Prince and Princess of Wales Northern Ireland visit: Londonderry man spins royal linen yarns for William and Kate in Co Tyrone
A County Londonerry spinner told Prince William this week that he was inspired take up linen by Henry VIII’s law forbidding gentlemen from wearing more than seven yards of the fabric.
Tiernan Stuart was speaking to the Prince and Princess of Wales during their visit to Mallon Farm near Cookstown on Tuesday, where husband and wife Charlie Mallon and Helen Keys are aiming to create a sustainable flax and linen farm.
Mr Stuart, from Clady in Co Londonderry, has spent 30 years researching flax at Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University.
And on Tuesday he was demonstrating a prototype new spinning machine.
"It is really a proof of concept machine for spinning flax, using robotic controls and sensors," he told the News Letter.
"We are using 21st Century equipment to update the 200 year old process of processing and spinning flax."
The machine is an attempt to solve the “bottleneck” that holds back the resurgent linen industry from really taking off.
"It is a very difficult process with lots of steps and machines and it's very labour intensive. There can be lots of hiccups along the way.”
This was partly the reason, he said, that linen was superseded by easier to process man-made fibres and cotton.
He found William and Kate "wonderful" to talk to about the issues and "genuinely interested".
"They really gave me their full attention and I tried to just tell them everything I could,” he said.
“I told them how in years gone by the ladies would put the fiber through their mouths to help spin it and they seemed to know all about it.”
They were particularly interested in how he started out.
"I told them my inspiration came from Henry the VIII, who created a law against Irish gentlemen wearing more than seven yards of linen.
"This was because the O'Neills were producing so much linen in the 14th and 15th century that they were wearing huge quantities of it in the English court and embarrassing the English gentleman.”
He also amused William by recounting that the finest linen in ancient Egypt was reserved as a gift for royalty.
"That is because they could spin it so fine in a way that we still can't do today. It took so much time and they had very specialist royal spinners and weavers.
"They were basically spinning flax into gold. It wasn't given to anybody and you couldn't buy it. It was given as a kingly gift."
At this point William joked that he hoped to get some in the future.
"I just had to smile," said Tiernan. "I would love to be able to provide him with some when I can.”
Mario Sierra from Mourne Textiles in Rostrevor also discussed his experimentats in old fashioned linen weaving techniques with the couple.
He found they were interested in future employment prospects for young people in the field.
"They were really interested in the next generation getting involved and getting an interest," he told the News Letter.
"And they were interested in keeping that heritage that is rooted in the past but making it relevant for the future.”
The couple had an interest not just in the fibers and farming, but also the skills and repurposing the fibres for other purposes, he added.