Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

IRELAND’S CHIEF INDUSTRY. THE MANUFACTURE OF LINEN. is celebrated the IF there is one industry which more than any other is characteristic of Ireland, surely it is the making of linen. There is no special reason why the fabric should be made in that portion of the British Empire termed “the distressful island,” still the fact remains that Irish linen world over. Were we to attempt to trace in detail the history of linen we might wade back page after page and century after cen- tury. The bygone past, however, need not delay us now beyond the fact BEAMING THE WARP YARN. WINDING THE WARP YARN. that the real foundation of the flourishing linen and cambric manufactures in Ireland was laid, perhaps, in a law passed by Parliament during the reign of William III., allowing flax, linen, and linen yarns produced in Ireland to be imported into England by natives of both countries. In the earlier part of the nineteenth century the click-clack of the hand looms made familiar music in thousands of homes all over Ireland. In fact, one of the most prominent buildings after the chapel in the majority of the towns was the Linen Hall, which was the market where the peasants displayed their web to the critical gaze of the exporters’ buyers. The introduction of steam power for spinning, however, proved the death-blow to the cottage industry in the south and west, and to-day it is quite unusual to see a web of linen exhibited in a market outside Ulster. It is only in a small portion of Ulster that linen is made. That is, perhaps, one of the most remarkable facts associated with the manufacture—the exceedingly small area within which it is circumscribed. It is doubt- ful if there is a trade of such magnitude and such importance confined w itlun so small a space. What the importance of this spot, which on the map of Ireland in an ordinary school atlas may be almost hidden by a penny piece, is, may be under- stood by the following facts In one year (1893) alone, the yarn spun by the countless mills in this district was estimated to measure about 644,000,000 miles. To grasp