Irelands Industrial History - Did we have one and where is it hiding ???

MarchDub

Just to get some scale here on breweries in the eighteenth century. They were very small concerns - and not what we would nowadays consider to be large or even medium factories. Some were run by a single brewer. Louis Cullen in his Economic History of Ireland since 1660 describes it this way:

Most of the industrial firms were on a small scale in countryside and in town. Not only were the breweries and distilleries small, but many of them were simply artisan firms making a limited quantity with simple equipment for a small clientele. It required a large number of such breweries or distilleries to serve the market.

Large breweries, glass works and flour mills in the English port towns had low costs of transport in shipping to Ireland. Competition from them created difficulties for Irish firms. By the 1770s the breweries and glass-houses in Irish ports were in difficulties.

Cullen goes on to describe the development of larger breweries as the only way to survive economically so that:

There was not a single retail brewer left in Dublin in 1790, a sole one in Cork, and only a few in Kilkenny, Limerick and Waterford.

Fratton Fred

The decline in the number of breweries mirrors that in England. In mid 19th century Marlow there were dozens of breweries, there is now just one. The smaller ones were put out of business by Wethereds brewery who had better, more modern equipment and techniques.

Wethereds was subsequently bought by Whitbreads and closed down. The current brewery, the Rebellion Beer Co. Was set up as a protest against the practices of the big corporates.

An interesting one I have never gotten to the bottom of, is Bulmers. Were the British and Irish Bulmers ever connected?

A bit of trivia about the Hereford one for you. The founder of Bulmers in England had perfected a fermentation technique that resulted in more batches turning into cider rather than vinegar. To perfect this, he persuaded his cousin, a recent graduate from Cambridge, to join him in his business and create the first mass produced cider.

The cousin accepted his offer and thus turned down a position he had been offered to tutor the children of the King of Siam.

His replacemment, a young woman promptly won the heart of the king and was the basis for the film The King and I.

Edit: just to agree with MD's point, most if not all of the 18th/19th century Marlow breweries would have been pubs brewing their own beer.

ejmaztec

Fratton Fred wrote: »

The decline in the number of breweries mirrors that in England. In mid 19th century Marlow there were dozens of breweries, there is now just one. The smaller ones were put out of business by Wethereds brewery who had better, more modern equipment and techniques.

Wethereds was subsequently bought by Whitbreads and closed down. The current brewery, the Rebellion Beer Co. Was set up as a protest against the practices of the big corporates.

An interesting one I have never gotten to the bottom of, is Bulmers. Were the British and Irish Bulmers ever connected?

A bit of trivia about the Hereford one for you. The founder of Bulmers in England had perfected a fermentation technique that resulted in more batches turning into cider rather than vinegar. To perfect this, he persuaded his cousin, a recent graduate from Cambridge, to join him in his business and create the first mass produced cider.

The cousin accepted his offer and thus turned down a position he had been offered to tutor the children of the King of Siam.

His replacemment, a young woman promptly won the heart of the king and was the basis for the film The King and I.

I knew that they were the same at one stage, but things got complicated by corporate goings-on over the years.

Commercial cider production was started in Clonmel, South Tipperary in 1935, by local man William Magner.[1] Magner bought the orchard from a Mr Phelan from Clonmel. Magner quickly established a successful cider factory in Dowds Lane, Clonemel. In 1937 English cider-makers H. P. Bulmer purchased a 50% share in the business, using their expertise to greatly increase production. After the war in 1946, Bulmers purchased the remaining 50%, changing the name to Bulmers Ltd Clonmel. H.P. Bulmer maintained international rights to the Bulmers trade mark, so that any exports were carried out via the parent company rather than directly exported from Ireland.
In the 1960s H. P. Bulmer produced a "Champagne perry" product in direct competition with Babycham, owned by Showerings Ltd of Shepton Mallet. Showerings challenged this in court, and H.P. Bulmer lost the case. In 1964 they were forced to sell Bulmers Clonmel to Guinness and Allied Breweries, parent company of Showerings. The company name was changed to Showerings (Ireland) Ltd.
Soon after, the company moved its main processing operations to a new complex at Annerville, five kilometres east of Clonmel, which was opened in 1965 by the then Taoiseach, Seán Lemass. Today the Bulmers/Magners arm of C&C Group plc employs more than 470 people and is a substantial part of the economic infrastructure of Clonmel. Magners is not the same as Bulmers; it is owned by C&C, one of Ireland's biggest drinks companies.
The company also once produced Cidona, a popular soft drink in Ireland which along with all of the company's other soft drinks was sold to Britvic in 2007.
The Magners brand

The success of Bulmers cider in Ireland led to the development of the Magners brand to market the company's cider outside of Ireland. Since H. P. Bulmer retained the right to market their original English Bulmers worldwide, the C&C Group needed a new name under which to market their international product. The concept was originally developed by Stuart Wootten, who argued that the international growth of Irish pubs provided a natural market for a drink such as Irish cider.
Irish Bulmers cider and Magners have the same label and are identical products, except for the name. The ciders are made from 17 varieties of apples, fermented and matured for up to two years. It is available in 330 ml, pint, litre and 750 ml bottles and 500 ml cans, and is served over ice. It is also available in most Irish bars on draught and Magners is available in some bars on draught in Scotland. Initially only available in Spain, Northern Ireland and Scotland, the brand saw its popularity increase significantly in recent years and is now available across the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and the United States.
In early 2007, Magners Light, which is a low calorie version of the cider, was released. In March 2009, a new perry (marketed as "Pear Cider") called Magners Pear was launched and in February 2010, Magners Berry was launched. The Berry variety is a blend of 17 varieties of apple, similar to Bulmers Original, fused with blackcurrants, raspberries and strawberries with an ABV of 4.5%. It is available in pint and "long neck" bottle in the licensed trade, and 500ml cans in grocery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magners

Fratton Fred

I never thought of looking on wikipedia.

MarchDub

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I never thought of looking on wikipedia.

Who does?

ejmaztec

I find this one more interesting these days.

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/England

Judgement Day

Link here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65855538&postcount=25 to another small brewery in the South East whose products are brewed in the USA and France and not available here.

http://gofree.indigo.ie/~ghlettco/labels.html

McLoughlin

Wexford Town had 2 large brewerys back in the 1800s Harpurs was the name of one where the pub Heffernans is currently located and the other was located in what is now Lowneys mall.

jonniebgood1

In relation to the possibility of further developing Irish industry Robert Kane published 'Industrial resources of Ireland' in 1844. The book is optimistic of the possibility of wider industrialisation but of course was followed immediately by the famine.

In this book Kane pointed out

".. the absence of successful enterprise is owing to the fact that we do not know how to succeed; we do not want activity, we are not deficient in mental power, but we want special industrial knowledge."

Kane's comments are only just being acted upon in the 70's and 80's, with a greater emphasis on specialised training in science and technology in Irish higher education. Then as now, much education did not equip people for the world of work and Kane made these remarks 146 years ago:

"Should an ambitious parent desire to give his son a good education, although he is to be in trade, he puts him through College. He devotes the best years of his youth to reading Grecian poetry, and Latin plays, to learning by rote the dialectics of the middle ages and principles of abstract metaphysics, and awakens, after the solemnity of getting his degree, to find that he is to obtain his living by principles and pursuits to which his education has had no reference whatsoever."

In many ways these remarks are still true. They should not be taken to mean that Robert Kane despised culture or learning. When he died he was busy on a translation of Ivanhoe into Spanish, hardly the activity of a narrow philistine. From his upbringing in the household of a chemical manufacturer to his later interest in the natural resources of Ireland, Robert Kane had always seen the importance of technical education in supporting trade and industry, no doubt supported by his German experiences. The education system in England and Ireland was and is slow to see the importance of technical education, and to consider the engineer or technologist as important as an artist. It may be that we are at last learning the lessons that Robert Kane tried to teach over a hundred years ago. http://www.ul.ie/~childsp/elements/Issue1/childs.html

The full text of his book is here http://books.google.ie/books?id=p2MNAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=industrial+resources+of+ireland+kane&hl=en&ei=mnpsTsOmLM__-gb4zr21BA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false and can be downloaded.
He presents in great detail a convincing argument that Ireland had many elements required for greater industrialisation but it would seem that by 1844 it was clear that Ireland was lagging behind in most areas. He has points in relation to the economics argument regarding fuel vs. labour.

Dr. Kane proves that the cost of fuel, even if greater in lreland, by no means precludes us from competing with England; he does so by showing that the cost of fuel in English factories is only from 1 to 1 1/2 per cent., while in Ireland it would be only 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 per cent., a difference greatly overbalanced by our cheaper labour—labour being over 33 per cent. of the whole expense of a factory. http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/E800002-014/text001.html

In water-power we are still better off. Dr. Kane calculates the rain which falls on Ireland in a year at over 100 billion cubic yards; and of this he supposes two-thirds to pass off in evaporation, leaving one-third, equal to nearly a million and a half of horse-power, to reach the sea. His calculations of the water-power of the Shannon and other rivers are most interesting. The elements, of course, are the observed fall of rain by the gauge in the district, and the area of the catchment (or drainage) basins of each river and its tributaries. The chief objection to water-power is its irregularity. To remedy this he proposes to do what has increased the water-power on the Bann five-fold, and has made the wealth of Greenock—namely, to make mill-lakes by damming up valleys, and thus controlling and equalising the supply of water, and letting none go waste. His calculations of the relative merits of undershot, overshot, breast, and turbine wheels are most valuable, especially of the last, which is a late and successful French contrivance, acting by pressure. He proposes to use the turbine in coast mills, the tide being the motive-power; and, strange as it sounds, the experiments seem to decide in favour of this plan.

Dr. Kane proves that we have at Arigna an inexhaustible supply of the richest iron ore, with coals to smelt it, lime to flux it, and infusible sand-stone and fire-clay to make furnaces of on the spot. Yet not a pig or bar is made there now. He also gives in great detail the extent, analysis, costs of working, and every other leading fact as to the copper mines of Wicklow, Knockmahon, and Allihies; the lead, gold, and sulphur mines of Wicklow; the silver mines of Ballylichey, and details of the building materials and marbles.

In relation to reliance on Britain, Kane suggested that Irish industry could exist without Britain.

Bishop Berkeley put, as a query, could the Irish live and prosper if a brazen wall surrounded their island? The question has been often and vaguely replied to.

Dr. Kane1 has at length answered it, and proved the affirmative. Confining himself strictly to the land of our island (for he does not enter on the subjects of fisheries and foreign commerce), he has proved that we possess physical elements for every important art. Not that he sat down to prove this. Taste, duty, industry, and genius prompted and enabled him gradually to acquire a knowledge of the physical products and powers of Ireland, and his mastery of chemical and mechanical science enabled him to see how these could be used.

jonniebgood1

Comparing the industrial revolution in Ireland with that in England, Scotland and Wales may be an unfair comparison. These were the first places in the world to have an industrial revolution and Irish development is usually looked at in their context. A fairer comparison may be with european industrialisation and that happened at a slower pace in some places than others. The facts and figures are compared on a regional basis on the Leiden university page. It also looks at another consequence of the industrial revolution that is very relevent to Ireland, how it added to migration

Between 1750 and 1815, only 7% of the European population lived in cities. Life in the villages changed, however. Agricultural production became more intensive and large scale (to produce raw materials for the rural industry) and as a result, the number of farmers without land grew. Towns with rural industry grew and provided much work. In other towns, trade and industry grew. World trade and politics became more influential in the every-day life of the villagers. The group of proletarians grew quickly due to downwards social mobility and the fact that proletarians had more children than farmers.

In the 19th century, population continued to grow. In many countries, population doubled. Increasing scaling also continued and thus, the number of proletarians likewise continued to grow. The landless farmers did not have the security they had previously when working for a land owning farmer. Modern farmers did not hire help for a whole year anymore, but only for the harvest season. Because they now only produced one or two crops, the harvest season was very short as well. The economy needed teams of harvesters that went from town to town. Many people moved around in Western and also in Eastern Europe after the abolition of serfdom in 1861. By 1850, the countryside had become very overcrowded, partially because of the rural industry that was located there. Malthus developed a theory on the population growth. Too much population growth would lead to disaster and misery.

Between 1815 and 1914, an industrial revolution took place. The industries in the cities eventually won the competition with the rural industries. Because of the industrial revolution that took place, urbanisation started in the 19th century. Cities still needed many new people every now and again because of bad sanitary conditions and diseases. The cities however did not need a constant refill of people anymore. In 1800, there were only 23 cities with over 100.000 citizens. By 1900, there were 135 cities with over 100.000 citizens. Not everybody lived in the city permanently. There were several types of cities: cities with textile industry, cities with heavy industry and administrative/commercial cities. Industrial revolution also effected transportation. In the 19th century bicycles, steamships and trains made it easier for people to move further away. http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/history/migration/chapter3.html

* 1815-1914: The English went especially to Normandy (France).
* 17th - 19th century: Irish went to England, especially to Liverpool and London.
* 18th - 19th century: Labourers moved from the countryside towards new centres of industry: Black Country surrounding Birmingham,
* 18th - 19th century: Irish to Liverpool and Manchester,
* 19th century - 1914: Chinese people from India and Africans went to England. The Chinese went especially to Liverpool, London and Cardiff.
Germany
* 1750 - 1815: German engineers, merchants, officers, bankers, etc. went to South America
* 18th - 19th century: Germans moved inside Germany towards the new industry areas in the Rhine-Ruhr-area. Other Germans went to the industry-areas in England.
* 19th century: Many Germans came to Belgium.
France
* 18th - 19th century: French labourers went to North and Eastern France, Wallon, the Ruhr-area and Bretons went to Paris.
Netherlands
Belgium
* 1815-1914: The Belgians went especially to North France.

paul71

CDfm wrote: »

It was uneconomical to ship low grade coal in for the power stations and presumably steam train engines aswell.

I know I am picking out a small part of the text to quote so forgive me for that, but coal mining in Ireland is something that has held my interest since a day many years ago when I claimed in a leaving cert geography class that Ireland had several coal mines, and was rebuked for the claim. The three main ones were in Kilkenny, Roscommon, and Tyrone.

The Castlecomer coalmine in Kilkenny was mined for about 150 years, produced 11 million tonnes and one of the seems, (The Three Footer) produced the highest quality coal in Europe, it was far superior to the best English, Welsh or Polish coal. The area also produced Iron and many period houses in the southeast still have firegrates made from Castlecomer Iron.

jonniebgood1

paul71 wrote: »

I know I am picking out a small part of the text to quote so forgive me for that, but coal mining in Ireland is something that has held my interest since a day many years ago when I claimed in a leaving cert geography class that Ireland had several coal mines, and was rebuked for the claim. The three main ones were in Kilkenny, Roscommon, and Tyrone.

The Castlecomer coalmine in Kilkenny was mined for about 150 years, produced 11 million tonnes and one of the seems, (The Three Footer) produced the highest quality coal in Europe, it was far superior to the best English, Welsh or Polish coal. The area also produced Iron and many period houses in the southeast still have firegrates made from Castlecomer Iron.

Great stuff Paul. Anthricate coal was the type in Castlecome and was well known. The mine was in use a very long time, going back before any industrial revolution. The following extract about the mine was written by its last managing director R.C.Prior-Wandesforde (I presume a descendent of the well known family of that name http://www.landedestates.ie/LandedEstates/jsp/estate-show.jsp?id=2061)

About 1640 when mining of the old Three Foot seam started, iron was also produced. This was in the form of heavy spherical lumps of iron pyrites which are sometimes found associated with coal- particularly in the Jarrow seam. These iron balls were then smelted and the iron extracted and there are still some old gates and railings around Castlecomer which were made from Castlecomer iron.

To return to the old Three Foot seam- in or about 1640 efforts were made to mine this seam. The method employed was what is known as Bell Pits. It is well to remember that no explosives existed at this time- so that to get at the coal, the overlying rock had to be broken by wedges, hammers and so on.

First of all, two shafts were sunk from 25 to 50 yards apart. Then the first mining operation was to connect these two shafts by an underground passage or “level”. This was essential in order to give ventilation to subsequent mining. Once this main level had been driven miners then began to extract the coal on each side. Of course, they could not take out all the coal- otherwise the rock above them or the roof would have collapsed on them- and so, at intervals, they left in round or rectangular pillars of coal for support. Sometimes there is evidence of miners having re-entered a working bell-pit mine in order to take out some of these pillars- “robbing the pillars” it was known as- a very dangerous proceeding, but these “old miners” were most skilled and wonderful men. Only recently during some “open-cast” workings, these old workings have been laid bare and the remaining pillars could be seen. The “runner” of an old sleigh was also found during this open-casting. These sleighs were used by the “old men” to pull the extracted coal along their very low passages or “levels”.

A Geological feature connected with the Skehana seam is what is known as a “Wash-out”. This means that at some time in the distant past when the coal still consisted of vegetable matter, a lake or ancient river flowed in, cutting out the material which would have become coal and deposited sand which became sandstone.

This is often found in coal fields and such “washouts” may be quiet small or very large- the latter being the case in the Skehana seam

This 'washout' it seems had a detrimental effect on the progress of the mine making it more difficult to extract coal of value, thus making the operation uneconomical.

The coal was sorted, cleaned and sized on the surface at an installation known as “The Screens”. There were also up-to-date miners baths, for along time the only proper miners baths in Ireland. In 1917 a branch railway line was brought from Kilkenny but after the second World War this was discontinued as lorry transport had become a more economic proposition.

Up to about 1952 conditions in the pit were satisfactory but at about this time the “Wash-out” (see above) was met and in addition , the character of the seam changed so that it became more and more difficult to extract.

Finally, in 1969 the mine was completely uneconomic- the loss per week being some £2000. For some time, the Government had subsidised the business and every effort was made and expert overseas opinion sought but all to no avail and so the pit was forced to close.

http://www.sip.ie/sip019B/history/history.htm

CDfm

My dad said to me when, as a kid, we were visiting rural Wexford not to play in a particular area as it was over abandoned lead mines .

paul71

During the nineteenth century Waterford Glass achieved a world-wide reputation with exports going to the four corners of the earth. Many of the ships carrying this glass to foreign ports were in fact built here in Waterford. The ship building trade that has been practised in the port for over a thousand years has entered a new phase.
By the mid-nineteenth century Waterford had four ship building yards and was second only to Belfast in terms of tonnage produced. The first iron steam ship ever to sail into a Russian port was built in Waterford and appropriately it carried with it a gift of Waterford Glass presented to the Tsar when the ship sailed into St. Petersburg.

I had heard before of the shipbuilding industry in Waterford and I think there is a link to the Quaker community in Ireland, apparently there over 1500 emplyed in the shipyards in the 19th century, the above is a quote to the only link I have found so far.

http://www.waterfordireland.ie/visitor-services/history

I am assuming that the thread relates only to industry in the south, as it is well know to us all that Belfast is internationally recognised as one of the leading cities of the entire industrial revolution.

I am trying to dig up something on the Furniture and Carpet industry that was centered in Navan, the stories that I have heard say that it developed as a result of plentiful oak due to the deforestation of Ireland in the 17th & 18th centuries and was given a boost by providing furniture to Harland and Wolve in Belfast in the 19th and 20th century, will post a link if I can find it.

MarchDub

goose2005 wrote: »

"deliberately kept away from Ireland" doesn't make much sense, as this wasn't in the days when governments had industrial development policies. Ireland had no coal, little wood, no iron.

Also ignores the huge linen and other industries in Ulster.

Actually this is not the case - that is, if you meant by that statement that government wasn't traditionally involved in the economy. Almost from the start of parliaments in the thirteenth century – English and Irish respectively- government has been involved in the economy. The gathering of tax was accompanied frequently with some of that money going back into development. The first Irish parliament held in 1297 oversaw the issue of taxation and levies for the purpose of infrastructure and defensive walls – and Magna Carta Hiberniae is full of directions for economic structure and commerce, including directions for the felling of many forests. Ireland was originally covered in forest - the last of the great forests in Ireland were felled during the Tudor period, for shipbuilding.

During the reign of Edward II there are records to show that so much revenue money left Ireland – to finance Edward’s Scottish wars – that there was not enough money for grants to build roads or repair structures.

There was a housing boom in Ireland in the fifteenth century which was practically completely overseen by government – an Act was passed by the Irish parliament in 1429 describing the grants available for the building of Tower Houses and carefully outlying the size etc that the grant would cover [20ft by 16ft x 40 ft high] . This was before the passing of Poynings’ Law which curtailed the power of the Irish Parliament and made it subject to Westminster in 1494.

Harold G Leask is a good source for information on government and early housing in Ireland – Irish Castles and Castellated Houses is excellent on the subject.

Trade itself was subject to government – the passing of the Wool Acts, the Beef Acts from the 1660s curtailing Irish trade in these are testimony to government involvement in Irish trade and development. The Linen Board was set up by government in 1711 – unlike wool, linen posed no major threat to English trade and so was actually encouraged to develop.

The list is long with government involvement in the economy and of interested parties getting bills that favoured one trade or another – the huge debacle over ‘Wood’s Halfpence’ in the Dublin parliament is another example. In July 1722 the Westminster Parliament gave the Englishman William Wood the patent to coin copper halfpence and farthings for Ireland. This proved to be a bridge too far for the Irish and a major row erupted in the Irish Commons. It was such a lucrative patent that a letter was sent directly to the King from the Irish parliament stating that

‘it would be destructive of the trade and commerce of this nation’

and expressed the hope

‘that you will be greatly pleased to give such directions as you in your great wisdom shall think proper to prevent the fatal effects of uttering any farthings or halfpence pursuant to the said patent’.

The patent was cancelled in August 1725.

MarchDub

I have looked up some of what was going on in the British House of Commons during the period of Grattan’s Parliament in the late 1700s and here is a statement by Charles James Fox – a well known Whig and British radical. During a row between the Irish and British parliaments over a Money Bill sent to Dublin he addressed the power that the British parliament had over Irish money and commercial issues.

Fox in his speech is initially referring to the American revolutionaries and the stated issues they had with the uneven trade laws that favoured Britain at the expense of the American Colonies -and hence they went into armed rebellion in 1776.

Ireland had the same reason to spurn at this power of external legislation because it had been hitherto employed for the purpose only of oppressing and distressing her. Had Ireland never been made to feel this power as a curse, she never would have complained of it and the best and most effectual way to have kept it alive, would have been, not to have made use of it; Ireland would then have suffered this harmless power to exist in the statute book, she would never have called out for a renunciation of it. But, fatally, for this country, this power of external legislation had been employed against Ireland as an instrument of oppression, to establish an impolitic monopoly in trade, to enrich one country at the expense of the other.

British House of Commons May 1782

I have the transcript of the speech so I typed this out myself.

slowburner

Here's another snippet of Ireland's forgotten industrial history.
(Apologies for not posting a quote but I don't think I have the right to copy the text)


http://www.historyireland.com/volumes/volume14/issue1/features/?id=314

CDfm

In 1844 Robert Kane published a book, the Industrial Resourses of Ireland and it is very readable and available for free on Google


http://books.google.com/books/about/The_industrial_resources_of_Ireland.html?id=p2MNAAAAYAAJ

A bit about him

Robert John Kane 1809 - 1890

Peter Childs

Introduction

Robert John Kane died just over 100 years ago and although his name is largely unknown today, he was in his time well-known as a chemist. In 1844 Kane published a book, "The Industrial Resources of Ireland" which made a scientific and an economic case for the utilisation of Ireland's natural resources. Robert Kane's name is remembered in Ireland mainly for this book, though he was also an able university administrator and an important public figure in the last century. (A series of meetings on The Natural Resources of Ireland were held in Dublin in 1944 to mark the centenary of Kane's influential book.) In addition he also had an international reputation as a chemist in the early 1800's.
Early studies

Robert Kane's father was originally called John Kean and was one of the people involved in planning the 1798 rebellion. Its failure meant that John Kean had to flee to France where he studied chemistry in Paris. When things were quieter, he returned to Dublin in 1804 and began to make chemicals, including saltcake (sodium sulphate), sulphuric acid and bleaching powder. The Kane Company (he had changed his name) became an important manufacturer of sulphuric acid, and were important in establishing the use of the Gay-Lussac towers in Ireland and England. Robert John Kane was John Kane's second son and he was born in Dublin on September 24th. 1809. He was brought up at 48, Henry Street, Dublin near his father's factory and thus developed an early interest in chemistry.
Very little is known about his early schooling , though some of it may have been in Germany as he was proficient in German. As a school boy in Dublin he attended lectures in chemistry and other sciences at the Royal Dublin Society. These talks stimulated him to carry out chemical researches at his father's factory and his first chemical paper, "Observations on the existence of chlorine in the native peroxide of manganese", was published in 1828 and sorted out a disputed point in the manufacture of chlorine. His first papers were published as a teenager! He had enrolled at Trinity College in 1826 and he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Science Society in 1829 for his achievement in publishing a paper while still an undergraduate. He elected to study medicine at Trinity College, but his real interests were in chemistry and published a second paper in 1829 on a manganese arsenide mineral which came to be known as "Kaneite". He also did research on the compounds of ammonia and chlorine with copper, mercury and zinc.
In 1830 he studied pharmacy in Paris and on his return in 1831 he wrote a 350 page book on "Elements of Practical Pharmacy" . No doubt it was this that resulted in him being offered a professorship of chemistry at the Apothecaries' Hall in Dublin, who were involved on the training of pharmacists. This appointment won Kane the title of "The Boy Professor". Also in 1831 he was elected to the Royal Irish Academy and he founded the Dublin Journal of Medical and Chemical Science, which later became the Irish Journal of Medical Science. These are impressive achievements indeed for someone who was still only 22. Not surprisingly these other interests delayed his undergraduate studies and he did not graduate from Trinity until 1835. In 1834 he had been awarded a licentiateship of the Apothecaries' Hall, which entitled him to practice in medicine (though he never used it).
Further discoveries

In 1832 he was elected to the Royal Irish Academy and in June read a paper to the Academy (later published in the Dublin Journal of Medical and Chemical Sciences) "On the iodide of platinum and its saline compounds". In an earlier paper in the same journal ("Remarks on the properties of the hydracids") he had sorted out some of the ideas about the nature of acids, and demonstrated the electropositive nature of hydrogen.
Robert Kane was the first to propose the existence of the ethyl radical, which he published on January 1st. 1833 in the Dublin Journal of Medical and Chemical Sciences. Kane's idea was "a subject of amusement and ridicule among the chemical circles" of Dublin. However, a year later the great German chemist Justus Liebig proposed similar ideas and with his authority the idea was accepted, although Kane eventually received the credit for it. Certainly no-one could describe Kane as a narrow-minded chemist, as he worked in the areas of inorganic, organic, physical, biological and applied chemistry with equal facility.
While at the Apothecaries' Hall Robert Kane had given public lectures in science. In 1834 he resigned his position to become lecturer (and later professor) of Natural Philosophy (as natural science was then known) at the Royal Dublin Society. Edmund Davy, cousin of Humphry Davy, who discovered acetylene (ethyne) was professor of Chemistry at the R.D.S. at that time. Kane's duties involved giving public lectures in science, mainly in physics. He also did research on the products of wood distillation and invented the calcium chloride process for separating methanol from wood spirit. This may have sparked his interest in natural resources. Realising his inadequacy in organic analysis he went in the summer of 1836 to Germany to work in Liebig's laboratory in Giessen. There he continued to work on chemicals from wood spirit and showed that propanone (acetone or as Kane called it, mesitic alcohol) produced a hydrocarbon when treated with sulphuric acid, that Kane called mesitylene. This reaction involved conversion of a chain compound into a ring compound and was later used to establish the symmetry of the benzene ring.
Kane was also working on the compounds of ammonia with various metals. Berzelius referred to this work in his annual reports on chemistry for 1837, where he wrote that he considered Kane's researches in this field to be among the most important work recorded that year. This shows how quickly Kane had won an international reputation for his chemical research. In 1844 the Royal Irish Academy awarded Kane its Cunningham Gold Medal for this work. The work showed the careful and detailed experimental skills that Robert Kane had developed from his first researches in his father's factory.
Publications

In 1840 Kane became the editor of the Philosophical Magazine, the influential science journal published in London. In the same year he published a paper in the journal "On the chemical history of archil and litmus", two indicators obtained from lichens. The use of vegetable dyes as acid-base indicators was introduced by Robert Boyle, but no-one understood much about them. For this work the Royal Society of London awarded him its Royal Medal, and in in 1849 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
1841 saw the publication of the first two parts of his Elements of Chemistry, with the third part following in 1843. The book comprised 1204 pages and was illustrated by 236 woodcuts. It achieved great success on both sides of the Atlantic. Michael Faraday used it in his courses at Woolwich and John W. Draper introduced a "pirate" edition into the U.S.A. in 1843, referring to it "as a textbook, undoubtedly the best extant in the English language".
Amongst all this frenetic scientific activity Robert Kane found time to court and marry Katherine Baily, whose father was a distiller in Dublin. She was a botanist and at the age of 22 published anonymously the Irish Flora. One day a printer sent Kane a bundle of her proofs by mistake instead of his own, and when he returned them in person he met his future wife for the first time.
Robert Kane was now at the peak of his scientific career. He was well-known as a lecturer, as an author and as a chemical researcher in the British Isles, Europe and America. He had been giving a series of lectures at the Royal Dublin Society on the industrial resources of Ireland and in 1844 he published an expanded version under the title Industrial Resources of Ireland. This book contained a mass of factual detail on energy, mineral, agricultural, capital and labour resources and it brought Kane to the attention of the politicians. When Sir Robert Peel set up the Museum of Economic Geology in Dublin in 1845, he appointed Kane as Director of the Museum. Shortly thereafter he appointed Kane as President of Queen's College, Cork one of the three constituent colleges of the Queen's University (the others were in Galway and Belfast).
1845 saw the start of the Irish Potato Famine and Kane was heavily involved as one of the eight Irish Relief Commissioners, as a member of the Board of Health set up to deal with an outbreak of typhus, and as a member of the Playfair Blight Commission set up to look into the causes of the blight. Sean O'Donnell commented that this Commission "must surely rank as one of the most monumentally ineffective and misdirected that this country has ever seen." (It would appear that Kane was the token Catholic member of these bodies, and one critic of the Health Board remarked that Kane could be safely "absolved of all blame through uniform non-attendance at meetings.") As well as having no time for directing the affairs of the Museum or Queen's College, Cork it also meant that he ceased doing any fundamental research. He became a distinguished public figure, but his scientific career lay behind him, although he remained editor of Philosophical Magazine until his death. A few months later in 1846 Peel made him Sir Robert Kane in recognition of his services.
Until he retired in 1873 Sir Robert Kane was involved in the development of scientific and technical education in Ireland. He was President of Queen's College, Cork until he retired but after three years of enthusiasm, his interest seems to have waned and in 1853 an official enquiry was set up into his prolonged absences from the college. (His family were living in Dublin and he also seems to have spent most of his time there.) Following the enquiry Kane agreed to live in Cork, at least during term-time and after that there were no more problems.
The Museum of Economic Geology became the Museum of Irish Industry under Kane's leadership,started providing lectures in science and in 1867 it became the Royal College of Science for Ireland. The Department of Science and Art intended to pass over Kane as Head of this new institution, believing it should be given to "some layman of administrative capacity, and of sufficient distinction to carry weight, but unbiased by any special scientific predilections..". However, their views were over-ruled and Kane was appointed first Dean of the College.


http://www.ul.ie/~childsp/elements/Issue1/childs.html

jonniebgood1

CDfm wrote: »

In 1844 Robert Kane published a book, the Industrial Resourses of Ireland and it is very readable and available for free on Google


http://books.google.com/books/about/The_industrial_resources_of_Ireland.html?id=p2MNAAAAYAAJ

A bit about him

Ah CD- keep up :eek: A memory like mine!!!
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=74333108&postcount=40

jonniebgood1

slowburner wrote: »

Here's another snippet of Ireland's forgotten industrial history.
(Apologies for not posting a quote but I don't think I have the right to copy the text)


http://www.historyireland.com/volumes/volume14/issue1/features/?id=314

The heading of first world war boom in relation to explosives industry is good!
The Boer war also helped the previously mentioned Ballincollig gunpowder industry.
Kynoch ltd. company also purchased paper mills in Clondalkin and Drimnagh to ensure they had full control over labelling their product (Colin Rynne. Industrial Ireland. pg 295).

CDfm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Ah CD- keep up :eek: A memory like mine!!!
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=74333108&postcount=40

Snap .:D

I was looking up Irish 19th Century Scientists and got distracted and all the things were bitty .

Who did we have ?

Kane, Wilde, Holland, Walton, the Trinity Maths Guy with the formula by the Hapenny bridge.

Then there was all the Societies that gave out qualifications including medicine

In 1834 he had been awarded a licentiateship of the Apothecaries' Hall, which entitled him to practice in medicine (though he never used it).

Like we read that there were no Catholics at univercity etc but Kane was Catholic

So what about the societies, institutes and associations where did they go ?

The College Willie Pierce went to became NCAD .

slowburner

Fascinating link CD and a great read.
This book is actually incredibly relevant with today's dwindling fossil fuel resources. Kane calculates the total potential of this island for the production of hydro-mechanical power (pp 77).
I wonder would his calculations apply to hydro-electric power.

By calculations founded on such principles, we arrive at the conclusion, that the average elevation of the surface of the country being 387 feet, the water which flows in our rivers to the sea, has an average fall of 129 yards, and now finally we may calculate the total water power of Ireland. We had for the total quantity of rain falling in a year 100,712,031,640 cubic yards; of this one-third flows into the sea, that is 33,237,343,880 cubic yards, or for each day of twenty-four hours, 91,061,216 cubic yards, weighing 68,467,100 tons. This weight falls from 129 yards, and as 884 tons falling twentyfour feet in twenty-four hours is a horse power, the final result is, that in average we possess, distributed over the surface of Ireland, a water power capable of acting night and day, without interruption, from the beginning to the end of the year,

pedroeibar1

ejmaztec wrote: »

I can't think of any other contributions that took place here in Kerry.

Kerry's big problem was communication - the railway did not get to Killarney until after the Famine.

CDfm wrote: »

In 1834 he had been awarded a licentiateship of the Apothecaries' Hall, which entitled him to practice in medicine (though he never used it).
snip
Like we read that there were no Catholics at univercity etc but Kane was Catholic

LSA (Licentiates of the Society of Apothecaries)Usually looked down upon by other medical men, derisorily referred to as ‘Pot’s Hall’. It closed in 1971 Good info on 19c medical quals. here http://www.lmi.org.uk/Data/10/Docs/09/09Rivlin.pdf
Open to correction on this, but I think Catholics could attend TCD after the 1790’s – they needed permission from the bishop, a requirement that lasted until the 1970s.

CDfm wrote: »

Henry had Cork connections

His ancestors came from Ballinascarthy, near Clonakilty. John Ford emigrated 1847 to the US and while en route stayed in Fair Lane, Cork with the Ahern family who were in the meat trade. Later, in the US, John settled in Michigan next door to a brother of the family they had stayed with in Cork. He was Patrick Ahern, and John Ford’s son, William, married Ahern’s foster daughter, Mary Litogot (1839-1876). In 1863, she gave birth to the Ford’s first son, Henry.
When Henry built a huge new home he named it ‘Fair Lane’ and that also is where the name of the car came from.
Henry first visited Cork in the summer of 1912, but the factory followed his visit in 1917. Edsel also came in the 1970’s. In addition to the crap labour & productivity problems, it was well-known in Cork that internal theft of parts had reached epidemic proportions.

MarchDub wrote: »

The Linen Board was set up by government in 1711 – unlike wool, linen posed no major threat to English trade and so was actually encouraged to develop.

Agreed, but most was woven in private homes. Under the Linen Board spinning wheels were given out and spinning schools established. Where there were attempts to ‘industrialise’, it was due primarily to the efforts of country landlords and they prioritized hiring of workers from the Belfast area because they were both skilled and Protestant. There was a big sailcloth industry in Cork, but after the Napoleonic wars the demand waned. (Flax growing, with sails for the RN in mind, also was one of the drivers for settling parts of Australia.) Inishannon was the biggest linen base in Cork, the main name involved was the Adderley family. The Munster linen industry is covered in ‘Old World Colony’ by Dickson, (fantastic book btw.)

Finally, I think it was Graham Norton rather than Jeremy Irons who had the Inishannon connection?
P.

jonniebgood1

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Kerry's big problem was communication - the railway did not get to Killarney until after the Famine.

Communication and Kerry puts the transatlantic cable to mind. OK its after the famine but thus it is also more interesting. The start of such telecommunications is a noteworthy achievement and given the remoteness of Valentia island there must have been alot of associated modernisation that would have been alien to the area at the time.

In 1854, Cyrus West Field conceived the idea of the telegraph cable and secured a charter to lay a well-insulated line across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. Obtaining the aid of British and American naval ships, he made four unsuccessful attempts, beginning in 1857. In July 1858, four British and American vessels--the Agamemnon, the Valorous, the Niagara, and the Gorgon--met in mid-ocean for the fifth attempt. On July 29, the Niagara and the Gorgon, with their load of cable, departed for Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, while the Agamemnon and the Valorous embarked for Valentia, Ireland. By August 5, the cable had been successfully laid, stretching nearly 2,000 miles across the Atlantic at a depth often of more than two miles. On August 16, President James Buchanan and Queen Victoria exchanged formal introductory and complimentary messages. Unfortunately, the cable proved weak and the current insufficient and by the beginning of September had ceased functioning. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-transatlantic-telegraph-cable-completed

The most obvious associated development would have been the cable station and there was to be a process of development starting with what appears to be a timber hut!

a temporary wooden building was erected about fifty yards from the edge of the cliffs at Foilhommerrum, at the western end of the Island of Valentia, for the accommodation of the staffs of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, the Atlantic Telegraph Company, the Electric and International Telegraph Company, and the British and Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company.

The building was a plain one, of one story, and was about 70 ft. long, with a central passage-way from end to end, while the offices and sleeping apartments for part of the staffs engaged were ranged on each side of this passage. Those of the staffs who could not be accommodated upon the premises had to avail themselves of the hotel and other places some five miles distant from the landing-place of the cable. http://atlantic-cable.com/CableCos/Valentia/index.htm

The old wooden temporary station was then presented to the inhabitants, who had it removed to Kingstown, and converted it into a village hospital, for which purpose it has been used up to the present date. After twenty years' use, however, it is becoming rather rotten, and funds are now being collected for erecting a stone building to supersede it.

In 1880 two more acres of land were added to the Company's building ground at the northern end, and a fourth block of six houses was built for the further accommodation of the married clerks; notwithstanding this addition, several married men have to find house accommodation as best they can in the vicinity of the station

pedroeibar1

Another cable went to Ballinskelligs. When the cable laying ship (the Faraday?) reached there it had to float the final drum of cable ashore on a raft as there was insufficient water for the ship to come inshore. The raft capsized in the surf and the engineer offered a reward of one guinea (or five guineas, depends on who is telling the tale!) to anyone who could retrieve the end of the cable. A local, Donnachadh O’Leary, renowned for his strength waded into the surf and claimed the reward. The Ballinskelligs station closed in the 1920's and much of that cable has been retrieved and sold as scrap. O'Leary's descendants are still in the area, the family often is referred to as 'the Cables' and the local bar is named 'Cable O'Leary's'. An attempt was made many years later to evict Donnachadh - there is a ballad about the event.
Rs
P.