THE WOOLLEN INDUSTRY IN IRELAND. 395 



comes opposite one of these perforations it passes through it — where it 

 finds no perfor?.tion it is forced back — and the resuh with each fling of the 

 shuttle, is respectively an engagement or disengagement with certain levers 

 which control certain threads of the warp. The weaver, therefore, has no 

 more to do with making the pattern than the organ-grinder has with the 

 tune he grinds out. The tune or pattern in each case has been thought out 

 beforehand and placed upon the mechanical appliance furnished complete 

 to the executant. It may be added that this invention has never found its 

 way into the cottage weaving industry of the West of Ireland, nor are the 

 patterns of homespun complex enough to need it. 



We are here concerned, at present, with the hand industry, the technical 

 details of which may be seen practically illustrated in numberless cottage 

 homes in the West of Ireland. They are not only interesting in themselves, 

 but are worthy of observation as containing the germs of the whole textile 

 industry, which, under the influence of steam power and the Jacquard loom, 

 has attained such mighty proportions. It may surprise many to learn that 

 the hand-loom and the spinning wheel are still capable of holding their 

 own against steam machinery in any quarter of the United Kingdom, but 

 such is the case in some districts. Hand-spun and hand-woven cloth, 

 dyed with the lichens and plants* which the Irish peasant has understood 

 how to use from time immemorial, is not only a peculiarly pleasant material 

 to wear, but has a certain artistic character of its own — one which is so well 

 recognised in the trade, that attempts more or less unsuccessful, are con- 

 stantly being made to imitate by machinery the effects of genuine home- 

 spun, and power-loom cloths are sometimes even fumigated by peat smoke 

 in order to further the illusion that they have been produced in a peasant's 

 cottage. We speak here of woollens chiefly, for in linens the power-loom 

 has practically supplanted the hand-loom save as regards the very finest 

 cambrics, while the linen spinning-wheel has entirely disappeared from 

 Ireland, though in France it is still in use for the production of yarns whose 

 delicacy no existing agency of a purely mechanical kind can approach. 

 But hand-weaving and spinning in wool still hold their ground in Donegal, 

 Connemara, Kerry, Mayo, and many other districts where there is mountain 

 grazing for a hardy breed of sheep, and where there is much labour running 

 to waste during the winter months as well as an hereditary aptitude for 

 dealing with wool. It is principally in County Donegal that we find home- 

 spun cloth produced not merely for local use, but for sale outside the dis- 

 trict — the local dealers having agents in the principal cities of Great Britain 

 and Ireland. The Irish Industries Association, which buys at the monthly 

 fairs at Ardara and Carrick, has ascertained that in the southern promon- 

 tory of County Donegal — a very barren and desolate region lying w^est of a 

 line drawn from Ardara to Killybegs, and measuring some fifteen by twelve 

 miles — a sum of about ^8,ooo is annually paid for home-spun cloth, of which 

 the Association accounts for about one-seventh. The cloth is sold at the 

 monthly fairs, to which it is brought in large rolls or webs, measuring gene- 

 rally from twenty-five to sixty yards in length, and about twenty-eight 



* " Crotal," a lichen found on rocks, yields a beautiful red-brown dye. Heather gives bright 

 yellow. Peat soot, which is lai'gely used, gives a duller tone of yellow. Blackberry root gives 

 a black-brown; the roots of the iris a very dark blue ; bog-ore, or ■oubAc, gives a dull black. 

 These, with madder and indigo, form the principal Donegal dyes. In Kerry, spurge {Euphorbia 

 Hibernica), hemlock and fuchsia are used, and black is got by logwood and copperas. The 

 latter is said to be very injurious to the cloth. 



