A few days ago Marion Baur, owner of Flax-Mill-Textiles and driving force behind the flax-growing project, held the first bundles of shiny fibre in her hands at Mc Conville´s scutch mill in Dromore. "It is delightful to see and feel the flax-fibres which are now ready for spinning" she said when showing the aristocratic crop to friends and journalists. "Despite the very poor summer weather the flax grew well and produced a decent quantity of fibre which is now going to be spun into linen-yarn. We should be able to put the first batch of it on one of our weaving looms within a few weeks."

Most of the yarn will be woven in its natural colour and the cloth used for high-quality table runners and napkins at the historic Flax-Mill in Derrylane near Dungiven.

Marion Baur is keen to stress that the flax-growing project would have been much harder to put into practice without the big lot of advice and help that came from friends and local people with experience. "Whilst local politicians and government-bodies showed no interest at all which did not at all surprise me, many local people who had been involved in flax-growing years ago, our 'land-lords', Julie and John Henderson who we took the ground off, flax-experts from as far away as England and Belgium who had learned about our work through the very good media- coverage and not least our scutchers Eugene and Felix Mc Conville gave us a lovely run of guiding and encouragement from the start to now. Flax isn't just your ordinary crop and the many hints regarding timing, retting-temperatures and many more details given by "old hands" were very helpful", she said.

Many TV and newspaper journalists asked about a flax come-back in the North of Ireland, Marion Baur doesn't want to hype things but for Flax Mill's own project, the 'test run' has produced a clear answer: "There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that we are going to grow a lager quantity of flax next year. A field twice the size of this year's one has been ear-marked and we have ordered the best seed available. With absolutely no support or even encouragement by the authorities, it's going to be a hard run but the interest in our completely locally made linen, Irish linen in the very true sense of the word, is huge. It would make absolutely no sense not to increase our flax-growing" Marion said.

Interest in the county Derry flax has indeed been large with weavers from Germany, Austria and even the United States contacting Flax Mill to inquire about the possibility of using Irish spun yarn from Irish grown flax. Marion Baur told them to be patient. "At this point, especially with the absence of any larger-scale spinning mills, I think we are not ready to supply fellow weavers from far away. Give us a few years and that might change. I think the 'full circle production', small as it may be at the moment has a lot to be said for it. No carbon foot-print, no cheap labour leaves us with an environmentally friendly product which goes well with the unspoiled Roe Valley area, is hard but very pleasant to make and unique for those who are going to own it."

Notes for editors:

• This release is free for immediate publication.
• For any details, interviews or photo-sessions, please contact Flax-Mill @ 028 777 42655 or send us a mail.
• We have attached several photos of our flax in the different stages of growth, harvest and retting. They were taken by Julie Henderson, please give her credit in case of publication.