shipbuilding

shipbuilding. Wooden sailing ships were built at various locations around the coast of Ireland before 1800. The occupation returns of the 1841 census indicate that, although Belfast was by far the most important shipbuilding centre in employment terms, the industry remained relatively rural based and widely dispersed.

In the second half of the century, the more capital‐intensive production techniques required for the construction of iron‐ and steel‐hulled ships led to larger units of production, and external economies led to regional concentration. By the late 19th century most UK mercantile tonnage was launched on the Clyde, on the north‐east coast of England, and on the Lagan. The industry in Ireland was concentrated in Belfast, dominated by the two shipbuilding giants of Harland & Wolff and Workman, Clark & Company. In the years 1906–14 Harland & Wolff and Workman Clark between them produced 10 per cent of UK output and 6 per cent of world output.

Most ports retained the capacity to construct traditional small vessels such as brigantines, schooners, and smacks. Construction of larger vessels over 200 gross tons was confined to a few locations other than Belfast. In the first half of the 19th century Cork was an important shipbuilding centre. The Cork firm of Andrew & Michael Hennessy built the first steamship in Ireland in 1815, and Robert J. Lecky & Company launched an iron‐hulled vessel in 1845. However, the industry in Cork went into decline from the mid‐1860s. In the mid‐century Waterford firms such as Pope & Co., Albert White & Co., and Charles Smith established a high reputation for construction of sailing vessels. Iron steamships of up to 2,000 tons were constructed by the Neptune Iron Works in Waterford between 1847 and 1880. There was little shipbuilding in Dublin in the 19th century. The firm of Walpole & Webb built iron ships in the 1860s; subsequently Bewley, Webb & Company undertook repair work. No large vessels were constructed in Derry between 1846 and the foundation of the Foyle Shipyard in 1882; it went out of business in 1892.

In the 20th century, the Dublin Dockyard Company revived shipbuilding in the city in 1901; the Londonderry Shipbuilding & Engineering Company had a brief existence between 1899 and 1904; on the same site in 1912 the North of Ireland Shipbuilding and Engineering Co. Ltd. was set up. With the downturn in demand after the First World War, shipbuilding operations in Dublin and Derry ceased in the early 1920s and the two Belfast firms encountered financial difficulties; Workman Clark ceased operations in 1935. Harland & Wolff survived the hard inter‐war years and continues to be a major European shipbuilder. Belfast has retained its almost complete domination of Irish shipbuilding until the present day.

Bibliography

Anderson, E. B. , Sailing Ships of Ireland (1951)
Workman Clark (1928) Ltd., Shipbuilding at Belfast 1880–1933 (n.d.)

FG/ and Frank Geary