Why Persians make Donegal carpets...

Not everyone can afford a Donegal carpet. But there’s nothing new about that — when the first factory opened in Killybegs, most of its own employees could scarcely afford shoes, let alone a carpet.

Donegal carpets are still expensive. There’s a fine version coming up for auction at Sheppard’s on February 13. It was made in the late 20th-century to a design based on the Book

of Kells. The carpet measures 629 x 428 cm (20.5 x 14 foot), boasts 25 knots per square inch, and is estimated to sell for between €10,000 and €15,000. Would you walk on it, shoes or no shoes?

The first Donegal carpets were made in the late 1890s when the Scottish industrialist, Alexander Morton, opened a factory in Killybegs. Morton was head of a textile manufacturing firm in Ayrshire. Although his factories already made machine-woven rugs, he wanted to make handmade carpets like those popular from Turkey and Persia.

A chance meeting with a member of Ireland’s Congested Districts Board pointed him towards Donegal. The county had two things to offer: a ready supply of willing workers and an almost infinite number of sheep.

The workers, who were mostly women, hadn’t made carpets before but many of them had worked in lace-making and embroidery. The local sheep farmers, spinners and dyers got in on the act. They couldn’t afford the carpets that they made but the enterprise was a big source of employment. The Killybegs factory was followed by others at Kilcar, Annagry, and Crolly. By 1906, the four employed 600 between them.

The carpets were handwoven in the same way as Turkish and Persian carpets. The early ones used traditional eastern motifs (the irony of a Persian-looking carpet being made on the north-west coast of Ireland hadn’t struck anyone yet!).

Later designs used the stylised floral patterns of the British Arts and Crafts movement. Those by the architect and designer Charles Voysey were especially popular. The company also made a number of carpets in the Celtic Revival style.

Donegal carpets were purchased for Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, and the White House in Washington. These early carpets are very valuable indeed. In May 2013, a Donnemara carpet (1902), designed by Charles Voysey, sold at Christie’s, London, for £15,000 (around €17,079); another (1905) had sold in Christie’s New York for $85,000 (around €68,090) in 2003.

Most of their work was made to commission. One of such piece, an immense blue carpet inscribed with a harp, a gold link border, and Celtic motifs, sold at Mealy’s of Castlecomer for €22,428 in July 2015. The carpet was commissioned by New Ireland Life Assurances for their Dublin office in 1964.

The factory closed in 1987, reopened as a FÁS scheme in 1997, and was purchased by three local businessmen in 1999. All their carpets were handmade in Donegal. Much of their business, in these years, has been the making of reproductions of those extra special Donegal carpets’ originally commissioned for Irish public buildings.

“The last carpet we made was in 2001. It was commissioned by Mary McAleese and it went to Áras an Úachtaráin,” says Alannah Love, who worked in the factory. The carpet replaced one made in 1948, also by Donegal Carpets, and followed the same design but with a different background colour. The original is now on display at in the Donegal Carpets and Maritime Heritage Centre, Killybegs.

“We don’t make carpets any more but the original equipment is still there and some of the former employees use it for demonstrations,” says Michael McDaid, who ran the factory from 1999 until its closure.

Somewhere along the line, Donegal carpets’ company archive was destroyed. So nobody now knows at which stage in its history “Donegal Design Carpets’ were made in Iran. A number of these are included in the sale at Sheppard’s.

Of various shapes and sizes, their estimates range from between €2,500 and €3,500 to between €8,000 to €12,000. Most are in the Arts and Crafts style and the designs are catalogued as “after” Charles Voysey or “after” G K Roberston. If a genuine Irish-made carpet is what you’re after, you’ll be disappointed.These are modern, Iranian reproductions.

While by no means cheap, they’re a lot more affordable than an original Arts and Crafts carpet. And, when it comes to carpets, the Iranians know what they’re doing. “In some ways they’re finer than the carpets made in Donegal,” says Philip Sheppard. “A Donegal carpet would typically have 16 knots per square inch. These have 25 knots. The Iranian craftsmanship is superb.”

There’s something wonderful about the notion of designing Persian carpets to be made in Ireland and then, 100 years later, reproducing them in Iran.

Sheppard’s KNOTWARP&WEFT18 auction takes place in Durrow, Co Laois, next Tuesday, February 13 at

10.30 am. It previews in Kilkenny Castle tomorrow and Sunday (see sheppards.ie). See also Paul Larmour’s article Donegal Carpets in the Irish Arts Review Yearbook

(1990/1991)