As a largely agricultural country, she was
as yet little influenced by the discoveries of Watt, of Hargreaves, of
Arkwright, or of Crompton. But her long-rested soil could produce in
apparently unlimited quantities those very products of which the British
forces stood most in need. The fleets were victualled and fitted out at
Cork, and they carried thence a constant stream of supplies of all sorts
for our armies in the field. Indeed, so keen was the demand that it was
soon discovered that not only our own troops, but those of the enemy,
were receiving Irish supplies, and smugglers on the south and west
coasts reaped a rich harvest.
The result was obvious. Cattle graziers and middlemen made enormous
profits, rents were doubled and trebled. Dublin, Cork, Waterford,
Limerick and Belfast flourished exceedingly on war prices and war
profits. But there is no evidence that the mass of the people in their
degraded and debased condition shared to any extent in this prosperity.
It was at this very period that Arthur O'Connor spoke of them as "the
worst clad, the worst fed, the worst housed people in Europe.
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