An economic history of Ireland since 1660

212 Pages·1987·11.785 MB·English

by  L. M Cullen

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~ An Economic History of
Treland since 1660
Second Edition
B. T. Batsford Ltd London
© L. M. Cullen 1972, 1987
First published 1972
First paperback edition 1976, reprinted 1978, 1981
Second edition 1987
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced, in any form or by any means,
without permission from the Publisher
Printed in Great Britain by
Billing & Sons Limited
London and Worcester
Published by B. T. Batsford Ltd
4 Fitzhardinge Street, London W1H 0AH
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Cullen, L.M.
An Economic History ofI reland since 1660
— 2nd Ed
1. Ireland — Economic Conditions
Te Title
330°. 9415’07 HC260.5
ISBN 0—7134—5808-9
Contents
Preface
The Irish Economy: Agriculture in a
=
European Setting 1660-1689
War, Legislation and Stagnation 1689-1730
Ls)
Markets and Harvests 1730-1793
Land and Industry 1730-1793
Economic Structure and Rural Crisis 1793-1851 100
The Emergence of Modern Ireland 1851-1921
Stagnation and Growth in Ireland 1922-1971 171
DSOoPO OT hew Climracter ic of the 1970s and 1980s i186
Note on Primary Sources 197
Bibliographical Note 202
Index 203
Preface
The aim of this book is to outline the main features of Irish economic
history since 1660. Only in recent decades has study of the subject
begun to emerge from the shadow of political preoccupations or
interests. It was in fact political events which gained intellectual
and general acceptance for a view of the economic background
reflecting the dominant political themes—the land question and
home rule—of the second half of the nineteenth century. The gen-
eral histories of Froude (1872-4) and Lecky (1892) reflected this
climate of opinion, and from a conservative standpoint lent authority
to the nationalist version of Irish history. Between them Froude and
Lecky created an intellectual framework beyond which the first
accounts of Irish economic history did not venture. Thus, the
accepted view, popular and scholarly, of the past was drawn from
the preoccupations of the second half of the century and of the
early twentieth. A handful of eighteenth-century writings such as
Swift’s and Hely-Hutchinson’s and a few recurrent themes in the
literature of the eighteenth century were given a disproportionate
significance in accounts of the eighteenth-century antecedents.
Modern dilemmas—political and economic—are less intertwined in
their historical background than has often been assumed, a point
necessary to make because by an inversion economic interests are
sometimes asserted today as a cause of political divergencies or con-
flicts within the island. If anything, such an inversion underestimates
the strength of political, religious or racial forces in their own right
in Irish history.
Irish economic history as a study is still in its infancy, so much
so that the only major advance in relation to it has been archival.
The accumulation of material in archives and libraries or its cata-
loguing in institutions such as the National Library where ten or
fifteen years ago the absence of listing made it virtually inaccessible,
will facilitate study of the subject in the 1970s. The arrangement
of archives in southern Ireland is not comparable with the north
whose archival facilities are two generations ahead of the primitive
facilities in the south. But the surveying of material in recent decades
by the Irish Manuscripts Commission, the growth of a large col-
PREFACE Vv
lection of material of economic and social interest in the National
Library, and the establishment of the Cork Archives Council, are
in themselves major advances.
A general book at this stage is necessarily tentative, its conclusions
subject to modification. In a short book, moreover, it is not possible
to cover all aspects equally. The reader who wants a broader intro-
duction to the social background should refer to L. M. Cullen, Life
in Ireland (London, 1968) and, for trade unions, to J. W. Boyle,
Leaders and workers (Cork, 1966). For a fuller coverage of economic
and social issues since 1920, north and south, the reader should
consult F. S. L. Lyons, Ireland since the Famine (London, 1971).
I am greatly indebted to a large number of individuals for assist-
ance in the study underlying this book. I should like to record a
special indebtedness to Mr Kenneth Darwin, former deputy keeper
of the Public Records of Northern Ireland, Mr Brian Trainor, his
successor, and Mr W. H. Crawford also of the Public Record Office
of Northern Ireland, for encouragement and practical assistance. I
am also indebted to Miss Agnes Carroll, Cloneevin, Co. Louth; Mr
P. J. White, Meath county librarian; Mr John Stokes, Messrs
Hardman, Winder and Stokes, Dublin; Mr Alexander Findlater,
Dublin; Mrs Olive Goodbody, Society of Friends, Dublin; Mrs
Amy Monahan, Castletown, Co. Carlow; Captain R. C. Prior-
Wandesforde, Carlow; Professor Conor O’Malley, Galway; Mr
Richard Hilliard, Killarney; Mr T. V. Jackson, Rayleigh, Essex;
Mrs Christine Frame, University of Durham; and the late Dr
Raymond G. Cross, Brackenstown House, Co. Dublin, for material
and information put at my disposal; and to many others for help
and guidance in many ways.
Trinity College, Dublin L. M. CULLEN
g September 1971
Preface to the Second Edition
Apart from some small changes in the text, advantage has been taken
of a new edition to add an extra chapter surveying trends in the 1970s
and 1980s. I am grateful to my colleague, Professor Dermot
McAleese, for helpful comments on an early draft of this chapter.
Trinity College, Dublin L. M. CULLEN
6 April 1987
Note on Dates
Where a year is referred to in the text it usually refers to all or part
of a calendar year ending in December. The insertion of a hyphen
indicates a period of time covering all or part of two or more years,
a vertical stroke a twelve-month period terminating other than in
December. Thus, e.g. ‘1777’ is intended to signify all or part of a
year terminating in December 1777; ‘1777-8’ indicates a period
of time covering all or part of the years 1777 and 1778; ‘1777/8’
signifies a twelve-month year ending in the course of 1778, usually
though not invariably the Irish fiscal year ending 25 March. The
fiscal year terminating on 25 March was usual only from the end
of the first decade of the eighteenth century. Before that, fiscal
returns were usually though not invariably made in respect of a
year ending 25 December.
uf
The Irish Economy
Agriculture in a European Setting
1660-1689
The Irish economy in the sixteenth century was an underdeveloped
one. Its exports revealed its character. Fish and hides were the main
items in shipments outwards from its ports, evidence of the unso-
phisticated nature of the island’s production. Fish were the harvest
of its rivers and of the rich fishing grounds off its coasts. Skins and
hides came from the wild animal life of the forests as well as from
the domesticated herds of cattle and flocks of sheep. In all prob-
ability, the population at the outset of the century was scarcely a
million. It was, it seems likely, not much larger a century later,
some probable rise in numbers in the first half of the century being
more or less offset by a reduction in population through war losses
and more substantially through plague or famine during the mili-
tary campaigns of the closing two decades of the century. It was
a primitive country, thinly settled, the people themselves under-
employed. Woodlands occupied perhaps an eighth of the country
around 1600. Woodland growth was strongest below the 500-foot
line, hence woodlands covered rich ground and alluvial valleys
that could be turned to pastoral or arable use. The wolf,
extinct in England by 1500, was still present in Ireland, a
further testimony to the relatively lightly settled nature of the
country.
The first half of the seventeenth century, however, witnessed a
rapid transition in Irish agricultural life. Previously, it seems, the
hides of cattle were more important in trade than the meat itself.
8 IRISH ECONOMY: AGRICULTURE, EUROPEAN SETTING 1660-1689
Meat was consumed locally at low prices, only the hides entered
into trade extensively, and they rather than cattle or beef featured
in the country’s export trade. However, from the early years of the
seventeenth century, exports of cattle, formerly negligible, grew
rapidly. In 1621, a year of particularly low prices, imports of Irish
cattle were a sufficient threat to warrant the introduction in the
House of Commons in London by the English interests affected of
a bill intended to exclude them. The bill did not proceed further,
imports were already well established and the interests affected were
unable to command general support for the proposed exclusion.
Wool exports increased too, like cattle overshadowing the formerly
important categories of fish and hides. They amounted to 160,000
stone per annum by the late 1630s. Very significantly too, exports
of butter, unimportant in the sixteenth century, were the third
most important export by 1641. A rise in exports of cattle, wool
and butter is consistent with more extensive settlement of the
countryside and a growing population. It is likely, allowing for
natural increase in population, freedom from war and from major
calamity, and some net immigration, that the population of the
island was of the order of one and a half million by 1641. At a
later date Petty in fact suggested retrospectively a figure of this
magnitude.
Settlement entailed the destruction of woodland. The process,
made attractive by settlement, of cutting down the forests was
quickened by the rapid growth of the iron industry from the early
decades of the seventeenth century. Its shifting locations swiftly
consumed woodlands, and at one time or another the industry was
conducted on some go sites within the country. The Earl of Cork
was an early entrepreneur establishing furnaces along the banks of
the rivers in co. Cork. In 1672, according to Sir William Petty,
1,000 tons of iron a year were produced : some 10 iron furnaces and
above 20 forges and bloomeries were at work. Petty himself estab-
lished the industry at Kenmare in 1670. The process of deforestation
created valuable though impermanent exports — timber, barrel-
staves and iron smelted by charcoal. Such exports would not
outlive the forests, and showed signs of falling off long before the
end of the century. At one stage more iron had been exported than
imported. More significant by far, even in the seventeenth century
itself, was the rise in exports of products produced from the land
won from the forests. Cattle, wool and butter were already the