1 - The Expanding Trade
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2023
Summary
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the composition of the Irish import trade was fairly unexciting. Imports remained largely unchanged from the fifteenth century and earlier, and consisted of a range of around 60 items, including rather prosaic foodstuffs such as peas and beans, a narrow range of spices and a minor selection of haberdashery and dyestuff, along with large quantities of plain English woollen cloth. Over the course of the century, however, the nature of the trade underwent an immense transformation and, by the 1590s, almost 400 different commodities were imported from Bristol, suggesting significant developments in many areas of Irish material culture and consumption.
The boat called the Peter of Kinsale, under John Roche, master, departed for Ireland on the same day as the entry shown in Plate 1 (14 February 1504) and had on board:
The Elizabeth aforesaid, 29 August 1601, had on board (as shown in Plate 2): Robert Lewis of Limerick,
merchant indigenous:
12 yards of cotton cloth – 6d
10 yards of bay cloth – 8d
half a piece of fustian cloth – 4d
quarter clb of prunes – 1d ob
14lb currants – 2d quarter
4 dozen wool cards – 2s
half a gross of penny knives – 3d
1 dozen knives – 1d
2 gross of silk buttons – ob
half a piece of kersey – 1s 1d ob
2clb of hops – 1s
1 barrel of onions – 3d
2 butts of black thread – 2d ob
2lb piecing thread – 2d
2 gross of trenchers – 2d
2 dozen wooden cups – 1d
6lb packet thread – 1d quarter
8lb glue – ob
1 dozen bibs – quarter
half clb of black soap – 3d
1 dozen shoe horns – quarter
3 pairs of bellows – 1d ob
2 brushes – ob
4 dyed frieze mantles – 1s
1 ream of brown paper – ob
1 ream of white paper – 2d
1 burden of steel – 4d
1c taps and cannells – quarter
6M pins – 1d
2 clouts needles – 1d
2c Spanish needles – 1d
1 dozen drinking glasses – ob
1 dozen spurs – 2d
1lb mail – quarter
1 dozen leather girdles – 1d
24 pieces of inkle – 1d
2 gross thread points – 1d
1 gross leather points – quarter
6lb copperas – quarter
2lb galls – quarter
2 dozen wooden combs – ob
6 hats – 6d
1 gross statute lace – 4d
Value in total £11 7s 11d
The expansion of Irish imports occurred in two main areas.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Consumption and Culture in Sixteenth-Century IrelandSaffron, Stockings and Silk, pp. 18 - 42Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014