Donegal tweed manufactured for centuries it took on its modern form in the 1880s, largely due to the pioneering work of English philanthropist Alice Rowland Hart. While the weavers in County Donegal produce a number of different tweed fabrics, including herringbone and check patterns, the area is best known for a plain-weave cloth of differently-coloured warp and weft, with small pieces of yarn in various colours woven in at irregular intervals to produce a heathered effect. Such fabric is often labelled as "donegal" (with a lowercase "d") regardless of its provenance. Along with Harris Tweed manufactured in the Scottish Highlands, Donegal is
Donegal fiddle tradition pipers and fiddlers". Donegal fiddlers participated in the development of the Irish music tradition in the 18th century during which jigs and slipjigs and later reels and hornpipes became the dominant musical forms. However, Donegal musicians, many of them being fishermen, also frequently travelled to Scotland, where they acquired tune types from the Scottish repertoire such as the Strathspey which was integrated into the Donegal tradition as "Highland" tunes. The Donegal tradition derives much of its unique character from the synthesis of Irish and Scottish stylistic features and repertoires. Aoidh notes however that while different types of art music were