overseas trade

Home > History > Modern Europe > British and Irish History

overseas trade. There is very limited historical evidence on this subject before the 12th century, although it is known that hides, hunting dogs, slaves, and possibly wool were important exports. In the pre‐Norman period it is the Viking towns such as Dublin and Waterford that provide much of the archaeological evidence of the extent of overseas trade. From the workshops of these towns Ireland exported ring pins and other metalwork objects, as well as bone and antler combs and jewellery all over Viking Europe. The import trade was dominated by wine, iron, salt, and amber, along with other raw materials for Ireland's urban industries.

Following the Anglo‐Norman invasion the towns of the east and south coasts, from Waterford to Kinsale, dominated Ireland's international trade, with wool being the single most important export until it declined in the later Middle Ages. The next most important export commodity was arguably hides, which undoubtedly became more important than wool or cloth in the later Middle Ages. The main market was Europe, with Pisa alone taking many thousands of these hides to supply her growing tanning industry in the 15th century. Flanders took many annually, as did France and England, the latter importing them through the port of Bristol, the main gateway to Ireland. In the 13th and early 14th centuries Ireland was also exporting her surplus cereal crop to England and to the royal armies fighting in Scotland. Again the main centre of this trade was in the south‐east, especially from the manors of the earls of Norfolk in Co. Wexford. But by the second half of the 14th century this trade was in decline because of the general economic downturn, until by 1437 Bristol was shipping grain back into Ireland. However, by then both salt and freshwater fish had become a major Irish export. As early as the 13th century an Irish fishing fleet was operating along the eastern and northern coasts and in the Manx herring fishery. Waterford was the main centre of this trade in Ireland and exported mostly to Bristol and Chester in Britain, from where the fish were sold on to inland towns. Because of the socio‐economic difficulties in the 14th century (see black death; gaelic recovery) Ireland's export trade, much of which had been based on the cereal trade, became almost entirely dependent on hides and fish, with the continued export of wool and woolfell (sheep skin with the wool still attached) at a reduced level.

Throughout the period the greatest import was arguably wine, especially from La Rochelle and Bordeaux. Ports like Waterford made large profits re‐exporting wine to the English army fighting in Scotland. In the 14th century the port of Galway prospered as a result of its trading links with the Iberian peninsula, especially in Spanish wine. Salt also was imported in large amounts, again through Bristol and from the European mainland, in order to preserve meat and fish. Iron also had to be imported from Brittany, the Iberian peninsula, and England. The remainder of the import trade was made up of manufactured goods and luxury commodities like spices and fine cloths.

The structure of Irish overseas trade in the early 16th century changed little from the late medieval pattern. Over the course of the century the volume of trade seems to have grown, although the evidence is sketchy. A report on Irish trade in 1611 identifies corn, frieze, tallow, hides, and pipe‐staves as the main exports, much of which went to Spain. Wine, iron, and salt were the main imports. Most 16th‐century Irish overseas trade was conducted in English ships through ports in the south and east of the country to the English ports of Bristol or Chester. French and Spanish ports were also used when international diplomacy allowed. Merchants from Spain and France also traded with individual Irish chiefs in the north and west of Ireland.

The expansion of royal authority in the early 17th century eroded the trading rights of local Irish lords and this, combined with the expansion of the population through colonization, meant that overseas trade grew dramatically as natural resources were more intensively exploited. There were some new elements in this trade. The most important innovation was live cattle, which had not been exported at all in 1600. By 1640 15,000 live cattle were exported annually, representing over half the value of Irish trade, together with exports of between 1.5 and 2 million sheep. The volume of wool landed at Chester grew from about 100–200 stone a year in the 1580s to 6,666 stone in 1639. More limited in its expansion was the trade in fish and timber. Overall, exports consisted mainly of raw materials which were little processed.

The outbreak of the rising of 1641 was accompanied by a commercial crisis which brought overseas trade almost to a halt, from which Ireland recovered only slowly during the 1650s. Changes in the structure of the Irish economy during the 1650s, reinforced by the Cattle Acts, encouraged a move from dependence on live cattle and sheep exports towards more processed goods such as barrelled beef, butter, and cheese. These comprised over 50 per cent of Irish trade down to the 1720s. There was also a significant increase in wool and woollen cloth exports, until this was curtailed by the Woollen Act.

Overall Irish exports, in value terms, rose by some 50 per cent in the late 17th century. In the early 17th century England had been the main market for livestock exports, and hence the main market for Irish trade generally. The new trade in processed goods was directed more to North America. In 1664 about 74 per cent of all Irish exports were destined for England but by 1683 this had fallen to 30 per cent, rising by 1700 to 42 per cent. Towns such as Cork became important centres of the provisions trade. New Irish imports arose as a result of this trade, the most important of which was tobacco, leading ultimately to the balance of trade favouring the colonies.

While the crisis of the 1690s disrupted trade its effect was limited in comparison with the economic slump of the first 30 years of the 18th century. Depressed export prices and bad harvests slowed export growth, but these decades also saw the emergence of linen cloth and yarn as an important element in Irish trade. By the middle of the 1720s linen accounted for about a third of all Irish trade by value. As Ireland recovered from that slump the twin supports of the trading economy emerged as cattle production and domestic linen manufacture. Older elements in the traded economy such as fish, timber, and iron became much less significant with the rise of cheaper sources elsewhere.

The pattern of late 18th‐century Irish overseas trade was still dominated by the demand for foodstuffs and linen cloth. Despite political developments which guaranteed free trade for Ireland in the 1770s, Britain had by now re‐established itself as Ireland's most important trading partner, as the growth of American agriculture reduced transatlantic demand. This is reflected in the growth of Irish grain exports, the value of which doubled in the later part of the 18th century as a result of demand for food from a growing British urban population. Despite this the largest single element in Irish overseas trade by the 1790s was linen cloth. This buoyant demand prompted a considerable improvement in the Irish balance of trade. In the 1730s and 1740s Irish trade had been roughly in balance, with a slight surplus of exports over imports. By the 1790s the export surplus represented about a quarter of the total annual import bill.

Following the Act of Union Ireland ceased to be a separate unit for trading purposes. Figures collected in the first decades of the 19th century indicate that exports of agricultural produce, both livestock and tillage crops, grew very rapidly in the period up to the Great Famine. Exports of grain became insignificant after 1850, but the export of cattle and other livestock to the British market grew rapidly to become the main support of the Irish rural economy. By 1914 cattle exports were four times what they had been in the 1840s. Meanwhile growing imports of manufactured goods from Great Britain and elsewhere brought about the partial deindustrialization of Ireland outside the north‐east. However, those industries that survived and prospered, notably linen, shipbuilding, distilling, and brewing, were strongly export based. In 1907 half of all manufactured output (including food and drinks) was exported.

Political independence did not radically alter the pattern of Irish overseas trade. Despite the emphasis laid in nationalist ideology on protectionism as a strategy for national industrial development, and on the primacy of the small (implicitly tillage‐based) family farm, Cumann na nGaedheal accepted the overriding importance of livestock exports as Ireland's main earner of foreign currency. Fianna Fáil, after 1932, embarked on a radical programme of protection, the fostering of native industries, and the promotion of tillage. The result was a sharp contraction of Irish trade with the outside world: exports and imports together fell from 75 per cent of Gross National Product in 1926 to 54 per cent by 1938. But the attempt to change the composition or direction of trade was less successful. Live cattle, 43 per cent of exports in 1926, accounted for 50 per cent by 1938, and Great Britian remained by far the country's most significant trading partner.

During the 1940s and 1950s independent Ireland continued to rely on relatively high tariffs to protect what were generally small domestic industries, while securing an outlet for its agricultural produce by trade agreements (1938, 1948, 1960) with Great Britain. The price paid for this strategy, according to some analyses, was that Ireland failed to benefit from the dramatic expansion of the world economy following the Second World War. The abandonment of protection in the 1960s (see economic development), combined with a new strategy of promoting industrial growth and foreign investment, permitted a sharp rise in exports of manufactured goods. Entry into the EEC (see european union) completed Ireland's abandonment of economic self‐sufficiency, while offering subsidies and guaranteed prices for agricultural exports. Although Great Britian remained Ireland's largest single trading partner, its dominance was significantly reduced, its share of Irish exports falling from three‐quarters in 1960 to 47 per cent by 1977.

Bibliography

Barry, Terry , The Archaeology of Medieval Ireland (1994)
Cullen, L. M. , Anglo‐Irish Trade, 1660–1800 (1968)
Gillespie, Raymond , The Transformation of the Irish Economy (1991)
O'Neill, Timothy , Merchants and Mariners in Medieval Ireland (1987)

TB,/RG,/ and Terry Barry

overseas trade. Overseas, as opposed to internal trade, played a modest but expanding role in the pre-industrial economy. Primary products such as wool, tin, and lead were the mainstays of the English export trade, but the expansion of manufacturing is reflected in the growing proportion of wool exported as cloth, which had reached 50 per cent by the mid-15th cent. and was over 85 per cent by 1540. The major market for these products was north-western Europe, though there was also some trade to the Mediterranean. The main imports were textiles, wine, salt, and a wide range of luxury goods. The principal exports of Scotland and Ireland were wool, hides, fish, and grain, destined either for English or nearby European markets.

The concentration on the Low Countries began to weaken during the latter half of the 16th cent. when English merchants began to exploit more distant markets in Russia and the Levant. As exploration proceeded, trading was extended during the 17th cent. to Africa, India, the Caribbean, and North America. However, the development of overseas trade during the late 16th and 17th cents. provoked conflict with other European trading powers, notably the Dutch, Spanish, and French.

By the end of the 17th cent., when exports were roughly 5 per cent of the national income of England and Wales, the composition of trade was beginning to reflect an advancing economy. Imports consisted mostly of raw materials and food, and exports of manufactures. There was both a substantial increase in overseas trade and a change in direction, which set the pattern for subsequent growth during the 18th and much of the 19th cents., with India, Africa, and the North American colonies becoming significant. The East India Company, packed with Scots, secured a virtual monopoly over the trade to India and the East Indies via the Cape of Good Hope. At the same time the Navigation Acts were designed to give England a monopoly in the shipment of goods to and from the colonies. Though evasion was widespread, this legislation proved a major cause of friction with the Scots, who attempted their own colonial schemes in Nova Scotia and at Darien, until the Union in 1707 brought legitimate access to colonial markets. Irish merchants were also excluded until the free trade concessions of 1780. More critically, the restrictions contributed to rebellion in the North American colonies themselves.

Overseas markets for manufactures and as sources of supply of raw materials were central factors in British industrialization. By 1800, exports represented 13 per cent of the national income of England and Wales, and with the abandonment of protection in the 1840s expanded still more, reaching their peak in the 1870s at around 22 per cent. Trade cycles brought periodic booms and slumps, but the British economy was becoming more dependent on overseas trade, including ‘invisible’ earnings from finance, insurance, and shipping. Though the volume of international trade had expanded, Britain's share began to contract in the face of foreign competition from the USA, Germany, France, and other industrializing countries. The empire took a growing proportion of exports, but imperial trade, rather than a benefit, is increasingly regarded as having been a burden. This was obvious to contemporaries as early as the 18th cent. when Jamaican sugar sold for a higher price in Britain than on the world market, thanks primarily to the West Indian sugar lobby.

Uncompetitive imperial preference was less of a problem than the underlying weaknesses of an export economy heavily dependent on traditional industries, the disruption caused by two world wars and the depression, and the painful adjustments of modernization after 1945. In the face of continuing international competition, the industrialization of the Third World, and the loss of empire, Britain was forced into the European Community, with which a growing proportion of trade was conducted.

Ian Donnachie