Weaving traditional magic at Tríona Design

Having recently celebrated 30 years in the business, the Mulhern family at Tríona Design continues to weave their magic in Donegal, writes Maria Moynihan.

Maria Moynihan

7 January 2015

Weaving traditional magic at Tríona Design

Denis Mulhern, who is a fifth generation weaver, and started Tríona Design more than 30 years ago.

Sisters Catríona Mulhern and Tricia Meehan of Tríona Design, Ardara, Co Donegal

Sisters Catríona Mulhern and Tricia Meehan of Tríona Design, Ardara, Co Donegal.

Catríona Mulhern of Tríona Design, Ardara, Co Donegal.

Tricia, Denis, Catríona and Ann Mulhern, with the next generation, Daniel and Holly Meehan, at Tríona Design, Ardara, Co Donegal.

Tricia's daughter, Holly Meehan, pictured at Tríona Design, Ardara, Co Donegal.

Tricia's daughter Holly Meehan pictured at Tríona Design, Ardara, Co Donegal.

Her Sex & The City character Carrie Bradshaw might have been better known for her grá for Manolo Blahnik heels, but when Sarah Jessica Parker visits her Donegal holiday home she’s been known to pop into Tríona Design to pick up a tweed cape or two. “She’s so down to earth,” smiles Catríona Mulhern who – along with her parents Denis and Ann and her sister Tricia – recently celebrated 30 years in business in Ardara. It’s a town long-known for its links with the tweed industry. Indeed, Denis is a fifth-generation weaver, having watched his own father supplement the income from their family farm and raise eight children on its proceeds.

“She’s so down to earth,” smiles Catríona Mulhern who – along with her parents Denis and Ann and her sister Tricia – recently celebrated 30 years in business in Ardara. It’s a town long-known for its links with the tweed industry. Indeed, Denis is a fifth-generation weaver, having watched his own father supplement the income from their family farm and raise eight children on its proceeds.

“I was 14 on a Friday and I started working here on a Monday,” says Denis. “At 15 I was weaving full time. My father got a spot in his lung and was classed as TB and spent a year in Killybegs, so I was the breadwinner for a while.”

Like many young men at the time, Denis went to Britain in the 1970s to work in construction and there he met his wife Ann. The couple returned to Donegal and in 1984 Denis decided to set up his own textile business in a building that had originally housed weaving in Ardara, but was lying vacant except for occasional use, like for the annual agricultural show.

Starting a traditional textile business in the 1980s, however, was not easy.

“Banks didn’t want to know you,” he recalls. “We just struggled and struggled and struggled. When we had the wages paid on a Friday we had nothing left for ourselves.”

A commitment to quality, however, earned Tríona Design a good reputation and in 1992 it became the Fáilte Ireland-approved Donegal Tweed Visitor Centre, making it a stop on many itineraries of the leading bus tour companies.

Moreover, Tricia’s decision to join the family business, followed by Catríona, meant that it now had the potential to become relevant to a new generation.

“I studied business and marketing in Dublin and worked in Aer Lingus as cabin crew, got all that out of my system and said: ‘Right, I’m ready to move home now’,” laughs Catríona. “It was a massive part of me as a person.”

While the visitor market is a lifeline – Ann conducts guided tours where she explains the weaving process from fleece to fashion – the Mulherns emphasise that their tweeds are not just for tourists, with Catríona showing Irish Country Living some of their more stylish capes, car coats and hacking jackets in everything from traditional salt and pepper fleck to their trademark soft heathers.

“While the tourists come and they go, you have more repeat business with the Irish market. Therefore, you’ve got to diversify a lot quicker,” says Catríona.

“Tweed is not just associated with the older generation or the lecturer. It’s a trend now.”

Tríona Design has three in-house weavers whom visitors can watch at work. The majority of their capes and jackets are also cut and stitched in-store, though they do work with other suppliers including Hanly Woollen Mills in Tipperary and Mucros Weavers from Killarney.

While they have developed their website to incorporate an online store, Tríona Design is open year-round. Although Denis used this winter to train apprentice weavers for the summer season.

“The fabric is not being made just for show,” says Catríona, “it’s being made for production.

“When we can create employment and keep something authentic going as well, it makes it something really different and special.”

One apprentice is Patricia’s husband Derek, who is also a farmer. With Catríona’s own impending nuptials to Ciaran Cassidy, a garda and part-time sheep and cattle farmer, might this be part of the deal too?

“If I got him into it, I’d never see him,” laughs Catríona.