The Irish Linen Industry

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 40, Issue 40, 1 October 1903, Page 30

The Irish Linen Industry

The Irish Agricultural Department recently issued in pamphlet lorm the papers read at the Industrial Conierencc held in oonnection with the Cork Exhibition ot 1902. Amongst the most interesting ol these is a ' Sketch ol the Plax.and Linen lndustiy ot Ireland ' by All. it Lio\d Patterson, who says that the nianuhu-1 un> ot linen was known and carried out in lielai.d fiom the veiy dawn ul luxury ih dbundanliv pio\od b> the m.ni eious relerenccs to it in the works' that ha\c (omedov.n to us. Mr. Patterson quotes the lollowing authentic incident : It is on record that when the Danes took Bangor, County Down, and despoiled the nionasteiy theie in the 9th and 10th centuries, and, latei, at the sacking ot Armagh by the English towards the end ol the 12th century, part ot the spoils ol the victors at both places consisted of ' much fine linen,' of which mateiial the robes and vestments of the higher clergy weic then composed , and at which period also the custom ot wiapping the bodies oi the dead m linen had alie.u!) come into \ogue in Ireland. This tountiy may also ha\e been an early exporter of linen, as it is recoided that at a robbery which took place at Winchester, m 1272/ among the ai tides stolen was some Cloth ol Ireland, presumably, linen. It is, of course, unquestioned that the Irish linen industry reeened a great impetus by the settlement ot a number ot French" Huguenots in" the con at i y about the year 1699 A number oi them made their home in Lisburn, and the modem development ol the trade is supposed to date irom that penod At an early stage of the industry there was specialisation heie and there and certain districts acquired a celebntj toi particular kinds ot linen Dublin was the headquat tei soi the white linen trade until 178.-5, when, altei the establishment ol t lie linen trade in Bellas!, we began to dispute with the capital its claim to the piemur position The modern development of the trade ma> be ti.iced to the following chief causes .—(1) The introduction ol spinning by machinery, and the subsequent nit induction <>i wet spinning , (2) the application ot the powei loom to linen wca\mg ; and (3) improvements m bleaching Com ing to local history, .Mr. Patterson says The bcgmneis ot the industry, as we know it in. the Noith, oi lieland, weie Mcssis Murland, oi Casllewellan, County Down, who commenced spinning m 1828, and the Me/sis Alulholland, oi Belfast In that >ear the cotton mill belonging to the latter linn was binned down , and, on it-, lebuildmg, it was equipped and staitcd as a (lax mill Some years alter Messrs .Mulholland s ieb.uldnm. and new dcpaituie, Mr Martin, ot kiihleagh, loilowed then example in the erection of a flax mill m phue ot a burnt-down cotton null , and other cotton mills weie early coin ci ted to (lax So lucrative did mill spinning prove to its pioneers, and so lapidlj did it 'catdi on,' that by 1.553, that is, 25 yeais from its commeiu cment , there weie no iewer than 80 tlax nulls, containing Half a Million Spindles, in the \oith of Ireland Simultaneous!} with the use of the new industry an old established one was d\in<j; out About the time that Jlax spinning was v lamented m Ulster there weie some 50 cotton nulls in the pi.nmce, available vv.Uei no wot having been n equcnt 1% an indiuoinent to commerce Of these theie is only one — lli.it at Springfield, Bellast— now woiknig r l his decline m cotton spinning had an impoitant beanng on the culici Inslory of flax spinning, as the skilled operative, (hat weie losing their employment in the loimer lound it a»am in mc latter — an immense advantage to rmp'ou-is as well as operatives— as to have had to tram all' the skilled labor required out ot completely untianud mateiial

would have been a tedious and serious matter. The 500,000 spindles of 1&53 showed a net increase atHhe end oi the century of about 338,000, the total being then estimated at 838,582. Ten years after the close pt the American War the maximum number oi spindles at work in the North of Ireland was reached, and amounted to '521,817. Since then there has been a slightly downward tenbency ; so that the total net decline during the past twenty-seven years is placed at 8G.235 spindles In about forty-five years Mr Patterson recalls some forty mills silenced in Ireland, a numbei which includes nuns at Deny, Colorainc, Lame, Lurgan, Dublin (3), 'Limerick, Drogheda, Carnck-on-Suir, and other places It -is pointed out that in Scotland and some parts of the North of England there have been even greater fluctuations, the once important flax spinning industry of Yorkshire being now almost extinct The verdict of Mr. Patterson, however, on the position of the linen trade as a whole is that, as compared with other countries, Ireland is more than holding her own