Page:Studies in Irish History, 1649-1775 (1903).djvu/318

After Limerick industry, for the Irish managed to supply the greater part of their own wants all through the eighteenth century. But it did ruin for ever Ireland’s chance of becoming rich through a great woollen manufacture. Once the foreign trade was lost there was little encouragement to make the better kinds of cloth. There was little demand for them in Ireland, and what demand there was could be met by English manufacturers who had easy access to the Irish markets while secure in their own from all Irish industry. So Irish manufacturers devoted themselves to making coarse stuffs such as were used by the majority of the people. Their skill naturally declined, the profits of the manufacturers were small owing to the poverty of the country, and as time went on the quality of Irish wool inevitably deteriorated. When the Irish were once more allowed, at the end of 1779, to export their woollen manufactures, it was found that Irish wool instead of being equal to English wool, was only capable of being made up into the very coarsest stuffs. In 1780 Ireland found it impossible to start at the point at which she had left off in 1698. Foreign markets did not offer the old advantages; there was little skill among Irish weavers, and little more capital employed in the industry. Like the Dutch two centuries 306