THE WOOLLEN INDUSTRY IN IRELAND. 399 



in some districts. About Drogheda a good deal of woollen weaving is 

 carried on by hand on these lines, and Lurgan is a centre of hand-weaving 

 in linen. The weavers in these cases, unlike the West of Ireland man, who 

 is half farmer, half artisan, are craftsmen pure and simple ; and the low 

 rate of w^ages current, as compared with that which prevails in steam 

 factories, is steadily reducing the area of this industry. This low remunera- 

 tion, however, does not depend so much on technical as on economic 

 causes. The diffeience in speed of production is not so great as might be 

 supposed. But the workers are scattered, and have little opportunity for 

 effective combination, while the employer, who purchases and gives out the 

 yarns, is not handicapped by the knowledge that he has a costly plant to 

 keep up which must always be either making money or losing it. A 

 Donegal weaver in full work can easily earn up to 20s. a week and more, 

 and this is cheerfully paid him by peasants as poor as himself or poorer. 

 Weavers who could purchase their own yarns, either individually or as 

 members of a co-operative society, and who could invent and produce sale- 

 able patterns, might find that their ancient industry has less to fear from the 

 competition of modern machinery than is commonly taken for granted at 

 present. The example of the weaving district of Laichingen in Wiirtem- 

 berg, shows how much can be done by the cultivation of technical know- 

 ledge and artistic taste in the individual to counterbalance the economy of 

 force produced by t*ie massed and highly specialized labour and mechanical 

 motive power of the factory. 



When we leave the modern peasant industry and turn to consider Irish 



wool-working as carried on upon a larger commercial 



The scale we find that the manufacture of woollens was 



Woollen Factory one of the historic industries of Ireland. The minute 



Industry. regulations of the Brehon Laws regarding the colours 



to be used by different classes, and the description in 

 the early literature of ornamental textures of various kinds show a con- 

 siderable development of the industry, dating back at least to the eighth 

 century. In later days an export trade sprang up. Irish " frisages " were 

 so much in favour in England in the time of Edward I., that they were 

 specially exempted from the prohibition ordered by that King against all 

 importation of foreign textiles. " An Italian waiter of the fourteenth cen- 

 tury," writes Mr. Bowes Daly,* " mentions a white serge which was much 

 esteemed, and which was called Sain d' Irlando" The exportation of 

 wool, however, was for long a more important branch of commerce than 

 that of manufactured cloth, and the Irish wool was so much esteemed that 

 it practically supplied the great woollen manufacture of Holland. In the 

 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it was said of Holland, " Ireland is her 

 sheepwalk ; " and this state of things continued down to the time of the 

 great struggle between the Netherlands and Spain, in the course of which 

 the manufactures of the former country were laid waste, and the market for 

 Irish wool ceased. By the time that peace and freedom returned for the 

 Netherlands, England had obtained a firm hold on the woollen markets 

 formerly supplied from Holland. The Dutch promptly turned to other 

 branches of manufacture — the delft industry was among those which 

 sprang up at this period — while the Irish, with equal industrial alertness, 

 immediately began to utilize their water power for tuck mills f>.nd to set up 



* " Glimpses of Irish Industries," p. 137. 



