“Whereas few had their own land & space in which to engage in memorable displays, all had bodies to dress.” Toby Barnard - Making the Grand Figure. Lives and Possessions in Ireland, 1641–1770
By the start of the 18th century, Ireland had its own Parliament, but it was subordinate to the English Parliament, which could also pass laws for Ireland. Only members of the Church of Ireland were permitted to hold office in Parliament, which excluded a huge swathe of the population of Catholics as well as Presbyterians.
In the 1720s & early 1740s there were very severe famines, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, & plunged more people into terrible poverty.
This poverty gave rise to a lot of discontent & violence, particularly in rural parts of Munster. In the 1760s, peasants began to organise themselves into secret societies to defend their rights as tenant-farmers. They levelled fences & filled in ditches that closed off common grazing land; hamstrung cattle; sent threatening letters to landlords & debt collectors and resisted evictions.
These societies had different names, but some of the more famous ones - the Whiteboys, the Caravats, the Shanavests - got their names from particular items of clothing they wore to either conceal their identities or mark themselves as part of the group.
During the 18th century the linen industry grew in Ireland. It was concentrated in the North of the island, particularly around Belfast.
Along with this, agriculture became more industrialised. Crops were grown in great quantities, often to supply the linen industry or for large-scale food production. Foodstuffs such as butter & meat were exported in huge quantities, mainly to Britain, and extensive canal & road networks were built to transport goods.
As in the previous century, most people in Ireland wore clothes very similar to their counterparts in England. While the wealthy kept up with changing fashions, there are many accounts of the less wealthy also wearing fashionable and extravagant clothing - spending a large part of their income on looking well was important to them. Even in very rural areas & Irish-speaking areas, people followed fashion as their circumstances allowed, but using the fabrics & dyes that were available locally. One noticeable difference between rural people & those in urban areas was footwear. Outside of urban areas, many people rarely wore shoes in their day-to-day life. While this was partly due to poverty, it was also cultural; there are many accounts of quite well-dressed women walking barefoot to the edge of town on a Sunday or a market day, then washing their feet & putting on a pair of shoes they had carried with them so they could appear in town in their best outfit.
The standard costume for men was a long coat, waistcoat, shirt and knee-breeches with stockings. Over the decades, the exact cut & finish of the coats & waistcoats varied - fuller pleats on the coat, bigger sleeve cuffs, differently-shaped collars - as did the length of the knee breeches & the size of the buckles that fastened them to the leg.
Cravats were worn by most men in some form, with different types of knots going in & out of fashion very regularly.
Men’s shoes changed too - initially they had stacked heels & square toes, but gradually flat-heeled shoes with pointed toes & a buckle fastening became fashionable.
Women wore bodices and long skirts over petticoats. Over the decades, the cut & shape of these changed fashion. The shape of the skirts is the most obvious variation - made dome-shaped, oval or extremely wide with hoops, or sometimes with a false rump made of cork.
However, sleeves were an important part of fashionable dress. Different styles of cuff changed with fashion - turned-up cuffs, winged cuffs, cuffs that had lace “flounces” attached.
All women wore caps while outdoors (and often indoors). Some caps were quite elaborate, made of starched linen or lace with wire, and more like a headdress. More informal caps were usually made of linen and had simple frills that framed the face.
Wigs were fashionable throughout the 18th century, with different styles coming in & out of fashion worn by more wealthy men & women. By the end of the 18th century, it was considered disrespectful for a man to appear in public wearing just his own hair - even servants had to wear wigs. This meant that even less wealthy men needed wigs, and wigs of varying quality were available for a wide range of prices, so many people bought & sold second hand wigs.
Cloth was woven in various parts of Ireland. Linen, wool, silk & cotton were all used (some imported, some grown locally). The craftspeople who produced this cloth were usually members of craft guilds. Factories that employed many workers existed alongside weavers who wove fabric in their own homes.
Once the cloth was woven, clothes were made either by tailors or seamstresses or by the wearer themselves. Most clothing was recycled several times - a skirt could be re-shaped or have new trimmings added if fashions changed, or the fabric eventually used to make clothes for a child, for example.
