<bcr1@bee.net> wrote in message news:42D3839C.25078.8A99AF@localhost... > My wife brought to my attention a company offering a unique pattered > Aran sweater for every Irish clan. I said that this was probably a > benign > con. Is this opinion correct? Likewise the crest for every clan is > questionable. Any opinions? > Re the Aran sweaters - as I understand it, traditionally, fishermen on the west coast did not learn to swim, so as to drown more quickly in the event of an accident. The different patterns on the sweater were not for different families, but were sufficiently different so that the knitter could identify a particular sweater, and thus a particular body. I am of course open to correction on that. -- Trish Dublin, Ireland

The way I heard it is the mothers knitting the sweater made a special stitch so that their sons or husbands might be identified after drowning in situations where the body was not found for a long time later, and where decomposition would make the corpse un-identifiable. But I think what is happening now is just a marketing ploy to create sales for what never before existed : Clan Sweaters. The same type of marketing is going on with so-called "County Tartans". "Trish" <tee.lockers@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1121212958.ce3ad47496992168a5540019194fe8c6@teranews... > > <bcr1@bee.net> wrote in message news:42D3839C.25078.8A99AF@localhost... > > My wife brought to my attention a company offering a unique pattered > > Aran sweater for every Irish clan. I said that this was probably a > > benign > > con. Is this opinion correct? Likewise the crest for every clan is > > questionable. Any opinions? > > > > > Re the Aran sweaters - as I understand it, traditionally, fishermen on the > west coast did not learn to swim, so as to drown more quickly in the event > of an accident. The different patterns on the sweater were not for different > families, but were sufficiently different so that the knitter could identify > a particular sweater, and thus a particular body. > I am of course open to correction on that. > > -- > Trish > Dublin, Ireland > >