"Su Yao's Dazzling Counterattack Chapter 107"
The Atlantic wind howled over the Aran Islands, where stone walls crisscrossed green fields and cottages huddled against the spray of crashing waves. Su Yao's ferry rocked into the harbor, passing fishermen in currachs mending nets and women hanging wool to dry on lines strung between gorse bushes, until it docked at a pier lined with wooden barrels of salted fish. In a whitewashed cottage with a thatched roof, a group of weavers sat by a peat fire, their fingers looping thick wool into cable patterns that twisted like ocean currents.
Their leader, 63-year-old Maureen O'Flaherty, looked up from her work, her hands rough from decades of handling wool. She wore an Aran jumper in cream, its surface covered in intricate stitches—diamonds for prosperity, cables for fishing nets, and zigzags for the island's stone walls. "This is our scéal (story)," she said in Gaelic, her voice carrying over the wind. "Every stitch remembers the lives of those who came before."
Aran knitting, a craft honed over centuries by island women, is both practical and poetic. The thick wool of Cheviot sheep—native to the islands—insulates against the Atlantic chill, while the patterns serve as a visual language: a family's unique stitch combination identified sailors lost at sea, and certain motifs were said to bring luck to fishermen. "We spin wool during winter storms," Maureen's granddaughter, 26-year-old Saoirse, explained, holding up a jumper with a "tree of life" pattern. "The wind through the chimney helps twist the yarn tight—too loose, and the cold bites through; too tight, and it chafes like a rope. My granny used to say the sheep give their wool so we might survive the sea's anger."
The dyeing process, though traditionally limited to natural cream (unbleached wool) or soft brown (dyed with peat), carries its own rituals. Wool is washed in rainwater collected from stone cisterns, said to hold "the blessing of Brigid," the goddess of weaving, and carded with wooden combs passed down through generations. "We never waste a single strand," Saoirse said, tucking a loose thread into her work. "Each one was grown by a sheep that braved our winters."
Su Yao's team arrived after their Yucatán project, drawn to the Aran jumper's blend of functionality and heritage. They brought samples of seaweed-metal threads spun into wool, hoping to create a fabric that retained the jumper's warmth while adding resistance to saltwater and wind. But when Lin displayed a machine-knitted prototype with printed patterns, Maureen's brother, 67-year-old Seamus—a retired fisherman with a face tanned by sun and salt—grunted in disdain. "Your machine knits without cáthair (soul)," he said, poking the fabric with a gnarled finger. "Our jumpers are knit while listening to the radio tell of drownings and weddings, of storms and calms. This thing knows nothing of our sea—it's a plastic imitation, not a shield against the waves."
Tensions flared when a particularly violent storm battered the islands, damaging the stone sheep pens and washing away bales of raw wool stored in a beachside shed. The Cheviot flock, spooked by lightning, scattered across the fields, some wandering into the rocky coves where the tide threatened to claim them. "The sea rejects your metal thread," Seamus muttered as men and women searched for lost sheep. With the Oíche Shamhna (Halloween) festival approaching—when new jumpers are gifted to protect loved ones through the harshest months—the community faced a crisis. "We need 30 jumpers for the young fishermen," Maureen said, staring at the sodden remains of their wool supply. "Without them, the winter will be cruel."
That night, Su Yao sat with Maureen by the peat fire, where a pot of coddle (sausage and potato stew) bubbled. The cottage walls were lined with jumpers dating back to the 1920s, each labeled with the name of its maker and the year, and a shelf held Seamus's old fishing logbook, its pages filled with notes on storms and catches. "I know these jumpers aren't just clothes," Su Yao said, sipping tea sweetened with heather honey. "They're armor, and memory. We want to help keep that alive."
Maureen smiled, passing her a slice of barmbrack (fruit bread). "My mammy used to say that even a moth-eaten jumper can be unraveled and reknit," she said. "But your metal—maybe it's a sign. Young people buy cheap hoodies now, not Aran jumpers. We need to show them the stitches still hold power."
Over the next three weeks, the team worked alongside the islanders. They helped rebuild the stone sheep pens, their hands scraped by sharp rocks, and joined Seamus in rounding up the scattered flock, learning to call the sheep by name as he did. "Cáit! Mairéad!" they shouted, their voices blending with his Gaelic calls until the sheep recognized them. They carded wool by the fire, their fingers numb from the cold, while Maureen taught them the traditional stitches—cable, diamond, seed—each requiring a rhythm of loops and pulls. "Knit like the waves," she said, demonstrating the cable twist. "Strong, but with give—so it doesn't snap when the wind catches."
Lin experimented with coating the seaweed-metal threads in lanolin (sheep's wool fat) and beeswax, a mixture islanders use to waterproof boots. "It needs to breathe like wool," she said, showing Maureen a swatch where the metal threads added subtle strength without making the fabric stiff. Maureen pulled at it, then nodded: "This would keep a fisherman warm through a gale."
Fiona collaborated with Saoirse to design a new pattern: traditional cable stitches (representing nets) merging into wave motifs, with metal threads outlining the waves to mimic sunlight on water. "It ties your island to the wider sea," Fiona said, and Seamus traced the pattern with a finger, his eyes misting. "My father drowned in these waters," he said. "This stitch would have let us know he was coming home."
On the eve of Oíche Shamhna, the weavers gathered in the village hall, where their collaborative jumper was laid out on a table draped with a linen cloth. The cream wool glowed in the firelight, cables flowing into waves that seemed to move when touched, the metal threads catching the light like foam. Maureen pulled it over Su Yao's head—it fit perfectly, warm and sturdy against the draft from the stone walls. "Now you're cairde (friend) of the islands," she said, pressing a small swatch into her hand: a cable stitch and a wave, stitched together.
As the ferry pulled away the next morning, Su Yao could see Saoirse teaching a group of teenagers to knit the new pattern, the seaweed-metal thread spooled beside her. The wind carried the sound of their laughter, mingled with the crash of waves and the call of seagulls. She thought of the sheep, now safe in their pens, and the way the metal threads had learned to work with the wool—how innovation, when rooted in respect for a community's struggles and strengths, could become part of their legacy.
Her phone buzzed with a message from the Yucatán: Ximena had sold their collaborative hunab cloth to a cultural center, funding a workshop for Mayan youth. Su Yao smiled, typing back: "We've added new stitches in Ireland—your turn to weave something that outlasts the storms."
Somewhere in the distance, a fiddle played a Gaelic tune that merged with the roar of the Atlantic, a harmony as old as the islands and as endless as the horizon.