Bernard Neary here recounts the firm's history in loving detail, from the origins of the Rathborne family in Chester and the foundation of the company in the Liberties of Dublin in 1488, to the present day, which finds Rathborne's prospering at the East Wall. The Candle Factory chronicles successive generations of the Rathborne family, who moved the operation in the mid-1700s to a pre-industrial site at Dunsinea, Castleknock, where it remained until the early twentieth century.

Neary gives a brief history of the candle, and describes its various uses - household and street lighting, lighthouses, the illumination of mineshafts - in the context of the company's survival through changing times. Interviews with present and former employees and a generous selection of photographs and maps highlight the remarkable story of a company that has thrived for five hundred years while retaining the atmosphere of a family business.