Life
was very difficult for the ordinary people of Moira. They
could only survive if they worked very hard every day for
long hours.
The
rich people in the Castle helped provide some employment and
income for the villagers and also some education for children.
Sir John Rawdon in 18th C. helped many people in Moira become
involved in the linen trade. Most homes had a loom. Small
farmers, labourers and cottiers supplemented their incomes
by working looms from home. The raw material was supplied
and weavers got paid for the finished product.
In
1740 a monthly brown linen market had been established. Large
quantities of linen were sold in the town and neighbourhood.
However
new factory looms were invented and each loom could do the
work of 100 hand weavers. The result was that tens of thousands
in rural Ulster lost a valuable source of income.
The
linen industry declined even more rapidly due to population
reduction following the Famine and just about survived into
the 20th century.
Although linen was the main industry in Moira, there was also
a brewery and bottling business near "Palmer's Corner".
Moira was also an important centre for limestone quarrying.
There were many kilns always at work, and vast quantities
of the stone in its natural state were annually sent away
by the canal, and by land carriage, to distant parts.
Around
1845-1850, the Great Potato Famine affected the whole of Ireland.
In 1851 more than 1 million people died. Potatoes had been
the staple diet of the poor people and were replaced by oatmeal,
buttermilk, soup made from cows’ and sheep’s heads,
and bread. The poorest had porridge for breakfast and supper.
There was nothing else.
Ulster
suffered a cholera epidemic in the mid nineteenth century
and Belfast was particularly affected. But it even reached
Moira. Ballunigan House, near Moira (close
to the M1 Motorway) was once a Cholera Hospital.
The
old ruined tomb in the graveyard at the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian
Church records the death of a well loved local Doctor. The
inscription reads. “Thomas Simpson of Moira, Surgeon,
who fell victim to malignant cholera on 29th December 1832
aged 34 years.”
We
have a village today because those ordinary men and women
who lived here in very difficult times, would not give up.
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