My research does not suggest that 16th century Ireland showed all or even many of the features of a modern consumer society, or that it underwent a ?consumer revolution? of the type claimed by historians of 18th century Britain. Nevertheless, analysis of the Bristol customs data points to a dramatic shift in the nature of Irish consumption by the last quarter of the 16th century, indicating both a growing sophistication of tastes and an increasing prosperity in Ireland.
Growth in the import of luxury goods and increasingly close ties with European markets were features of the Irish economy five hundred years ago, according to new evidence unearthed by a historian at the University of Bristol. Susan Flavin , a PhD student in the Department of Historical Studies , studied Bristol customs accounts and port books to investigate the range of commodities that were imported into Ireland from Bristol towards the end of the sixteenth century. She found that there was a dramatic increase in the range and volume of luxury goods imported: from just 60 basic items in 1503 to almost 400 by 1600. These findings are surprising because Ireland in the 16th century, which is still seen by economic historians as a colonial backwater, is a very unlikely place to find significant changes of this nature. (It is widely accepted that the 'birth' of a consumer society in Britain did not occur until the 18th century, in line with growing industrialisation and commercialisation. The customs accounts and port books of Bristol are an outstandingly detailed record of Anglo-Irish trade, recording in minute detail what was the most important branch of Ireland's overseas trade. The records are particularly invaluable because the public records office in Dublin was destroyed in 1922. No other economic records of equivalent value survive in Ireland, or elsewhere, for examining the country's economic development during this period.
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