Very short erbium-fibre lasers with holographically written gratings in the erbium-doped fibre core are reported. An output power of 181-mu-W was obtained from a 2 cm long diode-pumped laser. A 1 cm long diode pumped laser had an output power of 57-mu-W. As would be expected for such short cavity lengths, these lasers are robustly singlemode.