Ireland

Ireland is mentioned as a center of linen production in an account of how parliamentary politics limited efforts to protect established industries from competition. English wool manufacturers sought to exclude Irish and Scottish linen from British markets, but opposition from cotton-and-linen producers helped defeat that protectionist aim.

Ireland and the textile trade

Linen was made primarily in Ireland and Scotland, giving English wool manufacturers an incentive to press for restrictions on those countries’ access to English markets. Their campaign followed earlier restrictions on imported Asian textiles: after the 1721 Calico Act curtailed the wearing of printed, painted, stained, or dyed calico, the wool industry turned its attention to linen and to fustian, a popular fabric made from cotton and linen.

Parliamentary opposition and the Manchester Act

The campaign encountered resistance from fustian producers in growing industrial centers including Manchester, Lancaster, and Liverpool. Parliamentary institutions gave these different interests access to policy-making through voting and, especially, petitioning. Petitions accumulated on both sides, and the resulting 1736 Manchester Act protected the use of cloth made from linen yarn and cotton wool that was manufactured and printed or painted in Britain. The measure was a victory for emerging cotton manufacturers and demonstrated that parliamentary politics placed limits on the entry barriers wool producers could impose.

Significance in the account

Ireland’s role is part of a wider argument about how political institutions shaped economic outcomes: competing groups could contest trade restrictions rather than leave policy entirely to the established wool industry. The account also connects the survival of the domestic cotton-and-linen trade to the subsequent importance of technological innovation in cotton manufacture, which helped transform society through the factory system over the following half-century.