Fibre to fabric - With Mario Sierra of Mourne Textiles (#124)

Today we head off to rural Northern Ireland to talk to Mario Sierra, third-generation weaver at the family-owned Mourne Textiles. While Ireland has long been known for its linen, Mario is concerned that after some parts of the linen industry were closed down around 30 years ago, the skills and technology to process flax are on the verge of being lost forever. This has led him to seek out remaining machinery for processing linen fibres and people that have the know-how and skills to operate them. To aid in this he is running a crowdfunding drive to start up a micro-mill to process linen fibres through to yarn. We talk about the ambitions and the challenges, of life in in a family-run weaving business and quite a bit about what makes a product meaningful. Oh, and Mario's urge to weave Irish denim! Links in episode notes!