handicrafts, knitting, spinning, weaving of homespuns, and lace-making, have been given the great impetus which has now made them established industries, like the cottage cutlers of Barmen and Essen, in Germany, who fashion knife-blades from the crude product which they obtain from the large steel works near by.
Formerly paper-making was very extensively conducted in the county of Dublin; but this is no longer the case. Who does not know the famous Irish linen? Strange to say, the best quality was known as Royal Irish linen. This assuredly was an effort on the part of some astute Irishman to capture outside trade, but his astuteness apparently did not extend to other things.
The dictionaries received a new word in Balbriggan, which was the name of the cotton hosiery first made a hundred and fifty or more years ago at Balbriggan.
Irish whiskey distilleries and the breweries of porter and stout have come to be recognized as premier establishments in their line, and, whatever the opponents of the liquor trade may say, these industries have done Ireland much good. Far more good, be it acknowledged, than that other brewer, Cromwell, ever did for it.
The shipbuilding industry of Belfast ranks among the first establishments, if it is not the very first, in the world, and the allied industries, which produce ropes, cables, chains, and rigging, are likewise foremost in their class. These are mainly centred around Belfast, but an echo is heard at Londonderry, on the north coast.
Porcelain of a rare and unique quality is manufactured at Belleek. So frail and delicate and so translucent is this ware that it stands quite in a class by itself.
The paramount industry of Ireland is the spinning and weaving of linen and flax, mostly centred around Belfast. The great linen ware-houses of Belfast, with branches throughout the English-speaking world, and even on the Continent, are almost household names, and no product of a similar nature elsewhere produced at all enters into competition with the real Irish product. Besides the great establishments at Belfast, there are others, nearly as great, at Ballymena, Londonderry, Coleraine, and Lisburn.