Festival of Flax

Festival of Flax

11am to 3pm: 12th September 2026

Ligoniel Dams

From flax we can make linen. The linen industry shaped Belfast, but almost nothing of it survives. Have you ever seen a flax flower? Do you know how to get fibre from the flax stem?

Come along to the Festival of Flax to explore the part flax played in our past. Could it play a part in our present and future? We're keen to hear what you think.

At the Festival you'll get a chance to harvest flax plants and process them for fibres. 

You'll see how the fibres can be spun into yarn, and how the yarn can be woven into cloth. 

You'll see old maps and photographs showing how central flax and linen production were in 19th-century Belfast. 

You'll find out about the local linen industry on a guided walking tour.

Activities will include:

• Group harvesting of the flax that’s growing up at the dam

• Rippling seeds from the harvested flax

• Working with the retted & dried flax from Ligoniel Garden & Waterworks Garden

• Spinning & plying demonstration ( have a go at making necklaces and bracelets)

• Working with drop spindles

• Working with a table loom & mini looms

• A linen heritage walk around the dams

There will be food and drink and you can bring your children.

All are welcome, but accessibility to the site is limited.

You can access the festival location via paths from Thornberry Road (https://maps.app.goo.gl/j3yW7xi4siWKTcqt7) or Thornberry Mews (https://maps.app.goo.gl/xrTjgMu8RdxLNbkR7)

Travel

To get to Thornberry Road (in the Ligoniel area) from Belfast city centre, take the Translink Metro Service 11C or Service 12B. Board the bus from the city centre (such as Donegall Square North), and alight on Mill Avenue or near Ligoniel, which leaves you with a short walk up to Thornberry Road.

Parking is limited as it is a residential area, so please be considerate to the people who live there.

This event is part of The Story of Flax, a collaborative project run by Brink!, Grow and quarto, in partnership with Queen’s University Belfast, supported by MACC Hub.

It uses the cultivation of flax – a plant central to Northern Ireland’s history – to open up conversations about past, present and future. 

The team is working across north Belfast at Waterworks Community Gardens and with the Ligoniel Improvement Association at their gardens and the dams, growing, processing, and exploring this once-ubiquitous crop while asking what it might mean to bring it back in a time of climate crisis. 

The Festival of Flax event partners are Grow and quarto, Queen’s University Belfast, Ligoniel Improvement Association, Waterworks Community Garden, and Belfast Hills Partnership.