Our Thoughts & Experiences

New life, new yarn!

Who doesn’t love a cute, gambolling baby lamb? By the time April comes around the wee lambs are finding their footsteps.

Enjoy the opportunity of getting up class with the fun loving frolickers with our favourite farmers and their lovely animals. Discover the source of fibres and yarns from shepherding lambs to sheep shearing!

Our April South of Ireland with the Aran Islands tour takes you to Glen Keen Sheep Farm, the largest in Ireland, so that’s a lot of lambs!

Glenshane Country Farm is our new, exciting offering for April 2025 as part of our Ireland Country Manor Retreat! Enjoy a day with the lambs, learning the skills of shepherding and meeting the lovely dogs. Next, discover the skills of shearing, washing, dyeing the fleece before you have a chance to spin it into yarn. This finishes your full farm to fleece to fibre experience!

A waking Ireland landscape

St. Brigid’s Day has been and gone, symbolising the end of winter. Grass becomes that little bit greener and buds and shoots are appearing everywhere. Trees and hedgerows are coming to life, sun dappling through the new growth.

Cherry blossom trees are beginning to bloom and country roads are edged with daffodils and bluebells. Fields and forests are seeing buttercups, wild garlic flowers and daisies. Tractors are working hard with sowing as daylight stretches and the first seeds of new crops begin their journey.

Yarn and design inspiration

Spring colours and textures inspire our knitting instructors, designers and yarn producers to create new yarn colourways, patterns and designs.

Stolen Stitches (Carol Feller) Nua Yarn, This Is Knit Townhouse and Eriú Yarns, Cushendale, Galway Wool, Kerry Woollen Mills and Studio Donegal are just some of the amazing yarns available on our April tours.

New spring patterns and colours, with the same quality classes and teaching from our favourite instructors make for a wonderful learning experience!

Enjoy four days of retreat style knitting with noted knitwear designer Edel MacBride on our April Ireland Country Manor Retreat and traditional and vintage knitting and spinning with Crafts of Ireland, exploring the connections with the landscape, heritage, colour and design.

Our South of Ireland with the Aran Islands takes you on a journey from heritage to contemporary with knitting classes from Carol Feller, Liz Spillane, Úna McDonagh, Pauline Gallagher and Aoife Ní Tunisian Crochet.

All of our instructors are delighted to welcome our first knitters of the year in springtime!

Cosiness, Comfort and Clement Weather

While daylight hours are longer and spring weather is here, evenings are still cool and of course, it wouldn’t be Ireland without a drop of Spring rain! This is where cosy fires, comfy armchairs and hotel spas come in! Our Manor House Country Retreat has the best of these along with stunning lakeside walks, luxurious lounges and warm hospitality.

The thought of delightful meals with fresh spring vegetables and homemade breads really whet your appetite and you can also walk it off with a charming lakeside walk before returning to your knitting beside a lovely fireside.

A more sedate time to travel

Spring and April in particular, are the beginning of the main season for travel and experiences. Main tourist attractions and cities like Dublin are not as crowded, airports are not as busy and everything is that little bit more laid back.

With Spring comes renewed energy and hope for the year to come. A perfect time to be a part of this wonderful season in Ireland and a part of a fabulous spring knitting tour. More on our Spring tours below!

Irish Country Manor Retreat – April

South of Ireland with the Aran Islands