Donegal Annual / Bliainiris Thír Chonaill. Vol. 2, No. 2 (1952)

customs examination at the various boundary stations between the two points. In another number it is hoped to frace mote ful;y the cvo1utioti of transport from the days of the "goat-tracks". DONEGAL IN INDUSTRY MANUFACTURE OF TiVEEDS Lor:rG before the_ State aided industrial dnve of recent years, Donegal ·was playing a big part in Ireland's Etrugg\e for economic salvation. Back through the pages of nineteenth eeritury history one finds names that are to-day world-known in the sphere of industry. Their progress from small beginnings makes reading of absorbing interest and to know about them is to find new hope for the future place which Ire- .land will hold in world affairs when the world, if ever, returns to anything like normality. In the:e pages only a few of the industrial firms in the County at present ·can come under review, since it is history that is . our concern. Thirty years from now, the .history of modern beginners can be written. Let •1s hope it will prove .as worthy of naration as thc:0e which we mention in the following pages \Yeavers of Donegal tweed in that county still use the we!l tried methods and hand looms of their forefathers, but their inherited skill is now linked with the most modern ideas of design, with the result that the industry 417. has see!1 two post-war revolutions -the production of a lightweight cloth which is now bdng used extensively in women's suits and dresses, and the bui:ding up of a big export market. Tweed has been handwoven amidst the hills of Donegal for centuries. The original type of tweed was made with a white or undyed warp and a brown speckled or black yarn woven across it giving .a flecked appearance as opposed to Harris tweed made in Scctland, whl'ch ha·3 a solid or self colour. If one examines a piece of granite from any of the Donegal hills ~t has very much the same colour as the origirial type of tweed and it is thought that this type was evolved be· cause of the protective colouring it gave against the background of granite hills. It is this type of twE:ed which is known throughout the world as Donegal tweed and this is one of the great difficulties in enendeavouring to introduce legislation to protect the ·n am e "Do~egal", as while this type of Donegal handwoven tweed. in a new, firmer nn<I more durable

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