Dubarry of Ireland

Dubarry was founded in 1937 in Ballinasloe, Co. Galway, as a joint venture between a Northampton shoemaking family and the local Chamber of Commerce, set up explicitly as a co-operative to create local employment and slow emigration from the area. The brand took its name from the French courtesan Madame du Barry, a deliberate choice to give an Irish-made shoe a European identity distinct from its domestic competitors.

Its defining product breakthrough came in the early 1990s: Dubarry became the first brand worldwide to hold a GORE-TEX licence for leather sailing boots, launching the waterproof, breathable Shamrock Boot. Its popularity with customers wearing it beyond sailing led Dubarry to develop follow-on styles — the Huntsman and Huntima, later renamed Galway and Kildare — extending the technology from the water to the country and equestrian markets that now anchor the brand.

Manufacturing shifted from Ballinasloe to contract partners in Portugal by the end of the 1990s, as costs rose and skilled labor grew scarce in Ireland, though design and quality control remain centered at the original Ballinasloe headquarters.