The Impact of the Domestic Linen Industry in UlsterThe domestic linen industry left an indelible imprint on Ulster history. It was introduced by colonists from the north of England in the 17th century, before the arrival of the Huguenots, and encouraged by the landlords to improve their rentals. Earnings from raising flax, spinning yarn and weaving cloth, provided farming families with regular incomes that enabled them to lease small farms and improve marginal land. Continual improvements by Ulster bleachers in the finishing of linens secured for them control of the industry, focussing its development. Exports to Britain first through Dublin and then direct to Liverpool and London, created a merchant class and underpinned the development of Belfast and the provincial market towns. By 1800 Ulster was reckoned to be the most prosperous province in Ireland. It was also the most densely peopled with a population of two million in 1821, almost equal to that of Scotland. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
The linen industry portrayed in the Hincks prints of 1783 | 49 |
Ulster landowners and the linen industry | 58 |
Copyright | |
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Abercorn acres Antrim Ballydugan Banbridge Belfast bleachers bleachgreens bleaching Bleary brown linen cambric Catholics Cavan Clare cloth coarse Coleraine Cootehill cottiers County Armagh County Cavan County Tyrone Crommelin district domestic linen industry Donegal drapers Dublin Dungannon eighteenth century exported fabric farm farmers flax Gill Green handloom History houses Huguenot hundreds Ibid improve increased Irish linen Irish Linen Industry labour Lagan valley landlords landowners leases Linen Board linen hall linen manufacture linen markets linen trade linen triangle linen yarn linendrapers Lisburn London Londonderry loom Lord Lurgan market towns merchants mills Monaghan Moneymore Newry north Armagh Northern Ireland Office of Northern parish pieces population Precedents and Abstracts PRONI Protestant province Public Record Office purchase Quaker Records Registry of Deeds rents Scotland Scottish scutch sealmasters seven-eight wide linens shuttle sold spinning Stewartstown tenants townlands Trustees Waringstown weavers weaving webs weekly average WILLIAM HINCKS women yard wide linens yarn
References to this book
The Linen Houses of the Bann Valley: The Story of Their Families Kathleen Rankin Limited preview - 2007 |