The Return of Irish Flax: Craft, Community and Climate
In the green heart of County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, flax is growing once again. On the slopes of Mallon Farm, home to Mallon Linen, hands pull the tall stems gently from the earth - just as they did generations ago - reviving a linen tradition rooted in heritage, regeneration, resilience, and hope.
Evening views from the retting tank - Mallon Farm, Co. Tyrone. Photo Credit: Yvette Monahan
Mallon Linen, the work of Helen Keys, Charlie Mallon, and Clare Keys, marks a return to Irish-grown fibre and a grassroots revolution in what textile sustainability looks like today. Grown without fertilisers, pesticides, or herbicides, their flax thrives solely on sunshine and rain. A hundred days from seed to flower, this resilient plant restores rather than depletes: improving soil structure, encouraging biodiversity, and strengthening the local ecology.
Helen Keys sowing the flax seeds with a fiddle - Mallon Farm, Co.Tyrone. Photo Credit: Yvette Monahan
Retted flax drying in the farm fields - Mallon Farm, Co. Tyrone. Photo Credit: Yvette Monahan
The farm's commitment to regenerative farming is at the heart of The Clean Blue of Linen, a moving photography project by artist Yvette Monahan, commissioned by the We Feed the UK campaign. Exhibited earlier this year at Belfast Exposed, Monahan’s images chronicle the fibre’s journey from soil to thread, and a community’s reconnection to place and purpose. Helen and Charlie’s story joins a nationwide celebration of food and fibre producers who are rewriting the narrative on climate resilience and local economies.
Charlie retts the flax plant in an upcycled cheese vat. Photo Credit: Yvette Monahan
Charlie Mallon heckling the processed flax in the work shed - Mallon Farm, Co.Tyrone. Photo Credit: Yvette Monahan
At Mallon Farm, flax is processed using a combination of traditional handwork and revived vintage machinery. Retting, once a water-polluting process, is now done with rainwater in an upcycled cheese vat, carefully monitored and later repurposed as field fertiliser. Scutching is carried out on a 300-year-old flax break or with turbines rescued from derelict mills, each turn of the wheel echoing the hands of past linen makers. Hackled by hand, the flax transforms into fine line fibre, ready to be spun and woven - a raw, renewable material with the soft sheen of history and the promise of a circular future.
Hand hackled flax produced on Mallon Farm, a high quality flax fibre suitable for hand spinning. Soft, fine yet strong. Photo Credit: Mallon Linen.
Sold by Mallon Farm in small batches, the scutched fibre, hackled line flax, and handspun threads are increasingly sought after far beyond the farm’s gates by spinners, weavers and artists looking for sustainable, local materials. Collaborations with weavers like Marion Bauer of Flaxmill Textiles, and experimental partnerships with paper artists, sculptors, and sustainable fashion designers, have expanded the flax’s potential. It has even been transformed into wigs for giants, sporrans, and handmade paper raincoats.
As the industrial textile system strains under the weight of environmental cost, Mallon Linen offers a compelling alternative: slow, small-scale, and soil-centred. Their vision is not of a single farm saving the world, but of many small farms growing flax in rotation, feeding local mills and makers, and forming a resilient, regional textile web.
Hand pulled flax laid out in the scutching shed - Mallon Farm, Co. Tyrone. Photo Credit: Yvette Monahan
Through Fantasy Fibre Mill, a new spinning initiative in Ireland, and the global Fibreshed movement, Helen, Charlie and Clare are helping envision a future where local, regenerative fibre systems are not the exception but the norm. Their Earth Day message is clear: the future of textiles is in the field. “We began with a love for Irish linen’s heritage,” says Helen, “but what’s kept us going is realising its role in a healthier, more resilient farming and textile system.”
It is a vision of new beginnings. A reawakening of soil, craft, and connection. On Mallon Farm, flax is not only growing - it is growing us.
Read more about farming and sustainable fibre production in Selvedge Issue 124, Rural.
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Further Information:
Mallon Linen
Yvette Monahan
We Feed the UK
Fantasy Fibre Mill
FibreShed
Flax Mill Textiles
Image Credits:
Lead Image: Yvette Monahan - Helen Keys and Charlie Mallon working late in the scutching shed-Mallon Farm, Co. Tyrone
All images: Yvette Monahan