The development of Balbriggan in the eighteenth century from a small fishing village to a thriving town was due mainly to the Hamilton family whose Holmpatrick estate included much of the land in the Balbriggan/Skerries district. In 1763 Baron George Hamilton built a pier with the aid of a parliamentary grant and in 1780 he established two cotton factories which, with associated dye-works, employed over 300 local people. A salt works and a tanning yard were started by local merchants, bringing further employment to the town.
Following the death of Hamilton in 1793, his son Rev. George Hamilton administered the estate and both he and his son, George Alexander Hamilton, were involved in further improvements for the town’s benefit, including a second pier built in the 1820s and financed partly by the Hamiltons and partly by the Fisheries Board. As the town developed so did the trade of the harbour; in 1833 a total of 163 ships arrived including 134 colliers and 29 coasters loading out corn for cross-channel ports. The Dublin port authority’s first association with Balbriggan dates from 1790 when a general statute relating to the development of ports. The act provided that if any outport within the ‘district of the Port’ required repair or improvement, it should be lawful for the authority of the principal to collect from shipping using such outport the same rates and duties as applied to the principal harbour, such revenue to be used on the outport repairs and improvements.
Siltation at the mouth of Balbriggan harbour has always been a major problem, particularly after easterly or north-easterly gales and the port authority frequently sent barges and other equipment to assist in dredging the harbour. In June 1866, Baron Hamilton asked the board to consent to an application which he proposed to make to the government requesting that the harbour be transferred totally to the Dublin Port authority. The .consent was forthcoming and the harbour was vested in the Dublin Port and Docks Board under the Balbriggan Pier and Harbour Order 1867.
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