The Flax Dressers' Trade Union was a trade union representing better paid linen workers in the north of Ireland.
Initially, it focused on paying welfare benefits to members who were unemployed, ill or who died.
It also paid £5 10s to any member who wished to emigrate in the hope of reducing competition for work.
[1] The union was based at Engineers' Hall on College Street in Belfast, where the Flax Roughers' and Yarn Spinners' Trade Union and Power Loom Tenters Trade Union of Ireland also had their headquarters.
Membership of the union was already over 1,300 in the 1880s and remained fairly steady, being 1,184 in 1913.