The Rolt memorial lecture 2007 technological change as a 'colonial' discourse: The society of friends in 19th-century Ireland

This lecture re-examines the considerable contributions made by Irish Quakers to technological development in the UK, during the 19th century, and argues that these were the result of a collaboration of social equals, and not the product of a 'colonial discourse'. In the latter, it is assumed that as the essential relationship between Ireland and Britain was that of 'colony' and 'metropolitan state', in other words one of inequality. However, the discipline of industrial archaeology, as will be demonstrated here, allows us to present a very contrary view to the notion that Ireland's net contribution to the technological pool of British industry could ever be considered to have been to have been the product of a 'colonial' and therefore subordinate relationship.