QUEEN'S COUNTY MANUFACTURING

Samuel Lewis

A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland

1837

The other manufactures are confined to cottons, flannels, friezes and stuffs of a coarse durable kind for the clothing of the peasantry. Much broad cloth was woven in Mountmellick for the Dublin market, and a broad stuff called "Durants" was also manufactured there and at Maryborough; but the trade has long declined. The same observation is applicable to serges, the use of which has been in a great measure superseded by that of cotton cloth. Cotton factories were erected at Cullinagh, Abbeyleix, and on the Barrow near Athy, but all failed; the only one at present in the county is at Mountrath. In Mountmellick are an iron-foundry and extensive breweries, a distillery, and tanneries. At Donoughmore is a very extensive starch-manufactory, the produce of which is almost exclusively sent to Dublin. Flour-mills at Mountmellick, Coleraine, Maryborough, Castletown, Rathdowney, Donoughmore, Abbeyleix and Stradbally, besides several in other parts, are each capable of manufacturing 12,000 barrels of flour annually.

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