In Annagry, a small village outside the town of Dungloe in the beautiful wilds of West Donegal there is a craft shop selling the usual attractions of such an area – handknit Arans, hand made lace and mairtins. The craft shop has a sign outside saying ‘Carrickfin Crafts’ and it is known in this Gaeltacht area as Comhaircummann na Rossan Teo – the Rosses Co Operative Ltd., it is a co-operative in the true and original sense of the word. Such a craft shop is by no means an unusual sight in the Gaeltacht areas. For it to be controlled, as a co-operative, by the local hand-knitters, is indeed unusual.

It originated in the frustrations and feelings of exploitation that the hand-knitters of the area experienced each time they sold their hand knits to the local ‘agent’. The agent supplied the knitters, mainly women, with wool and paid them per ounce, to knit Aran garments for the home and foreign market. The ‘agent’ was a local business man with no defined territory – he made his own contract with the knitters and standard rates did not exist for workers. The system was highly exploitative. The knitters of the Rosses were highly dissatisfied with both the incomes they received and their contract of work.

Out of this discontent and following an article entitled ‘Exploitation claim by knitters’ in the Sunday Press, the West Donegal Community Project, a project of the National Pilot Schemes to Combat Poverty in Ireland, got together with a group of the local knitters and started the knitters co-op. In addition to increasing the income of the knitters, the co-op has provided a valuable social outlet for the women, in what can be quite an isolated area. They have come to assert themselves through the experience of the co-op, committee and have gained confidence in their ability to manage their own affairs independent of men and particularly of the agent.