One thing Ireland has, and has wofully neglected, is its supply of water-power such as has made many similar regions on the Continent of Europe thrifty and prosperous.
It might be used to generate electricity; it assuredly could do so, as there are several swift flowing waters that would fill the requirements admirably,—the Falls of Ballyshannon, for instance. Perhaps some day, when some ingenious individual succeeds in getting motive-power out of the rise and fall of the tides, Ireland will become the most prosperous of any country in the world.
In the seventeenth century, smelted iron—Ireland being very rich in iron ore—was exported to London in large quantities. This trade does not exist to-day. As early as the sixth century Irish woollens were exported to Nantes, and in the fourteenth century there was a large demand for Irish serges in Italy.
The woollen industry was given a great impetus in 1667 by the Duke of Ormonde, who induced five hundred Walloon families to settle at Clonmell, at Killarney, and at Carrick-on-Suir; but in 1698 the English manufacturers persuaded the Irish Parliament to prohibit the exportation of woollens.
From Dean Swift we learn that by this act twelve thousand families were thrown out of employment in and near Dublin, and thirty thousand more elsewhere.
It is of late years only that the cottage
