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© Tara Fisher

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

MOURNE TEXTILES

Photography Mourne Textiles Words Catherine Coyle

t was a chance conversation with a friend in China entwined. “The workshop is exactly the same, with the same
that led Gerd Hay-Edie to Ireland. She was living in looms and equipment as it was then,” he tells me. “We want it
the Far East with her family (her husband worked to be as authentic as we can get it.”
in shipping and his job meant travel was inevitable) You can understand why Mario and Karen would want to
when she got chatting to an Irishman who told her imitate what Gerd established: she was a pioneer; a trailblazer
ou
ab
I t the Mournes, a mountain range in County with single-minded focus. Born in Norway in 1909, this
Down. She identified with the place immediately. The similari- enterprising, wildly creative and intelligent woman learned the
ties between the Celtic landscape and the fjords of Norway, the art of tapestry at the age of 17, and went on to study design and
country of her birth, won her heart and persuaded her to set weaving in Oslo. When she was still at college, she was asked to
up home and business in Ireland. set up a workshop in Europe, so she headed, alone, to Spain.
Today, Mario Sierra, Gerd’s grandson, is the third genera- From there she travelled to Britain, where she cut her teeth at
tion of the family taking Mourne Textiles into a new phase. Dartington Hall’s tweed mill. She later went back to Norway,
Mario’s mother Karen remains at the weaving workshop and where she took up the post of head of Industries at the Rural
design studio; both she and her son are master weavers, taught Bureau. It was a huge job for a 27-year-old and one that took
by Gerd, with the craft in their blood. Gerd away from the physical act of weaving, instead using her
Gerd remains the heart and soul of this incredible business. skills as a business woman and an industry expert to promote
Although she died in 1997, her designs are still being made the craft and try to generate business by setting up workshops
at the County Down workshop. For Mario, it’s difficult to all over the country.
separate his family from the business, the two are so completely This phase in her career was essentially an office job

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