Irish Linen Production

A 17th Century north country weaver with a web of linen cloth.  English weavers brought their skills to Ireland and helpful to lay the foundations of the Irish linen industry. 

Flax seed was sown by hand in the springtime. By mid summer e flax plants had grown about one metre high and had pale blue flower "the wee blue blossom".

In August when the seed had formed the flax was harvested by pulling the complete stems out of the ground. The stems were bound together into beets and stacked into stocks to dry. Then the flax was rippled to re,over the seed using a comb of iron teeth.

flax 

In order to soften the stems, the beets of flax were placed in alone of stagnant water and weighed down with boulders. This soaking (retting) lasted about 10 days. The pungent smell of the flax was very distinctive and offensive. Taking the flax out of the dam was a difficult task for the beets were saturated and smelly. 

The first part of the scrutchimg process was to loosen the brittle outer parts of the flax stems. Handfuls of flax stems were beaten with a older club. Then the flax was placed across an upright stock and hit with a broad wooden blade. This separated the flax fibres from the unwanted woody parts of th stems which were known as shoves. 

Here are flax stalks (behind), with scutched fibres (front left) and a small bit of cleaned flax fibre ready for spinning (front right) that looks like a pony tail. 

Spinning is the drawing out and twisting of fibres to form a continuous length of yarn. Achieving evenness and fineness are prized skills.  Here is one of the museum employees spinning flax into yarn.