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Who Is PJ?
The seas of the coastal Atlantic off the West of Ireland have been the working grounds for generations of fishermen, Shoals of herring, whiting and mackerel provide food and livelihood for men from the Blasket Islands in the southwest to Tory Island and Donegal County in the northwest. On many of the western isles, like the three Aran Islands off Galway Bay in the extreme west of Ireland, fish have been the main staple since time immemorial.
The men who hunted the black and green glint of the mackerel shoals with nets and lines in the dark blue Atlantic waters or chased the lunging black masses of whales with hand harpoons in light, hand-propelled curragh boats knew enough of the perils of the sea which could end a man's life without a whisper. These are the men who were called Tomas, Paddy, Young Sean, Michael, Johnny the Rag, and P J, i.e. Patrick Joseph.
A vital part of a fisherman's sea going dress was the hand-knitted Aran pullover or sweater. Made of hand-carded and spun sheep’s wool, called 'bainin (meaning "white wool" and pronounced "bah-neen"), the pullover showed a variety of patterns. Most of these knitted patterns were a version of ropes, integral to the fishermen's lives. Two or three needles and simple plain or purl stitches were used to knit intricate stitch patterns which depicted intertwined stages of 8m fishing tradition hauling in the catch, the ropes and cables used in large and small boats, and the ropes of memory connecting to those Irish across the seas in distant lands. Other patterns were symbolic of daily rituals in the countryside in which the fishermen and their families lived, ' Examples of these are the Ladder Stitch, Blackberry Stitch, Tree of Life and the Moss Stitch.
Fishing at sea during almost all times carried great risks. And drownings were porarity. Many Irish fishermen choose not to learn to swim, as death came quicker in the icy North Atlantic if a man was unable to swim. For the reason, each village and many individual families on the Western shores boasted their own Aran cable pullover patterns, and protected them from copying by outsiders. That way, a body, when washed ashore, could be identified by the bainin Aran pullover which it wore.
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