Much research work has been conducted on industrial districts all over the world and this thesis adds the first such study in Ireland. It is shown that the wooden furniture industry in Monaghan constitutes an industrial district. Many different regions and industries have been classified as industrial districts and the questions of whether they are all the same and if not should they be classified as such is addressed A taxonomy of industrial districts is developed, which serves to distinguish between different types of industrial district and therefore contributes to the theoretical development of this research area, as well as allowing future case study analysis to be more precise. The term industrial district is often used inter-changeably with that of industrial cluster. The issue of whether this is appropriate is addressed by comparing the differences between these types of agglomeration and studying examples of each in Ireland. It is concluded that while there are similarities between both the differences are enough to warrant distinction. Industrial districts and industrial clusters are different categories of agglomeration which are similar by virtue of the fact that they expound the importance of local factors in national and international industrial success respectively.