Here are three images from the Donegall Road bridge concerning factory girls – weavers, spinners, doffers, and millies. They feature two poems. The first is an anonymously written description of work in Lowell (Massachusetts) USA; the second is attributed to “Eliza Hamilton, Ulster weaver poet 1891”.

“When I set out for Lowell, some factory for to find, I left my native country and all my friends behind.
But now I am in Lowell and summon’d by the bell I think less of the factory than of my native dell.
The factory bell begins to ring and we must obey, and to our old employment go or else be turned away.
Come all ye weary factory girls, I’ll have you understand, I’m going to leave the factory and return to my native land.”

“I started work when I was eight, my childhood lost at the factory gate.
The flight of shuttle, noise and dust, the wage of labour not good enough.
My life was weaved outside my dreams, days always longer than they seemed.
I vowed the day that I was wed, my child would have a childhood.”

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Copyright © 2014 Extramural Activity
X01845 X01847 X01838 The anonymous author of this poem was an Ulster immigrant girl of the 19th century working in a textile mill in Lowell, USA