An Irishman's Home is his Castle | Ireland of the Welcomes

An Irishman's Home is his Castle [via re:knit]
Ireland of the Welcomes - July/August 2006

The master of Farney Castle in Co. Tipperary has much to do on a bright sunny morning. There are the peacocks and pigeons in the stable yard to be fed; there’s a leak to be checked on the venerable roof, while over breakfast he’ll discuss business and family matters with wife Margie, that is if they’re not interrupted by too many overseas telephone calls. The arrival of visitors means he must hurry out to welcome them and start guided tours. It will probably be late tonight before he can take a break and relax for an hour’s quiet knitting. What? Knitting? Well, yes. Because we’re talking about Cyril Cullen, international fashion designer, whose career to date spans forty years and whose unique knitwear has been showcased in New York, London and Tokyo. It’s been a long and fascinating road for the Fermoy-born lad who had every intention of becoming a concert pianist.

Cyril, the second of six children, was born into a very musical family. His father was in the Garda Siochána, and both ensured that their children got all the encouragement they needed to develop their interest in music. Cyril’s sister, Olive Cullen, was to become a renowned harpist, while he was sent to the Loreto Convent in Fermoy for piano lessons and spent many happy hours practising the music and melodies he loved. In Fifties Ireland, becoming a concert pianist wasn’t considered a particularly reliable profession, and Cyril duly took the appropriate examinations and became a civil servant. Moved from place to place, it was in Donegal that Fate took a hand. He was playing golf with some friends, one of whom was a woman who always brought her knitting along. He commented that she didn’t seem to progress very much, she queried if he thought he could do better, and a bet was laid. Starting from complete ignorance, he was to complete a sweater in exactly one week. Wool and needles duly provided, Cyril settled down after his day’s work to prove his point. After a couple of evenings in serious trouble (part of the agreement was that nobody was to help him in any way), suddenly everything clicked; the sweater was finished and the bet – ten shillings – was collected, but a more powerful seed had been sown. “I became fascinated by what you could do with wool and two needles. I wanted to go on and try ideas of my own. I discovered that, far from being a female hobby, in fact only men had knitted in ancient times – right up to the Middle Ages. It was thought that women weren’t clever enough to do it!” Thoroughly encouraged, Cyril gave full rein to his instincts and began to turn traditional Irish knitting on its head, creating new designs, patterns and blends of stitches that had never been seen before. Perhaps it had something to do with the very fact that he was a man: a new mind, free of all the rules and traditions of knitting imbued in women from birth, he saw things differently. Why not knit jumpers sideways? Make cabled trousers? Invent long luxurious fringing stitches? The Cyril Cullen hand-knit frill became one of the most famous features of his designs. [more]