The Decline of the Woollen Trade in Kilkenny City
Tighe’s Statistical Survey of the County Kilkenny
Kilkenny had a considerable blanket manufacture at the end of the 18th century. This
involved Spinning, Weaving, Milling and Dressing. Writing at the beginning of the
19th century William Tighe wrote: “Spinning Jennies have lately been introduced,
which curtail the manual labour at least two thirds; those worked by water are found
most effectual; one of them is near Black-Mill Bridge; each water jenny employs
eleven hands and does the work of thirty-six; two only have been introduced in town
within these two years.”
He gives details of the industry in Kilkenny: There were fifty looms with two
journeyman weavers employed at each loom, making a total of one hundred
journeyman weavers. There were in addition thirty master weavers and six hundred
men and women employed in other parts of the manufacture of woollen blankets. The
spinning of each piece of cloth cost £1..2s..9p and the journeyman weaver was paid
twenty shillings, or one pound.
Over the next few years, spinning was mechanized. Fulling had been done in tuck
mills for a long
time, and in the 19th
century,
spinning
was mechanised as
well.
In 1841 the weavers
were complaining of
unemployment.
They said that from
1800 to 1829 the
trade had been
protected by a duty
on English cloth,
but that since then
English cloth was
coming
in
and
replacing the Irish
manufactured cloth.
They didn’t mention
the invention of the
power loom in
England in the
1830’s but already
English cloth was
much cheaper than
the old hand-woven
cloth.
The Decline of the Woollen Trade in Kilkenny City
The weaving was done on hand looms until 1846. In the beginning of that year power
looms worked by water power were introduced in Ormonde Mills. It was a very
anxious time in Ireland. The potato crop had failed the previous year and famine
threatened the whole country.
28 March 1846
Letter from William Dowling, secretary to the weavers’ society addressed to Mr.
Kenny Scott, proprietor of the Ormonde Mills:
“At this time of public alarm, while the government of the country is
making every exertion to mitigate the coming evil, while good men of
every creed and political opinion are devising every means to employ
or feed them – you are erecting power looms in your establishment
for the first time, and discharging your operative weavers. Your men,
though well aware of the amount of misery that the adoption of water
power in place of human labour must bring on them, have given you
no annoyance; they merely appointed a deputation to wait on your
foreman, requesting that the discharged hands, as far as they might be
required, would be allowed to work those looms. He told them that no
such privilege would be granted, that women alone should attend
them, a practice never before resorted to in this country.”
The public alarm referred to by William Dowling was the failure of
the potato crop in 1845. The price of food rose very fast over the
winter. Many people were starving during what became known as the
Great Famine. The loss of their jobs was a disaster for the weavers.
There was no other work available, and the only real support for poor
people was to enter the workhouse.
Ormonde Woollen Mills survived
until 1868, closed for some years
and re-opened in 1880. In this old
photograph you can see the mills
and the weir which diverted the
water into the mill race. Kilkenny
Castle is in the distance.
The building was destroyed by fire
in 1969. The ruins may be seen on
the Canal Walk about a quarter of
a mile below John’s Bridge.
The Decline of the Woollen Trade in Kilkenny City
Tailors
The final step in the production of clothes was tailoring. Nowadays we are used to
going into a shop and examining clothes of all kinds set out on racks or on shelves.
All these clothes are ready-made. Some come from countries far away from Ireland.
Yet up to the middle of the last century much of the clothing worn by Irish people was
made by a tailor or dressmaker who lived in the same locality as the person buying the
garment. The customer was measured and the garment was made to fit him or her.
The cutting of the cloth to make a man’s suit was often a specialized trade, though
tailors working on their own would do their own cutting. The customer would come
back for a fitting when the suit had been roughly tacked together, and adjustments to
the fit would be made.
In the middle ages, garments were loose fitting and their making was a simple enough
job, but as clothes came to be made to fit the shape of the body, the work of cutting
and sewing became more complicated. By the thirteenth century, tailors were
common in most European countries.
In Kilkenny the surname Taylor/Taillour/Taylour/Tailleur begins to appear in the
town records in the fourteenth century, and since surnames like this were given to
people who practiced the trade named, it seems obvious that tailoring was carried on
in Kilkenny seven hundred years ago.
A statute passed by the Council of the Hightown of Kilkenny in 1520 laid out the
payment that a tailor could ask for work done: doublets cost twelve pence for silk, ten
pence for worsted, sixpence for canvas or fustian; a woman’s coat lined with eyelet
holes was four pence, and without eyelets cost three pence; trews of Irish cloth,
“clocked and wanpesed” cost a penny halfpenny and for an extra half penny, one
could have English cloth.
In Irishtown in 1523 the rates were:
A quilted doublet new fashion bellied, being cut, to be made for 1s 6d, sterling; the
pair of gally trushes to be made for 8d , the pair of new fashion close hose, 6d, the
woman’s Irish coat double seamed, being not wrought with silk, at 7 harps; every
ounce of to be wrought upon a woman’s coat for 9d sterling.
The tailor made Doublets and hose in the English fashion, and, in the Irish fashion,
galley trushes for men and Irish coats for women. Trush is of course the Irish word
triubhais, a sort of close fitting trousers. What “galley” means is not clear.
In 1514 there was a dispute between the guild of glovers and the shoemakers’ guild
as to which had the right to make and sell girdles or belts. The dispute was settled by
the sovereign and council in favour of the glovers.
Clothes for wealthy people could be
quite elaborate. The lady on the right
was Honorina Grace, and she is
represented here in a very elegant
pleated dress with a wimple and
headdress. The husband and wife on
the left are Piers Rua Butler, Earl of
Ormond, and his wife Margaret
Fitzgerald. Margaret’s dress is even
finer, while the earl is shown in
armour, which he hardly wore every
day.