linen

linen was Ireland's most important manufacturing industry during the 18th and 19th centuries. It was heavily concentrated in Ulster, where it became the lead sector in the industrialization of the eastern half of the province during the 19th century.

There had been a tradition of flax cultivation and linen manufacture, largely for domestic consumption, prior to the Ulster plantation. The plantation brought a number of experienced artisans and merchants into the Irish industry from Britain and to a lesser extent from continental Europe. Their new skills and knowledge of trade networks enabled linen to become the dominant export from the Ulster region by the end of the 17th century. Duty‐free access to the British market from 1696, and to that of Britain's colonies from 1705, gave Irish linens the edge over German and Dutch rivals. In addition to these official measures and the establishment of the Linen Board (1711), the industry received support from many landlords who initiated local schemes such as the provision of market facilities.

Participation in extra‐regional markets made linen more resilient and dynamic than other Irish industries. Exports increased from about 2 million yards in 1713 to over 47 million yards in 1796. By the latter year linen, flax, and hemp products accounted for over 56 per cent of the value of all Irish exports.

Linen was well suited to Ireland as, during the 18th century, it was (with the exception of bleaching and finishing) labour intensive rather than capital intensive. The cultivation of flax, the spinning of yarn, and the weaving of linen cloth were all well suited to the economy of rural smallholders, being activities that could occupy the slack periods of the farming year. From the 1740s yarn spinning began to spread westwards into Connacht and also into north Leinster, increasing the supply of yarn to the major weaving districts in Ulster. Facilities for bleaching and finishing, and the core markets in the industry, tended to be located in east Ulster, in an area (known as the linen triangle) linking Belfast, Dungannon, and Armagh. Despite Ulster's predominant position in the industry, most of the exports were channelled through Dublin factors until the end of the 18th century, when Ulster factors began to deal directly with London.

By the end of the 18th century, bleaching had become the most centralized and mechanized process within the industry. The bleachers who controlled the final stages of production and the early stages of marketing were a powerful group within the industry, capable of financing the larger capital outlays required to introduce mechanized finishing processes. spinning and weaving, by contrast, remained predominantly a cottage industry. Although Belfast had become the main centre of mechanized cotton spinning in Ireland by the 1820s, the mechanization of flax spinning took place more slowly; dry spinning techniques produced a yarn which was too coarse for most cloth types. Wet spinning, pioneered in England, produced a finer yarn more suitable for the finer cloth types made in Ulster, and in the second half of the 1820s a number of bleachers and cotton manufacturers in the region began to invest in the new technology. Mulholland's (ex‐Belfast cotton spinners) were the first commercially successful wet spinners to undertake the new process on a large scale from 1829. By the mid‐1830s, linen had displaced cotton as the main employer of factory labour in the Belfast area. The proprietors of spinning mills gradually began to displace bleachers as the principal employers of labour within the industry, though many bleachers also began to invest in spinning. The factory industry was even more concentrated in east Ulster. The adoption of powerloom weaving from the 1850s completed the process of mechanization.

By this time Belfast had become the largest linen manufacturing centre in the world; the expansion of mechanized production was most rapid during the 1860s when a shortage of cotton wool resulting from the American Civil War undermined the rival cotton industry. Peak 19th‐century spindlage had already been reached in 1870. Between 1860 and 1914 all but one of the five firms who dominated the industry (the York Street Spinning Company, the Brookfield Linen Company, Ewart & Son, the Linen Thread Company, and the Ulster Spinning Company) carried out all aspects of the manufacture from spinning to retailing cloth. Smaller firms tended to specialize. By the end of the 19th century the making‐up trade had also become significant so less cloth was exported directly, and more was made up into handkerchiefs, sheets, table cloths, shirts, and so on. Over the course of the 19th century, linen had become a luxury item; it was particularly suited to warm climates. By the end of the century the USA rather than Britain had become the main destination for Irish exports. The industry did reasonably well until after the end of the First World War, but international demand for linen contracted dramatically over the following decades. Fashions changed and people used fewer linen sheets, table cloths, and underwear. This decline was permanent and the linen industry never recovered.

Bibliography

Cohen, M. , The Warp of Ulster's Past: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Irish Linen Industry 1700–1920 (1997)
Crawford, W. , ‘The Evolution of the Linen Trade in Ulster’, Irish Economic and Social History, 15 (1988)

Andrew Bielenberg