Aran jumper

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The Aran jumper is a style of jumper named after the Aran Islands in Ireland. Traditionally, they are an off-white colour, with cable patterns on the body and sleeves. Originally the jumpers were knitted using unscoured wool which made the garments water-resistant.

Most historians agree that Aran knitting was invented in the 1890s or early 1900s when fishermen and their wives from other regions in Britain and Ireland came to help improve the fishing industry in the Islands. They came with the existing tradition of knitted guernsey jumpers. Local women began knitting their own version, with thicker local wool, all-over patterning, and different construction.

The first commercially available Aran knitting patterns were published in the 1940s and jumper exports from Ireland to the United States began in the early 1950. ^{[<span title="This claim needs references to reliable sources. (December 2025)">citation needed</span>]}

While historically Aran garments were knitted by hand, today they are mostly either knit by machine or on a hand loom. Machine knitted jumpers have less complex patterns, since many of the traditional stitches cannot be reproduced this way. Hand-looming allows more complicated stitches to be used, and can be almost indistinguishable from hand knit