By Saoirse MacCarthy
DIFW: From Land to Loom, Can Ireland Grow Its Own Textile Industry?
Many Irish Industries have histories intertwined with colonialism and poverty; Fibreshed Ireland thinks it is time to make textile processing ours again.
When we buy a wool jumper or linen shirt, we rarely know where the fibre itself began. In shops selling clothing made of natural fibres, we assume they were created in Ireland, or at least that a percentage of them were. Unfortunately, even when the fibre is created in Ireland, it is not being processed here. Ireland has the raw materials; we have an abundance of wool and flax, but the industry lacks the infrastructure to process it commercially.
Fibreshed Ireland wants to build a locally rooted industry which can be sustained in a modern Ireland. For Malú Colorín, co-founder and co-director of Fibreshed Ireland, the issue is at the heart of the organisation’s work. As part of Dublin Independent Fashion Week, Fibreshed Ireland hosted an event which encouraged people to learn about Irish-Grown fibres which are available to designers and makers. The event, called ‘Homegrown: a day of Irish fibres,’ included the Soil-to-Soil exhibition, a screening of the documentary Flax: Threads of Time and a decorative stitching workshop by Cúpla Snaithe.
Founded in 2022, Fibreshed Ireland is a community-supported movement to craft a regenerative Irish textile system based on local fibre, local dyes & local labour. The Fibreshed movement originated in Northern California in 2009 and has grown into a global movement to build regional fibre systems and strengthen community resilience. Malú Colorín is a natural dyer, educator, and community organiser; she explains, “We’re helping the industry move forward towards locally grown textiles.” The organisation believes in the soil-to-soil model of textile production, which is the most circular process possible.
Malú says both flax and wool face different problems but meet a similar “chokehold in the value chain.” Working with different farmers and textile producers, Malú says, “We kind of need to prove that it is viable.” The most workable solution to restoring a textile industry in Ireland is to keep it small to medium scale.
Before a textile industry can be rebuilt here, there is a major block: the fibres cannot be processed commercially anywhere on the island. While flax can be scutched and spun by hand, Malú explains there is no factory able to spin flax commercially, as no one owns the machinery to complete the process. She says this creates a massive gap in the Irish textile supply chain and that producing the fibres is not enough to support a functioning industry.
Small-scale is Ireland’s strength; Malú argues having many small or medium players could make the industry more resilient. Which is why it was so important to host the event with DIFW, which focuses on the independent network of designers and creatives in Ireland. Fibreshed’s approach is not asking designers to make entire collections from Irish fibres. Instead, Malú advocates starting small: incorporating even a tiny percentage of Irish-grown material into a garment, “How can we incorporate even a small stitch or even, like, a tiny percentage of it into our clothes?” She says that if even 5% of a garment could be made in Ireland, the Irish industry could grow steadily. Fibreshed Ireland is now working towards securing the machinery needed to launch production. The organisation is working with collectives and farmers to fundraise for communal machinery. The irony is that Ireland once had a booming industry, but it is a history we must learn from, not recreate.
Irish flax production dates back 5000 years, from a domestic cottage industry into a world-renowned industrial powerhouse in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Due to rising global competition, synthetic fibres and the decolonisation of Ireland, the industry collapsed in the 1950s. Now small farming initiatives and eco-conscious producers in up and down the country are reinvesting in flax to restore soil health and support the emerging natural fibres industry. Fibreshed’s aim is not restoration; it is reinvention: “We can learn from that and make a different industry that actually works for the people that are growing it.”
Malú says the factories were “exploitative and it was terrible.” She says there were divisions between those working in the fields doing the ‘dirty’ work and those managing the factories. The documentary, ‘Flax: Threads of Time,’ discusses Ireland’s linen heritage with nuance.
The responsibility of our textile industry is not only on the farmers, designers, or manufacturers. Consumers have a role in increasing the demand for Irish fabrics. People are increasingly concerned with where their food is coming from, if it was locally grown or organic, but the origins of our clothing can be treated with the same approach. Malú wants to change the invisible industry behind clothing. “Not only who made my clothes, but who grew them? How were they grown? How were they processed?” she asks. This shifts the attention beyond constant consumption and towards production.
Ireland might not be able to have the textile industry it once had, but that is not what we need. Instead, with the support from organisations like Fibreshed Ireland, a smaller, locally rooted industry could flourish. From farmers growing flax and herding sheep, designers incorporating Irish fabrics into their collections, and conscious consumers, the change depends on connections across the entire value chain. Malú Colorín believes the smallest contribution will help move the process forward. “Every little bit helps,” she says.