TRADE
and southeast of the country, there was an export trade
in the products of these farms, principally grain (oats
and wheat) and wool. The economy of the colony was
greatly stimulated in the thirteenth century by the
activities of Italian merchant bankers. They were
responsible for the collection of all royal and papal
taxes and the organization of food supplies for ship-
ment to the king’s armies in Wales, Scotland, and
France. Their share of the vast sums of money col-
lected was used to buy and export wool or was loaned
to enterprising merchants in the towns to expand their
business, or to lords developing their estates.
Fish from the Irish Sea and hides made up the
balance of the thirteenth-century exports. Imports, then
and throughout the period, were headed by wine, along
with salt, fine cloth, spices, and other luxuries. Build-
ing stone and iron were important imports in the first
phase of church and castle building before 1250. The
ports and newly established inland towns were situ-
ated, like many wool-producing Cistercian monaster-
ies, on the major rivers, which were vital for the
transport of bulky commodities. Merchants and
craftsmen—stonemasons, smiths and carpenters, tan-
ners, leatherworkers, weavers, butchers, and bakers—
lived in the towns. They served their fellow citizens
and traded with the inhabitants of the hinterland at the
regular markets and fairs. The Suir, Nore, and Barrow
rivers in particular were important avenues of trade,
and there are references to wool being bought and
loaded in Clonmel and leaving Waterford for Bordeaux.
Large quantities of hides were stored in Inistioge and
Thomastown, County Kilkenny, to be shipped down-
river to Waterford for export. Firewood was another
essential commodity that was transported by water
whenever possible, and shippers, particularly on the
Liffey, sometimes complained about newly con-
structed fishing weirs that impeded navigation. Some
idea of the scale of exports from Ireland of wool,
woolfells (sheepskins), and hides may be seen in the
total of the customs receipts of the Irish exchequer for
these commodities (tabulated by Gearóid Mac
Niocaill) for various years between 1275 and 1345.
When the trade was at its peak in the 1270s and 1280s,
an average export of 4,000 to 4,500 sacks of wool or
400,000 to 450,000 hides a year was a possible max-
imum. At the same time, the amount of corn being
shipped out to supply the royal armies abroad would
have required the tillage of more than 30,000 statute
acres (according to James Lydon).
As the fourteenth century progressed there was a
decline in manorial farming in Munster and the
southeast and a shift in trading emphasis to cattle
hides and fish, commodities less affected by wars
than tillage and wool production. However, between
1300 and 1550 there appears to have been little basic
change in the economy of Dublin, Drogheda, and the
ports and towns of the east, mainly because the econ-
omy of their hinterlands, in spite of political and
social upheavals like the Bruce invasion and the
Black Death, largely remained based on agricultural
production.The Fish Trade
Fish, particularly herrings, were caught and sold in the
ports of the Irish Sea coast and exported, sometimes
to the detriment of the home market. It was noted in
1515 that “merchants convey out of this land into
France, Brittaine and other strange parts, salmonds,
herrings, dry lings, haaks and other fish, so abundantly
that they leve none within the land to vitall the King’s
subjects.” Huge numbers of men were employed, 6,000
on one occasion in 1535, with a fleet of 600 English
boats fishing off Carlingford, County Louth.
A similar number of Spanish boats was noted in
west Cork in 1572, when there was a proposal to fortify
an island in Baltimore harbor to collect customs from
them. The previous century had witnessed a migration
of shoals and a consequent huge growth in the herring
fishery off the south and west coasts, where, to the
annoyance of the government in 1465, the “Kings Irish
enemies... were much advanced and strengthened as
well in victuals and harness [and by] great tributes of
money.” The foreign fishermen had to anchor in the
havens and land on the beaches to process their catch,
and paid the local Irish lords for the privilege. The
local economy benefited enormously, and the extra
wealth is one explanation for the building boom that
saw the construction and refurbishment of so many
friaries and tower houses in the south and west of the
country. No doubt that Ua Domnaill of Donegal, who
was known as “King of the fish” in the sixteenth cen-
tury, used his income from the herring fishery based
around Arranmore Island, County Donegal, to hire,
equip, and train the substantial army he fielded in the
1590s.The Organization and Hazards of Trade
Apart from the haven-based herring fishery of the west,
the imports and exports of the country came to be
managed by a relatively small group of wealthy fam-
ilies in the ports, whose prosperity depended com-
pletely on the hides, wool, fish, flax, and furs procured
from the local lords in exchange for wine, salt, iron,
and fine cloth supplied by the merchants. This inter-
dependence transcended the divisive politics of the
period in Ireland. Through family connections and the
guild structure, Irish and foreign merchants operated