ABSTRACT
When the Irish Free State (later the Republic of Ireland) was established in the early 1920s, it had a very small industrial sector. According to the Census of Industrial Production of 1926, just 56,400 people, or less than 5 percent of the labor force, were employed in manufacturing. The Census of Population for the same year indicated a higher figure of 9 percent of the labor force being engaged in manufacturing, but either way these are small percentages. By comparison, about 25 percent or more of the labor force was engaged in manufacturing in other small European countries, such as Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and The Netherlands, at around that time. Almost half of Irish manufacturing employment and three-quarters of manufacturing gross output was concentrated in the food and drink sectors in the 1920s. Thus, other sectors of industry were of little significance for the economy.
