ABSTRACT
This chapter will examine the first phase of industrialisation in the Irish industrial sector, in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, when it became possible to spin finer linen yarns mechanically. This brought major structural changes to the way in which flax was manufactured into cloth in Ireland. In the spinning sector, vast numbers of female hand spinners were displaced by the falling cost of machine-spun yarn. The central position of the household as the main unit of production in spinning and weaving was undermined. The control of the yarn supply and position of handloom weavers also altered dramatically once wet spinning had been introduced from the mid-1820s. The finer yarn produced by mechanised wet spinning was much sought after in Ireland and its increasing importation from Britain provided a major impulse for Irish flax spinners to adopt the new technology. This chapter examines the adoption of wet spinning and its immediate impact on the Irish linen industry.
