270 THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS BOARD FOR IRELAND. 



The development of home and cottage industries, such as spinning, 

 weaving, knitting, and other industrial enterprises, 



Home Industries constituted perhaps the most difficult duty entrusted 



and to the Board both as regards the selection of fields of 



Domestic Training, work and the carrying out of schemes for affording 



assistance. Besides the well-known woollen factory at 



Foxford and the hand tuft carpet making business at Killybegs, knitting, 



crochet and lace work, kelp making, basket making, carpentry, and other 



home and cottage industries have all been started or developed. In some 



cases the Board found it necessary to give some direct assistance to the 



nascent industry, but in other cases technical instruction was the chief need ; 



and when this was facilitated by the Board the industry required little 



further assistance. In most of these industries the actual pursuit of the 



trade and technical instruction in its wider sense seem now to go thoroughly 



hand in hand. 



A great boon was conferred upon girls in the congested districts by the 

 starting of " Domestic Training " classes. These classes have without 

 -exception been very well attended, and 435 pupils in all have been in- 

 structed. As an instance of the anxiety of the young women to obtain the 

 benefit of this course it may be mentioned that at Sneem in County Kerry 

 sixteen of the pupils at the evening class lived at an average distance of 4% 

 miles from the class-room and therefore walked over nine miles a day for 

 four months in the winter. One girl walked sixteen miles a day and 

 attended on seventy-two days out of eighty-one. It was the custom for 

 many of the girls to go to the " hiring fairs " and engage themselves for 

 service in the neighbouring counties. As the cottages in which the girls 

 live when at home give them no opportunity of learning the ordinary work 

 of domestic service, they are quite untrained, and are consequently put to 

 rough work, and can obtain only low wages. Whilst one of the primary 

 objects of the instruction given is to improve the homes and habits of the 

 people by raising the standard of their ideas as to comfort and health, 

 another object which is perhaps more directly attainable is to teach these 

 girls cooking, laundry and general housework and to train them in habits of 

 ^.neatness and order so as to enable them to get better wages. 



