Irish Linen Documentary - Farming flax in Ireland

flax is the world's oldest known fiber and during the last two centuries the north of ireland became strongly associated with flax and the linen industry by the early part of the 20th century most farmers around the garva area were involved one way or another and were justifiably proud of the world famous irish lemon level production was at its peak during the war years and the agi rivers had a large number of water-driven mills mainly involved in the various stages of linen production indeed there were few people in the farming community who were not involved to some extent in the linen industry the introduction of man-made fiber plants during the late 1950s began to spell the end of flax growing and by the early 1960s it had ceased to exist completely in this area tom stewart whose father was a flex grower along with his neighbors hugh archibald and sandy gray have undertaken to grow two and a half acres this year there will be obvious changes from the mid-1950s but we intend through this film to show the flat season as it was then i bought that right there four or five years ago of a job john ireland and restored her she's a 1953 ford's major or four-wheel drive conversion kit fell down by roads that's one of the first conversion kits that road has ever made because the axle was likely out of a gmg glory that was compared to the felt the tiger i would say she must be one of the first four-wheel dave tigers the play that i'm playing with here today belongs to hugh barr three times world championship we're on some play first one until ernie in 1954 in england and 55 and in sweden and 56 no other man yet has ever done this he attempted three times and one of three times in succession with the ransom play last year a crop of potatoes was grown in this field and tom is now making the ground ready for the flax seed ground preparation would have been similar to that for oaks or barley today is the 20th of april and tom intends to have the seeds sown within five days flax would usually take about 12 weeks to grow so harvesting time should be around the end of july however irish weather once again showed its unpredictability and for the next four weeks it rained almost every day taking tractors on the ground would be out of the question the spring and subsequently the harvest was going to be lit 29 days after the plowing on the 19th of may the weather showed signs of improving and tom decided to bring this 1939 forzan out for the next step in preparing the ground in the 1950s not all farmers had a disc like this one as much of the work was still being done by horses the disc was heavy to pull but did an excellent job in cutting up the ground as the earth had to be made as fine as possible after a month of almost continuous rain the ground is still damp and although the sharp edges of the disc cut it up well the earth is not yet as fine as tom would like it so the men decide to use the brake for further cultivation the break is much lighter than the disc and is less of a strain on the fortune which is doing well for a 53 year old in earlier times horses could have pulled a break and stones may have been placed on top to give a deeper seed bed if required the ground is now fine and smooth the break has also leveled the small drills and ridges made by the disc flax needed the ground to be firm as well as fine and the final preparation was to use a roller as well as making the ground firm the roller would also have broken up any small lumps of earth which might have escaped the disc and the brake the driver this time is nelson andrews another neighbor of toms nelson for many years did farm contract work and by watching him operate it is clear that this is not the first time he has driven a fortune sandy and hugh are now ready to begin sowing the flax seed seeds are small and silky to touch and it feels almost like putting your hand into a tank of thin oil this bag of flaxseed had to be imported from belgium and should produce flax with a blue blossom sandy sets the fiddle to number four the 100 kilos of seeds should sow the two and a half acres [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign sandy sews the field in two hours and on this occasion gives it a very light dressing of special potato manure the break will be brought out again to cover up the seeds and there's just enough light left to roll the ground once more the weather which at long last had improved remained good and unbelievably the young flax was through the ground in five days it is now the third of june and the flax has been growing for two weeks many of the older farmers around garva are now beginning to show interest robbie andrews hasn't seen flax growing for over 30 years and the company's toned to the field to inspect the crop robbie seems happy enough with the progress the whole month of june remained fine and dry and on the first of july this shot was taken the young plants are now six weeks old the hot sun has baked the ground hard but tom need not have worried about drought for the latter part of july was to bring more than enough rain as time passed other country activities were taking place back at the flax field the blossom has now appeared it is the second of august and although this blue blanket is a pretty sight it will still be two or three weeks before harvesting good warm dry weather would now be essential so that the crop would ripen and remain standing about the middle of the month sandy cuts the rushes which will be left for a while these will be made into bands for binding the bundles of flax sandy moody gives a demonstration of making a rush band the harvest weather which tom had hoped for did not come as the end of august again brought rain and wind on the first of september the men decided to start pulling the flax unlike oats or barley flax had to be pulled from the ground rather than cut as some of the valuable fiber was growing under the surface the bundles of flax were tied these were called beets and 12 beets made a stook during the 50s people who pulled the flax were paid by how many stooks they had pulled the rate of pay was about two shillings took ten pence in today's money pulling flex was back-breaking work and most unpleasant during wet weather however there was never any shortage of workers as men and women would have done three or four hours pulling in the evenings the extra money always came in useful as back to school time was not far away the attraction of this unique event just outside the village of garva was to tom's advantage for every evening a good crowd gathered keen to show their skill at flax pulling men like 82 year old david greg who had traveled the 22 miles from balamina tom did not discourage anyone and said that he wouldn't mind paying the going rate of two shillings a stook for pulling one big disadvantage was that the long clear summer evenings had gone and it was now beginning to get dark at 7 30. but his biggest battle by far was still with the weather and many evenings no flex at all was pulled more help was to come in the form of this 1940 flex pulling machine the property of willie anderson from clock mills the flax was pushed into a v ship by means of the dividers and the belts pulled it from the ground more belts and wheels transported it along the platform where the man lifted it off in beats five or six men were needed to operate the puller one driving the tractor two on the machine one lifting off the beats and usually two men coming behind tying the machine had its own petrol driven engine and in good weather conditions with the flax dry and standing upright could have pulled the equivalent of eight men however conditions here were anything but good and many stops had to be made when wet flax jammed in the belts progress was slow hey so with half of the field pulled and stood tom decided to fill one of the two lint dams bertie stratton had brought along this 1947 tvo ford's and major for the task of transporting the flax to the dam about one mile away the man forking up the beats is george porter the smaller of the two dams close to tom's home will hold about four loads of flags the first load is on its way to the dam and you can judge that it is quite heavy by the way bertie's fortune is steaming this dam was last in use about 33 years ago and needed quite a bit of work to restore it to its former glory the dam had been filled with water from a small stream which ran about 20 yards away with the weather we'd been having tom had no problem finding enough water the flax is forked into the dam heads down this process is called retting and would normally take 10 to 14 days in warm weather conditions however it is now mid-september and the days and nights are getting colder reading causes the outer wood to rot away as we will see later and leaves the flax fibre ready for the various other processes through which it has to go the men worked lit that night and got the four loads into the dam the flax had to be totally submerged in the water and in order to achieve this weights would have to be put on top stones were used for this purpose and tom was lucky enough that this old stone ditch was nearby stones about as heavy as a man could lift were ideal where this not done the flax would begin to float after a few days which would mean that it wouldn't wrap properly the men spend about an hour and a half stoning the dam it was as well that you didn't mind getting wet feet at this job [Music] tom's two sons know trump down the flags again ensuring total immersion this dam will have to be trumped morning and evening every day for the next two weeks in days gone by running over the stones on a limp dam was a favorite pastime for the young people the risk of getting wet especially if you were wearing your school shoes added to the excitement [Applause] thomas glad to have half of his flax crop safely in the dam however the other half is still growing in the field he was now faced with another problem for the weather had improved again and the neighbors who had given their time and helped so freely were now concerned with saving their own crops it was beginning to look like the remainder of the flax might not be pulled at all on saturday the 19th of september the northern ireland ministry of agriculture came to the rescue with this one man operated flax pulling machine this modern device not only pulled but also tied the flax beats the remainder of the flax field was harvested in under two hours that same afternoon it was safely immersed in another dam using more modern methods after the original flax had been in the dam for 13 days tom again consulted robbie andrews for his advice robbie reckons that it is properly ratted but we'll give it another day just to be sure all of the stones holding down the flacks would have to be lifted off some of the heavier ones were quite difficult to manage they were wet and slippery and this time they had to be thrown upwards tom now begins the daunting task of throwing the flax out of the dam this was usually a two-man operation one man floating the beach across and the other throwing them onto the bank unfortunately tom could find no volunteers to go into the dam with them the smell from a dam of flax at this stage was very strong something similar to the smell of modern day silage and no matter how much you washed and bathed the odor would still be on your skin for days i can remember a fella from the town here he'd been working a lump down all afternoon and it was uh it was very warm whenever he had finished it he didn't bother changing his clothes you know we just let the sun dry the clothes on but they went to the packages and garbage that night like the smell was terrible after about five minutes there nobody left in the factory house except himself the flax has now been spread out to dry and with the weather still fairly good in a few days time it will be ready for getting this involved loosening the beat around your leg to spread it out and in this standing position with a drying wind it will be completely dry in a short time it's very wet come out of the dark he wasn't expected to be dry were you we were sandy now builds it into a stook the flax is now much lighter and easier to handle than when it was last stooped in the field how long was that in the stick first hand oh well we used a lot of something to strip the three or four days at the right time of the year i got the low enough cost [Music] what you call a double stick you see start here in the middle the final stage in the drying process was to build a shig this marked the end of the farmer's part in the linen process his job was now done and the next stage was far removed from the tranquility of gartner moya farm life the ratted crop was drawn the seven miles from gortnamoya to magna and from the piece of the farm to the noise of the next stage of the linen industry that of the scutcher in the town land of magna near uplands is still in operation the oldest scotch mill in ulster for many generations the lagon family have operated the mill powered by the claddy river and it is their proud boost that their mill has scotched the first and the last damn rated flags grown in ulster with 16 feet of ahead there is more than enough power for the water to drive not only the scotch mill but also a five foot circular sawmill and also provide electricity for the whole concern it is here that tom's flax is brought for scotching barney lagon opens the sluices the mill race which feeds the turbines begins to flow and slowly the big fly wheel begins to turn the water passes through the turbines and runs back into the river via the tail race tales were told of how trout and salmon could be trapped in the tail race if things were managed correctly but no one around here knew anything about that in years gone by the mill would have been in operation for most of the winter scotching the huge quantities of flax produced in this one of the main flax growing areas of ulster nowadays however it is an operation less frequently but nevertheless barney can still call upon the able assistance of his son michael christie melon and herman glazer to man the mill when needed usually assisted by the farmer who produced the flax and a few others today sandy grey takes over the traditional role of the farmer namely the hanfuller in bringing the flax beets forward spreading them out evenly gathering them into handfuls and making them ready for the roller on busy days he would have had someone tending him bringing the beats forward and cutting the bombs barney reckons that tom's flax is in good shape despite the poor season and should scotch well the handfuls of flax are fed into the set of rollers by christy mellon in this case a 16 power set of fluted barrel type rollers made like the turbines by kennedys of colerain the rollers crush the flax fracturing its outer layers and as it is drawn through it passes through gradually narrowing grooves in the rollers to emerge on the other side the job of the roller man was an important one for he controlled the rate at which the whole mill operated the rolled and flattened handfuls of flax passed through the rollers into the hands of the strickers this job was usually performed by woman and in a typical mill there would have been two or three of them their job was to prepare the flax handfuls for the sculptures and this simply involved lifting the handful twisting it once twice and setting it down for the sculptures it looks simple but it isn't barney gives a demonstration the strix of flax next passed to the scutchers in the old days there would have been six or eight of these whirling machines operating in a row and this was by far the most dangerous part of the whole linen industry the sketching machines were composed of a vertical stock and rotating at 240 revs per minute a couple of inches away in the same plane was a scotching rim with a number of handles of beech or sycamore in barney's mill there are five beach handles to the rim though some machines had six or seven handles were designed to flail the remains of the outer layer of the flax against the stock shedding this the shoes and leaving the clean white fiber the strix or handfuls from the strikers were passed on to a long bench behind which the sculptures practiced their ancient art the procedure varied slightly from middle to middle but usually the first man known as the buffer lifted the strick and gave it its first rough run through the machine it was then passed to the second scotcher who took two buff strips and gave them a second finer scotching known as cleaning or finishing in each case the process was the same the handful of flax was held in the middle and the butts were scutched down one side then turned and done down the other side finally the strix of scotched flax or hanks were placed in a box above the scutcher's machine these boxes were emptied regularly usually at the end of a shift and weighed for unlike the other little workers the scutcher was paid by the weight of flax he scotched it took roughly 13 sketched stricts or hanks of flax to make one stone in weight in the 1950s the scutchers were paid two shillings or 10p a stone given this productivity incentive sculptures were actually very well paid for the times as indeed were all who worked with flax the strickers were paid two pounds a week and the ruler man who was a very important person was paid three pounds per week scotch mills were dangerous places the combination of tinder dry flax and shoes and flying drive belts meant that most of them burnt down at some stage in their history bearing in mind the noise heat and tremendous amounts of dust and the speed with which the scutchers were obliged to operate it is little wonder that few of them escaped unscathed the dust caused a lung disease known as flax spicinosis and many were the injuries received and there were few old scutchers who retired with a full complement of fingers old men tell of the noise from the machine when a finger or hand was struck all around the middle you could hear the sudden change in the note of the machine from a horror to a whacking noise as a scutcher was injured christie has worked here for 40 years his initials are on the wall to prove it but he tells of a generation before that when all the scutchers from this mill and many other mills went off to the great war only two of them came home to magna and they never worked again in 1940 for the huge investment of 600 pounds barney's father bought this belgium scotching milk made by robert bobby and sons of berries and edmonds this machine was developed around the same time as the flax pulling machines like them it did the work of many men and it seemed as though the booming flax industry of ulster was poised to take another huge surge forward if proof were ever needed that it is impossible to foresee future events it is surely the fact that within 15 years the flax industry of ulster was almost non-existent hermann feeds the conveyor belt of the new machine straight from the roller the strikers are obsolete now as are the scutchers for the four drums of the long machine each scotch one of the four quarters of the flax bundles in the same manner as the sculptures have been doing with their twisting wrist movements for two centuries the four drums each with one horizontal handle and counter balancing weights rotate at 580 revs per minute to first buff and secondly clean both the butt ends and then the heads of the flax as it passes steadily down the machine here we see one of the drums rotating at one fifth normal speed at the far end it only remains for barney to lift off the scotched flax and after this hand dressing process twisted into hanks it is generally accepted that this belgian machine not only does the work of many sculptures but produces a better quality hank at the end there are various ways of testing the quality of scotched flax the strands should not break evenly but have split ends and there should be a slight oily texture to it barney reckons that tom's flax is as good as he has scotched in 40 years [Music] the one stone bundles of scotched fibre have now made the long journey to in county armagh for thomas sinton and company have been spinning fine linen and yarn since 1866. with 126 years of experience the gartner moya flax should be in capable hands here today irish linen is used mostly in the famous fashion houses of the world as well as traditional uses for household textiles and furnishing fabrics [Music] before spinning the fiber will have to be hackled hackling was similar in many ways to scotching only much finer the process also separated the long fiber called the line from the short fiber called the toe it is fed into the machine in small pieces nowadays symptoms import most of their flax fiber from belgium this comes already hackled but production manager mr brian noble has willingly agreed to hackle and process this scotched fiber the hackled fiber looks and feels good similar in appearance to well-groomed blonde human hair it is now transparent to the preparing room where it is hand spread onto a spread board to form a continuous sliver which makes further processing simpler after spreading the flax sliver is processed across a set of drawing frames this is called a system the system consists of five drawing frames which progressively draw out the sliver and double it to produce an even sliver ready for roving the roving frame produces roof by inserting a small amount of twist into the sliver as it is wound onto a center called a rove bobbin when the bobbins are filled with fiber they are taken off by a team of girls called duffers [Music] the short fibres are told from the hackling follow a slightly different process route during which they are cleaned and again formed onto a sliver eventually being used in other materials including clothing the material is now ready for wet spinning in the spinning room the rover's fed through a trough of hot water at 170 degrees fahrenheit to soften the gums which hold the fiber bundles together and then the roof is drafted out between sets of fluted rulers to give the final thickness or lee of linen yarn required the yarn is wound onto aluminium bobbins with twists again being inserted into it at the same time when these bobbins are filled the duffers take them off they are replaced by empty bobbins and the whole process starts again after spinning the yarn is dried in huge steam ovens at 170 degrees fahrenheit the yarn will stay in the oven for eight hours the final process at sentence is automatic winding where the yarn is transferred from spinners bobbins onto a package suitable for use in a weaving factory these machines automatically join the yarn together to form a continuous length up to 40 miles long on each comb after winding the yarn is packed into dispatching boxes ready to be transported to local weaving factories symptoms also export to europe the usa and the far east clark's of upper lows near mahara was founded in 1736 by jackson clark and from modest beginnings the clark family have created an international business that supplies garment manufacture worldwide ironically this next step in the production process is only a mile away from barney lagoon's scotching mill and is also situated on the claddy river by the 1740s jackson's reputation for excellence had spread to both local and overseas markets and by this time orders were coming in from england europe and the plantations of the new american colonies many changes have taken place in the linen manufacturing industry since those days and it is now in the hands of the seventh generation of clarks the cones of spun flax which are brought in from thomas sentence now go through the weaving process first this modern sectional warping machine controlled by computer lines out the spun fiber ready for weaving there are about 400 cones on this rack by 1950 when this shuttle weaver was installed clarks were employing between four and 500 people [Music] this shuttle terry tile weaver is using fifty percent flax fiber and fifty percent cotton everything is inspected and checked for clarks pay particular attention to quality some of this woven linen will go for dying and some will go to the beetling room the beatles are so cold because of the way they trump along the linen rules and are made from beams of beechwood the operation is controlled by this giant shaft driven by the cloudy river it lifts up the beetles then lets them drop battering the cloth until all the fibres are fused together this also gives a shiny finish the finished material now very valuable will go from making clothing the noise in the beatling room is deafening and ear protection has to be worn at all times robert jones shows some of the beetle material which has been battered for a week or more back in the weaving shop the rows of woven linen will have to go through various processes depending on the end product required we will stay with this one which is going to make irish linen tablecloths the fabric has still a lot of work to be done with it it is still quite coarse and not yet the right color finishing as its name suggests is the final series of processes through which the fabric must pass before it is ready for the ultimate consumer in the old days the process of bleaching was carried out at bleaching greens of which there were many around the country this involved only water and sun and indeed until the 18th century the use of any chemical agents was punishable by death over a six to eight week period the linen was subjected to a succession of boilings followed by spreading out on the adjacent linen green to dry in the sun because of the very high value of the linen it had to be guarded night and day by linen watchers who spent the nights in appropriate accommodation nowadays james merlin limited near castle welland county down specialize in dying bleaching and finishing and the roles of brown fabric are put into this large pot where whitening or bleaching will take place boards are then placed over the cloth to keep it below the liquid this bleaching cycle will last for six hours the bleached cloth is then put through a washing machine where any surplus bleach or grime is washed away the bleaching and washing operation create twists in the cloth and the next process is oddly enough called scotching the scutcher opens out the cloth straightens it again and the mangle also squeezes out any excess water although it is still quite wet when it comes off at the other end the drying range is next in line but first it passes through this trough of liquid which on this occasion is adding a bluing agent to give it the required finish the cloth then passes over heated cylinders which dry it out completely although a little moisture should be left for framing the cloth on the calendar which consists of heavy rollers the cloth is flattened which gives it a better light reflection known as luster this process is a substitute for the process of beetling but never attained the high standard that is still achieved by the beetling mill the cloth then passes over a plating device which piles it into a truck ulster weavers off the donegal road in belfast now take the fabric which before coming here has had a print or design added to it this lady will sew it into a tablecloth the tablecloth will then be pressed or ironed the gordnamaya flax has been handled 27 times since it was sowed on the 20th of may no wonder irish linen is so expensive on the 27th of october it was my pleasant duty to return to gartner moya with the end product of many months of hard work the flax had made a full cycle and mrs mary stuart is now the proud owner of this linen tablecloth made from the flax grown by her son that was part of it anyway just come on then we'll have a cup of tea well thanks very much indeed that's the best place to put a devil cloth you

Channel: Videos of Irish Farming Life

Views: 192,102

Keywords: Making Irish Linen, Linen, Flax, Vintage Flax farming, Traditional Crafts, Irish Linen, Ulster, Documentary, Irish Documentary, Ireland, Lint & Linen, Growing Flax, Retting, Scutching, scutching flax, Flax Mill, Weaving, Making Linen, How Linen Is Made, Vintage, Crafts, Trad, Tradiational, Flax Seed, How to make linen from flax, How linen is made, Growing Linen, Making Irish Linen & Vintage Flax farming - Traditional Crafts of Ireland Documentary, Flax Dam, Videos of Irish Farming Life

Id: tqntI3Ec8Ew

Length: 40min 0sec (2400 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 02 2020