The only man I heard sing this lived in County Antrim before he died. Robert Cinnamond was his name and there is only the one verse that he knew. I have it written as:

When I was a tailor, I carried my bodkin and thread
When I was a weaver, I carried my reed and my gear
My thimble also, my small tools and reed in my hand
And whereever I'd go, there's a jolly a bold weaver again.

It's very hard to speculate, my guess is that it is a fragment of some sort because the first verse is too well constructed. It might have started off a courtship song. many do start out like that, one example being The Factory Girl, or another: The Bonny Light Horseman.