Caring is not abstract
In her re-edition of ‘Hope in the Dark,’ Rebecca Solnit reminds us that hope is the catalyst for progressive action. Solnit challenges the reader to take ownership of their hope but insists that we are not starting from scratch; what we dream of is already in the world. Solnit reinforces the importance of building on past stories: ‘You row forward looking back, and telling this history is part of helping people navigate toward the future.’ Helen and Charlie Mallon have reawakened a dream building on a two-thousand-year-old tradition with hardworking hope. Mallon land has seen flax before; it rose from the ground for a different set of hands, it is a tradition reignited.
The most profound lesson I have learned at Mallon Farm is the transformative power of personal passion in creating change. Helen Keys and Charlie Mallon, driven by their deep love for the land, have transformed the once-dairy farm into a biodiverse flax, food, and wildlife ecosystem.
I visited Mallon Farm over a calendar year, but my favourite trip was in August last year. I pulled up along the path just off Pomeroy on a rare sunny Autumn day. The narrow road was full of overgrown bushes, and the sun shone brightly on the fields. As always, we started with coffee and cake, Charlie’s mum and sister joined us. There was a mix of local chat, global thoughts and belly laughs. The 1940s scutching turbine in the shed stayed silent as it was a field day. It was during this period that Spence met Rosy Martin, with whom she developed Photo Therapy—a groundbreaking practice rooted in psychodrama and co-counselling. Together, they discovered how photography could serve as a form of healing, helping individuals work through trauma by restaging and reinterpreting memories. In doing so, they not only challenged societal norms around beauty, motherhood, and femininity but also expanded the boundaries of artistic collaboration.
We set off on the farm tour across fields that had been bare and lean on my previous May visit. The farm had exploded, and an Edenic garden unfolded before us in place of the brown earth. We waded through chest-high grasses full of devil’s bits scabious where peacock butterflies feasted, and marsh fritillaries visited bright yellow irises. The unbroken hedgerow-edged fields dipped for deer beds; the hazelnut tree branches weighed down with boughs of nuts, the rich rosehips and blackberries bursting from the brambles. Linnets flocked overhead. The bees fed uninterrupted, and their low hum sat low in the wild meadow. We cooled off in an old-growth glade of silent mosses, trees where badger sets inhabit the cool, dark undergrowth. The otters were back, too; Charlie had heard them playing in the stream at the bottom of the field. The blue flower of the flax blossom filled the fields, swaying in the evening light as the family gathered to harvest.
In Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, she weaves relationships between indigenous knowledge and Western science rooted in the earth. Kimmerer is emphatic about the earth’s regenerative capacity, that we can help conditions for renewal by building good soil culturally and socially, creating potential for the future.
She insists we must listen to the land, for the land cannot heal until we hear its stories. Ecologist, Gary Nabhan, calls it ‘re-story-ation,’ a retelling and reinterpreting of the land’s stories to foster a more profound connection. Those carrying the new stories must find reciprocity with the natural world. We can do this ‘through gratitude, through ceremony, through land stewardship, science, art, and in everyday acts of practical reverence’. The ‘re-story-ation’ of flax growing is circular: rejuvenating soil, waterways, and wildlife and telling the story of a rooted heritage through everyday acts of practical reverence. As Kimmerer so sensitively reminds us, ‘caring is not abstract,’ My mind drifts to the rhythmic rift of Abby’s poem, ‘This gentle work is hard.’
Caring is devotion to growing a plant that knows this landscape; this flax plant has not been forgotten; ‘it has just been silent in our fields.’ Caring involves early mornings and long, back-bending days preparing bare fields for tiny seeds, counting by hand, sowing in the sunshine, and praying for rain. Caring means trusting the natural cycle of the earth and the unpredictable Tyrone weather patterns. After one hundred chemical-free days, the harvest is pulled and tied by the caring hands of family and friends.
Retting is not glamorous work. Rainwater-retted flax carries a stink bomb biome, but nutrient-rich water nourishes the land. The retted flax is laid out in patterned fields, rotated with long, narrow sticks. This gentle work is hard.
Caring is late nights in the shed, lining twisted bundles of flax up along the cogs of the belt-driven scutching turbine, lovingly rebuilt by Charlie’s intense gentleness. Caring is heckling flax, combing compulsively like tangled hair, creating smoother, shinier textured textiles. This gentle work is hard.
The ‘re-story-ation’ of Irish linen is driven by these passionate individuals, Helen and Charlie, alongside their families and friends who practice daily acts of practical reverence, gently re-story-ing Mallon Farm.
Yvette Monahan, photographer
Across the seasons, Yvette Monahan became well acquainted with Helen and Charlie’s flax fields; her photographs capturing the quiet devotion of their hands and the land’s unfolding memories. The re-storying of Irish-grown linen.
A recurring theme among our We Feed The UK collaborators has been to find themselves touched and moulded through the time spent with the protagonists of their work. It’s a testament to the power of such stories to inspire and energise their beholder.
“[This project] was serendipitously important for me on a personal level, having become despondent and resigned to the environmental crisis. I was amazed by their resilience, their determination to change the habits of a lifetime and most importantly to help raise that rising tide that lifts all boats. I could have written ten poems about Helen and Charlie; they do so much.”
Abby Oliveira, poet
The same can be said for the farmers, too. Reflecting this incredible community of growers back to itself has allowed its humble members to recognise the magnitude of their work; something there is rarely time for between tending to their patiently worked pastures.
“You have no idea how important what [We Feed The UK] is doing is; not just for sharing the stories of what all the farmers are doing, but just for us to have somebody to go – what you’re doing is pretty alright.”
Helen Keys, farmer
Beyond the photographs, beyond the words, the story of Mallon Farm is still unfolding; in the hush of early mornings, in the hum of bees, in the rustle of flax yet to be woven into Irish-grown linen.
You can learn more about Helen and Charlie’s work reviving the tradition of Irish-grown linen by attending one of our upcoming Fibre events.
