By Tara Mills BBC Newsline reporter

It may seem like an unusual career for a farmer's son but Sean O'Dowd has made a business out of pottery.

Five years ago he bought a derelict thatched cottage outside Lurgan in County Armagh and transformed it into a workshop, giftshop and restaurant.

"Before it was just me making pots in what used to be the family's farm buildings," he said.

"Then I had to move because we hadn't enough room.

Pottery is based in a former linen merchant's cottage

"We had to buy new premises and now the coffee shop employs four, the pottery workshop employs five and a couple of people work in the shop.

"We have created more employment than any small farm or even a large farm."

Ballydougan Pottery is the backbone of the business but Mr O'Dowd is trying to attract local and international tourists to the area.

He has converted old farm buildings into self-catering cottages, but he is realistic about the prospects of depending on that side of the business.

"You can't depend on tourism, but this is a series of small microbusinesses making up one business."

Ballydougan Pottery has become local employer

The cottage originally belonged to a linen merchant and it acted as a base for local weavers to sell their wares.

With the decline in the linen industry the site was used for farming.

Mr O'Dowd said the house has now gone full circle: "The house has come back to its original use of being a kind of showroom, but also a home.

"It took a lot of work, when we bought it it was derelict with no floors and no ceilings so we were starting off with a bare shell and it took five years to bring the site back to as it was in the 1700s."

With more farms closing, Mr O'Dowd believes Northern Ireland's rural communities are at risk unless farming families learn to diversify.

"It used to be that every farmer had at least one farm worker and perhaps several and that isn't feasible any more," he said.

"Unless there are small microbusinesses throughout the farming community the farming community will die."