SOUND ARCHIVE

Living Linen Interview LL2_R00/22

Sound Recording : Magnetic Tape, Reel

McConville, Eugene (Mr) (Primary maker)
McConville, Eugene (Mr) (interviewee)

17/03/2000
17/03/2000

Sound Recording on Reel: Flax farming and scutching. Library Transcript: Transcript. Summary: The McConville family has been growing and scutching flax on this farm in Dromore for over 100 years. The holding is approximately 70 acres and continues today as a commercial farm and working museum. The scutch mill was run on a commercial basis up to the 1950s. Due to the seasonal nature of flax farming, the McConvilIes would have hired in casual, but skilled and experienced, labour at harvest and scutching time. Flax is usually sown in late March or early April and is ready for harvesting after 14 weeks, depending on the weather. Young flax seedlings are not very hardy and can be easily damaged by frost or strong wind. Flax is ordinarily sewn in rotation with other crops so as to prepare the soil properly, although modern weed killing and fertilizing techniques have somewhat reduced the need for this organic preparation. A fully mature flax plant is approximately l metre high. As the fax fibres extend for virtually the full length of the stem, flax is pulled rather than cut. Because it needed to be pulled, flax harvesting used to be a highly labour intensive task. The advent of mechanical pulling devices, specially designed for flax harvesting, has permitted the industrialisation of the process. Modern machines also bale the flax. In earlier times the cut flax was 'stooked' and left to dry in the fields before being retted. Retting involved weighting the flax down in dams, commonly termed 'lint holes', until it began to ferment. The retting flax gave off a pungent smell that was instantly recognisable to the whole linen community. Although relatively harmless, the dam water was a pollutant and could not be released into rivers directly. In many cases it was allowed to seep slowly back into the ground or was pumped over surrounding fields. In either case it was diluted sufficiently well not to cause any problems. Retting helped separate the valuable flax fibres from the woody parts of the plant. Once retted the flax was again laid out in fields to dry before being scutched. The McConvilles are somewhat unique in that they combine farming with scutching. Ordinarily flax farmers would have taken their crop to a scutch mill and paid to have their flax scutched before selling it themselves at a market. Scutching involves literally beating the dried flax with a series of revolving wooden arms. This removes the 'shoues', or woody material, and leaves behind the silky fibres, which can then be sold to flax merchants or direct to spinning mills. None of the flax plant is wasted. The fibres are used to produce linen. The 'shoues' fired the boilers in many scutch mills and were used all year round for cooking and heating homes in rural areas. Those seeds that were not re-sown, could be used to produce linseed oil or, made into animal feed-linseed cakes. Seed variety is very important with flax. The Linen Institute Research Association and the Department of Agriculture both worked to develop strains that were particularly suited to the Northern Ireland climate. Different seed types are used depending on whether the farmer wants to grow flax for fibre or for seed. Those varieties that produce good fibres have long unbroken stems with only a few seed pods at the very top of the plant. The seed producing varieties have many more seed bolls and contain a much poorer quality of fibre. Although flax farming has been mechanised there are no short cuts. Although hand-pulling and dam retting have given way to harvesting and tank retting over the past 50 or so years the basic processes are unchanged.

HOYFM.R2000.54

National Museums NI