The linen industry in Ireland can be traced as far back as 1216, and, in the reign of Henry III., the spinning of linen thread was established as a definite branch of the trade. In 1665 the head of the house of Ormonde, the unfortunate duke, obtained an Act of Parliament for the encouragement of the industry.
Up to 1805 linen yarns appear to have been universally spun by hand. Then abortive attempts were made to introduce machinery, but it was only after 1828, when the industry was freed from the restrictive legislation which had been in force since Queen Anne’s time, that healthy competition among enterprising private firms finally did away with hand spinning.
From that time onward the Irish linen industry developed with great rapidity, especially in Belfast, which is the principal seat of the trade in the United Kingdoms.
The chief archæological treasures of Belfast are Cave Hill, three miles north of the city, which is a curious geological formation possessing three caves, which may or may not have more than a geological interest; and “the Giant’s Ring,” lying to the southward near Ballylesson. This latter is an object of antiquarian regard, consisting of a great circular earthwork, a third of a mile or more in circumference, which encloses a mound of earth about perhaps eighty feet in diameter.
There is also a stone altar, or cromlech, assigned by some to druidical inception, and again denied. At any rate, it is one of those curious artificial erections in which the British Isles and Brittany abound, and its actual significance may be great or little. It is impossible, apparently, for the doctors to agree among themselves.
There is also a castle at Belfast,—it’s an exceedingly impoverished town in Ireland that hasn’t a castle,—though in this case it is merely an imposing residence dignified, or glorified, by the more ancient name. It has, however, a wonderful outlook over the lough, showing, under certain conditions of the atmosphere, the Scottish coast and the Isle of Man.
It is, however, the note of modernity alone which sounds in Belfast, as one might naturally expect of a city which has now reached a population of around four hundred thousand souls and has doubled its numbers in thirty years.
One industry of general interest in these days of universal travel is the great shipbuilding works at Queen’s Island. Twelve thousand hands are employed, and the construction of such leviathans as the great White Star liners, the Oceanic, the Celtic, and the Baltic, of a tonnage exceeding twenty thousand, is an art of which their builders are apparently the sole possessors.
As might further be expected, the shipping trade of Belfast is considerable, and the city more than holds its own in progress in this line with any in the three kingdoms.
Within the immediate vicinity of Belfast—at least within the area of the great city’s influence—is the sleepy old town of Carrickfergus, once the site of one of the most powerful fortresses in Ireland. Now it is but a memory, so far as its impregnability goes, though its remains are suggestive enough of the position it once occupied; one of great strategic value when the means of ancient warfare are considered.