By the beginning of the 14th century, the trade of Ireland with the continent of Europe was important. And trading ships were constantly sailing between Ireland and the leading ports of the continent. Irish merchants were known in the great Continental markets and Irish money commanded credit.. This condition of things did not suit commercial England. So at an early period she began to stifle Irish industry and trade. In 1339 England appointed an admiral whose duty it was to stop traffic between Ireland and the continent (34 Edward III, c.17). He must have been indifferently successful for a little more than a century later, Edward the Fourth deplores the prosperity of Irelands trade, and he orders (in 1465) that since fishing vessels from the continent helped out the traffic with Ireland, these vessels should not henceforth fish in Irish waters without an English permit.(5 Edwrd. IV). And since this even failed to stop the stubborn Irish, in 1494 an English law was enacted prohibiting the Irish from exporting any industrial product, except with English permit, and through an English port after paying English fees. This handicap too failed. For we find English merchants 1548, unofficially taking a hand at trying to end the traffic by fitting out armed vessels to attack and plunder trading ships between Ireland and the continent.
Under Edward III Irish coinage was forbidden to be received for payment in England. However Irish money and Irish merchants were of such repute that not only did they succeed with Irish money on the continent , but one hundred years later, Irish coinage had to be prohibited again in England in 1447
In 1477, after imprisoning some Irish merchants who traded with Irish money at Bristol, the English government enacted a radical reform by introducing into Ireland an English coinage debased twenty-five percent below the English standard and forced Ireland to accept it as her legal currency.
In 1571 Elizabeth ordered that no cloth or stuff made in Ireland, should be exported even to England except by English men in Ireland.
The navigation act of 1637 provided that all ships must clear from English ports for foreign trade. But as this did not sufficiently discourage Ireland it was amended in 1663 (15 Charles II, c. 7), to prohibit the use of all foreign going ships, except such as were built in England, mastered and three fourths manned by English and cleared from English ports. Their return cargo’s too must be unladen in England. Irelands ship building industry was thus destroyed, and her Continental trade was practically wiped out.
Ireland persevered to a degree by developing a lucrative trade with the colonies. This was cured in 1670 by Charles II, c 26 which forbade Ireland to export to the colonies anything except horses, servants and victuals. Ireland then fell back upon the little profits to be made from importing from the colonies. England observing this put a bush in the gap (7 & * Wm. II, c. 22) decreeing that no colonial products should be landed in Ireland till they had first been landed in England an paid all English rates and duties, thus depriving Ireland with all direct trade with the colonies.
England did repent however, allowing Ireland to import from the West Indies plantations. Except the only thing she was allowed to import was west Indy rum, at the expense of Irish farmers and distillers.
At a very early period Ireland was forbidden to export her cattle to England. and then turning to sheep raising was by Eliz. c. 8, forbidden to export sheep. Ireland then turned to woolen manufactures. This quickly became a great Irish industry. In continental markets and British as well, Irish woolens were in great demand. The Irish woolen manufacturers began to rival England’s. So in 1571 Elizabeth imposed restriction upon the Irish woolen trade that crippled the large Irish trade with the Netherlands and other parts of the continent. In 1660 a more radical step was taken by forbidding by law the export of woolens from Ireland to England. The Irish then tried to compensate by the export of raw wool. This was stopped by 12 Charles II, c. 32 and 13 and 14 Charles II, 18 which Acts which prohibited Ireland from exporting sheeps wool, wool-feels, mortlings, shortlings, yarn made from wool and wool flocks. In 1637, Sir William Temple (by request of Viceroy Essex) advised that the Irish would act wisely in giving up the altogether the production of wool even for domestic use because it tended to interfere prejudicially with the English woolen trade. Now it seems that Ireland was cured of the bad habit of exporting wool and woolens except to English colonies. This was cured in 1697 by an act that was introduced to prohibit Ireland from exporting any wool or woolen product to anywhere.
This left Ireland the manufacture of hemp and linen. An industry that was encouraged in an address to the Irish Houses of Parliament on Sept. 27, 1698 by William the Third because it would keep the Irish gainfully employed at something other than the wool trades, which interfered with the English wool trades. He promised to protect this manufacture and to guarantee to a degree the usefulness and export of this manufacture to England. Let us take a look at how these promises of William and his Lord Justices were kept. In 1705 it was enacted that only the coarsest kinds of undyed Irish linen should be admitted to the British colonies. Checked, striped and dyed Irish linens were excluded. And Irish linens of all kinds were forbidden to be exported to all other countries with the exception of Britain. In Britain it was met with a thirty per cent duty and a scoff at such duty and was turned home again. It was the subsequent ruin of the linen trade especially in Ulster that gave way to the flight of Ulster’s Protestant population to North America creating North America’s so called Scotch-Irish population. As far as hemp was concerned (23 Geo. II c. 33) placed a heavy import duty on Irish sail cloth shipped to Britain while British manufacturers of sail cloth were granted a bounty on sail cloth exported to Ireland.
Without dealing with similar restrictions on the export of Irish dairy, silk, cotton, glass tobacco etc. It is easy to see how one of the most fertile countries of Europe became one of her poorest.