Geansai Gaelach - An Irish Jumper. My First Ever Garment Knitting Pattern is Live. 19 sizes.

The Geansaí Gaelach pattern is inspired by an exquisite Aran gansey, or geansaí, held at the National Museum of Ireland (obtained 1942). Showcased in the ‘Is Fashion Modern?’ exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (2017) and in the ‘Changing Ireland’ gallery in Dublin’s Collins Barracks (2025), it was and has remained an iconic representative of the Aran style.

 

The fishermen and the Herring Girls took their knitting wherever they worked. In this way the gansey style spread and developed all around the British Isles and Ireland from around the 19^th Century. The all-over combination of central panels, bobbles and cables that we now recognise as the Aran style, developed as recently as the early 1900’s in Ireland and has a well-documented history. Borne of the old ganseys, the Aran style became and remains colloquially Irish.

 

“The jerseys that the women knit are white or indigo... and on these square shaped garments they improvise, as a musician will improvise on some simple melody, their own individual fancies. There are circles and ellipses and zigzag lines and dots like a chain of pearls, and loops and lovers’ knots and lines like rippled water”.

 

This design is compiled by adapting just a few of the original motifs. It is an homage to the Ireland of my ancestors and to the knitting traditions I am so fortunate to have inherited through my mothers and grandmothers.

 

Geansai Gaelach is made using 5 ply (sports weight) Propagansey Corriedale wool. It comes in 19 sizes from (a): 47 cm to (s): 178 cm chest. Adult sizes are given in both female and male proportions.

The children’s sizes broadly equate to: 

(a): 0 to 6 months, (b): 6-18 months, (c): 1 to 2.5 years, (d): 2 to 4 years, (e): 4 to 6 years, (f): 6 to 8 years and (g): 8 to 10 years.

Sizes: (a to g): 240(280,330,440/520,640,760) metres. 

Sizes (h to s): Women’s:(930/1030,1130,1230,1360/1480,1640,1840,2070/2290,2450,2630)metres & Men’s: (1020/1150,1245,1300,1480/1640,1830,2030,2285/2520,2680,2860) metres.

Gauge: 28 sts x 36 rows = 10 cm.

Needles: 3.5 & 2.75 mm circular or double pointed needles and cables to suit (or those to obtain gauge).

Available at my Etsy store or at Ravelry. All sizes are within this pattern.

 

 This is the original, held at the National Museum of Ireland. Link HERE to a lovely story about Aran knitting.