Dubarry was founded in 1937 in Ballinasloe, County Galway, as a joint venture between the local Chamber of Commerce and the Cullen family, who brought footwear-making experience from Northampton, England, and the name was chosen after the French courtesan Madame Du Barry to set the brand apart from other Irish shoemakers. In the early 1990s Dubarry became the first brand worldwide to secure a GORE-TEX licence for leather sailing boots, developing the waterproof "Shamrock Boot" and later adapting it into the "Galway Country Boot," a style that remains largely unchanged today. Manufacturing moved out of Ballinasloe in 2004, and the boots and deck shoes are now made by contract partners in Portugal while design and quality control stay based at the company's Irish headquarters.