The Flax Dressers' Trade Union was a trade union representing better paid linen workers in the north of Ireland.
The union was founded in 1872 as the Flax Dressers' Trade and Benevolent Trade Union, although it saw itself as a continuation of earlier unions which had existed since 1857. Initially, it focused on paying welfare benefits to members who were unemployed, ill or who died. It also paid £5 10s to any member who wished to emigrate in the hope of reducing competition for work. [1]
The union was based at Engineers' Hall on College Street in Belfast, where the Flax Roughers' and Yarn Spinners' Trade Union and Power Loom Tenters Trade Union of Ireland also had their headquarters. [1] It affiliated to the Irish Trades Union Congress and to the Belfast Trades Council.
Membership of the union was already over 1,300 in the 1880s and remained fairly steady, being 1,184 in 1913. That year, the union was renamed as the Flax Dressers' and Linen Workers' Trade Union. In about 1920, it merged into the Workers' Union. [1]
Linen is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant.
The Transport and General Workers' Union was one of the largest general trade unions in the United Kingdom and Ireland – where it was known as the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers' Union (ATGWU) to differentiate itself from the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union – with 900,000 members. It was founded in 1922 and Ernest Bevin served as its first general secretary.
James Larkin, sometimes known as Jim Larkin or Big Jim, was an Irish republican, socialist and trade union leader. He was one of the founders of the Irish Labour Party along with James Connolly and William O'Brien, and later the founder of the Irish Worker League, as well as the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU) and the Workers' Union of Ireland. Along with Connolly and Jack White, he was also a founder of the Irish Citizen Army. Larkin was a leading figure in the Syndicalist movement.
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Irish linen is the brand name given to linen produced in Ireland. Linen is cloth woven from, or yarn spun from flax fibre, which was grown in Ireland for many years before advanced agricultural methods and more suitable climate led to the concentration of quality flax cultivation in northern Europe. Most of the world crop of quality flax is now grown in northern France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Since about the 1950s to 1960s, the flax fibre for Irish linen yarn has been imported almost exclusively from France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. It is bought by spinners who produce yarn, which is then sold to weavers who produce fabric. Irish linen spinning has now virtually ceased, yarns being imported from places such as the eastern part of the European Union and China.
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The Power Loom Tenters' Trade Union of Ireland was a trade union representing workers involved in stretching linen being manufactured in the Belfast area of Ireland.
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Andrew Mulholland, was a northern Irish cotton and linen manufacturer.
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The Flax Roughers' and Yarn Spinners' Trade Union was a trade union representing lower-paid workers in the flax industry in the north of Ireland.
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