights of old for their finest fleece and the locals were ready to be employed in the woollen industry once again as it began to prove ever more profitable with industrialisation. His dream having come to fruition at Ardfinnan, John retired to the castle in 1921 but sadly his wife Mrs Mulcahy had just passed away, followed by his first son Frank and then himself the following year. His grandsons were sent to Yorkshire to study textiles and return to lead the legacy. Having begun selling blankets of the finest fleece in the land, growing to supply tailoring houses in New York, London and Paris by the 1920s, it matured into the only woollen mills in Ireland completing all stages of woollen manufacture, from fleece to tailored suits in the 1940s. The hydropower from the mills electrified the village in an age of candlelight, providing lighting to its worker's new cottages and street lamps. An agricultural co-operative was set up for local farmers, followed by a Cycling and Athletics Club, handball club, tennis courts and a GAA club supported for the locality. Ardfinnan tweed was the most fashionable choice for suits in the region, with the Duke of St. Albans, writer Molly Keane, dancer Adele Astaire, Duke of Devonshire, writer Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Westminster, Count de la Poer, Earl of Donoughmore and Lord Waterford, being just a few patrons of note. Other supporters included Field Marshal Montgomery, the King of Sweden and the King of Spain. The suits and overcoats of Éamon de Valera, which he wore as President of the Council of the League of Nations, were also proudly made of Ardfinnan cloth. Perhaps most uniquely, King Edward VII, had his warmest motoring coat made out of the unique waterproof Galtee Cloth patented and woven at Ardfinnan. The King visited the mills en-route to his stay at Lismore Castle, indeed the sister castle of Ardfinnan Castle. Mecredy, first Director of Dunlop Tyres, also wore a Galtee Cloth motoring coat. In 1922 Ireland was declared a Republic and became the Irish Free State, with the mills of Ardfinnan becoming a Free State Woollen Mills, given the great task of making fabric for the new Irish army and an expanding civil service. While de Valera may have been a patron ever since having gone to the same school as the Mulcahy's of Ardfinnan, the state was patron to the mill into it's latest years and so too was the Irish airline Aer Lingus. Mulcahy, Redmond & Co. let it's employees go in 1973 after 104 without a strike, due to a competitive disadvantage, largely arising from Ireland's admission to the European free market in association with the onslaught of synthetics. Its workers protested for the first time, blaming the government. Ardfinnan Kntting Wool and knitted goods were exported abroad in the wake of the collapse of Irish woven textiles. Ardfinnan Knitting gained renown as the yarn used in the aran jumpers worn and populaised by Tipperary born American folk revival band The Clancy Brothers. Six generations later, Mr. Mulcahy leads the legacy of Ardfinnan in view of ever more sustainable and handmade Irish manufacturing principles. Still weaving and knitting small scale, we maintain our values to source a selection of Irish wool from real Irish sheep, crafted into soft scarves or fancy tweeds and finally "baptised" (milled/fulled) in the waters of the River Suir. Our generational knowledge of fabric, colour, style and lifestyle is something we feel we have a duty to share and in doing so we support and collaborate with a variety of Irish crafters to share the Ardfinnan story.
