The Rise and Fall of the Belfast Cotton Industry

Extract

Though Belfast's present position as a great centre of trade was won for her chiefly by the manufacture of linen and the building of ships, the foundation of her prosperity, contrary to popular belief, is to be traced to the cotton industry, which had its rise about the year 1790 and flourished till about 1830, when the linen industry which had then been gathering force in Ireland profited from a slump in the cotton industry and ousted it from its preeminence. The manufacture of cotton was begun in Leinster and Munster as early as 1750, and, before 1782, was developed in the counties of Cork, Carlow, Dublin, Meath, Kildare and Waterford. The Linen Board, strangely enough, encouraged the cotton industry by the payment of bounties that were intended solely for mixed fabrics, that is cloth made of linen warp and cotton weft. As the manufacturers used the money for the purchase of spinning jennies and carding machines, the Linen Board was, in fact, subsidising the cotton manufacture.