page_title: Avoca Handweavers
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Avoca Handweavers / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A weaving machine in use at Avoca Handweavers, Ireland
context_page_description: Avoca Handweavers, now mostly known simply as Avoca, is a clothing manufacturing, retail and food business in Ireland. The company began in Avoca, County Wicklow and is the oldest working woollen mill in Ireland and one of the world's oldest manufacturing companies. It is also Ireland's oldest surviving business. Although commonly believed to have come from Wicklow, the family are from Sligo.
context_section_description: The mill on the banks of the fast-flowing River Avoca survives from at least 1723.  Travel to and from the remote village was difficult and a barter system was used.  The mill was used for grinding corn for bread and spinning and weaving wool.
  In 1760 a Fly Shuttle Loom, capable of weaving up to 20 metres of cloth a day arrived.  Workers, concerned about possible unemployment, resorted to burning some looms.
caption: A mechanised weaving machine in use at the Mill
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