Cottage industries blooming again

Thousands of people used to rely on cottage industry for a living and, as BBC Northern Ireland's rural correspondent Martin Cassidy reports, the home-based business is back in vogue.

The relics of Ulster's once-thriving textile history are dotted across the Northern Ireland landscape.

Bill Brown has found Angora goats are a source of income

But the mills were not the only work places.

Many weavers worked at home and rural cottages represented a network of bustling workshops.

Back in 1773 when the local linen industry was at its height, 17 million yards of linen were shipped from Belfast to markets around the world.

Much of that linen was produced in cottages where home-based workers put in long hours.

At that time, many families combined weaving with subsistence farming.

Chattering looms

The farm provided food and a few animals to sell while the 'linen money' gave a steady, if meagre, cash income.

But in time, competition from foreign textiles forced many of the mills out of business and in the weavers' cottages too, the clattering looms fell silent.

With the loss of their cash business, many rural families headed for towns and cities to look for work.

The golden age of the cottage industry had come to an end.

Now, more than 200 years later, there are industrial stirrings out in the countryside.

In cottages, garages and sheds across rural Northern Ireland, there is evidence of a home-based industrial revolution.

Hundreds of new cottage businesses are starting up, providing a real stimulus to an otherwise largely stagnant rural economy

Hive of industry

The laneway to Bill Brown's cottage in north Down is long and winding and the pot holes are winning.

The Mohair produces the yarn for jumpers, socks and scarves

But behind the quaint facade and flower-filled window boxes, the cottage is a hive of industry.

Inside is a textile workshop and showroom where Mohair yarn is spun and garments made from the soft, lustrous fleeces of Angora goats which graze in the fields behind the cottage.

The goats are shorn twice a year and the Mohair is carded and spun to produce the yarn for jumpers, socks and scarves.

Bill enjoys working at home, combining goat herding with the textile workshop.

And it's a lifestyle which is not only attracting growing numbers of people but also helping stimulate the rural economy

Marketing tool

Cottage-based businesses may typically only employ one or two people, but with hundreds of these micro-businesses springing up across rural Northern Ireland, they represent a growth area for the local economy.

More than 700 small rural businesses have been received help from the Leader + programme which has a budget of £21m and is jointly funded by the European Union and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

And, keen to help cottage industries flourish, an internet directory has been produced to make it easier for potential customers locate what are often remote businesses.

Janet Liggett of DARD says the directory is divided into a number of business sectors, ranging from food products to photography, and from beauty and fashion to waste management.

It's a marketing tool which would not have been available to the cottage industries of yesteryear.