Factory life in Industrial Yarns Ltd, Bray, 1958-98

Kieran Devenish

Industrial Yarns Ltd, a large textiles factory and one of Seán Lemass’s flagship industrial projects, provided well-paid employment for hundreds of workers in Bray for many years. This contextualized study, charting the rise and fall of the company over forty years, is based largely on wide-ranging interviews conducted with twenty-three former workers. Their stories, spanning four decades, uncover the factory’s working conditions, culture, social relationships, remuneration schemes, industrial relations history and its close ties with the local community. The book provides unique insights into what it was like to work in this remarkable enterprise.

Kieran Devenish, a native of Bray, Co. Wicklow, is a student-researcher at the University of Galway