Lisburn, United Kingdom

Management of the Conways' Irish estate fell largely to George Rawdon, a Yorkshire man, who laid out the streets of Lisburn as they are today: Market Square, Bridge Street, Castle Street and Bow Street. He had a manor house built on what is now Castle Gardens, and in 1623, a church on the site of the current cathedral. In 1628, Charles I granted a charter for a weekly market, which is still held in the town every Tuesday. To populate the town, Rawdon, hostile to the Presbyterian Scots already moving into the area, brought over English and Welsh settlers.

In 1641 the Irish, rising in the first instance against English, and not Scottish, settlers, were driven back three times from the town. A herd four hundred head of cattle driven against the gates failed to batter them down. The town nonetheless burned. In 1649 the town was secured by forces loyal to Cromwell's English Commonwealth, routing an army of Scots Covenanters, and their Royalist allies, in the Battle of Lisnagarvey.

The Presbyterians, despite their loyalty to the Crown, upon its Restoration continued to be penalised as "dissenters" from the established Church of Ireland. It was not until 1670 that they were permitted a meeting house in town, and that had to be of "perishable materials [...] dark, narrow and devoid of any pretensions to art and comfort. Their support for William III (whose forces wintered in the town) during the Williamite War in Ireland likewise failed to win them equal standing. Like the Catholics, who had to wait another 60 years for a Mass House, Presbyterians were discouraged from exerting their presence. The First Presbyterian Church built in 1768 was screened (until 1970) from Market Square by shops.

The town was destroyed once again in 1707: the accidental conflagration giving rise to the town's motto Ex igne resurgam --"Out of the fire I shall arise". Conway's Manor House was not restored (part of the surrounding wall and its gateway with the date 1677 engraved still stands on the south and east side of Castle Gardens). The Anglican church, designated by Charles II as Christ Church Cathedral in 1662, was rebuilt retaining the tower and the surviving galleries in the nave. The distinctive octagonal spire was added in 1804.

One of the few buildings spared in the fire of 1707 was the Friend's Meeting House. Quakerism had been brought to the town in 1655 by a veteran of Cromwell's army, William Edmundson. In 1766, a prosperous linen merchant, John Hancock, endowed what is now the grammar school known as Friends' School Lisburn.

John Wesley first visited Lisburn in 1756, and thereafter he returned to preach biannually until 1789. The first Wesleyan Methodist Preaching House was established in the town in 1772.

Lisburn prides itself as the birthplace of Ireland's linen industry. While production had been introduced by the Scots, the arrival in 1698 of Huguenot refugees from France brought more sophisticated techniques, and government support. Even as it raised duties on Ireland's successful woollen trade (with the concurrence of the subordinate Irish Parliament), the English Parliament removed them on all Irish articles of hemp and flax, and the government gave Louis Crommelin, "overseer of the royal linen manufacture of Ireland", money to promote their production.

The Huguenot retained their own place of worship, the French Church in Castle Street, until 1820. The last of its pastors, Saumarez Dubourdieu, was 56 years Master of the Classical School of the Bow Street. His students subscribed to his memorial and bust on the south interior of the cathedral.

Large scale manufacture began in 1764 when William Coulson established his first linen looms close by is now the Union Bridge. His mill supplied damask to the royal courts of Europe and, in the early nineteenth century, was to draw celebrity visitors, among them Grand Duke Michael of Russia, Crown Prince Gustaf of Sweden, Louis Napoléon Lannes, the Duke of Wellington and Lord John Russell.

To carry the town's new trade, construction of the Belfast-Lisburn section of the Lagan Canal began in 1756. Despite problems of low water levels during the summer, the canal (extended in 1794 to Lough Neagh) continued to carry bulk cargoes until 1958.

In 1784, the Scotsman John Barbour began spinning linen thread, and in 1831 his son William moved production to what had originally been Crommelin's bleach green at Hilden. By the end of the century Barbour's Linen Thread Company was the largest mill of its kind in the world employing about 2000 people to work 30,000 spindles and 8,000 twisting machines. The company had built a model village for the workers, with 350 houses, two schools, a community hall, children's playground and a village sports ground.