In the days (probably before the early 1960s) before the M1 Motorway was built linking Belfast to Dungannon (Co. Tyrone) and Portadown (Co. Armagh), you had to go to Belfast via Lurgan (Co. Armagh), Moira (Co. Down) and Lisburn (Co. Antrim. A few miles south-west of Lisburn (on the road to Moira, and about 10 miles from Belfast) was a factory which processed dead animals, which everyone called "The Burnhouse". One could smell the strong smell as you drove by (I was too young to actually drive in those days, but you get my drift). I can make enquiries, but I think either the place has closed down or else it uses a different process, as I doubt if they would be allowed to produce such a smell nowadays.

Newforge lies about 3 miles south of Belfast and I have a vague recollection of a factory producing a bad smell somewhere around there, which may had an eqivalent function to the one at Lisburn, but was certainly a different place.

If it is of interest to anyone, I could make enquiries about these places, but this is all peripheral to the song "Hiring Fair at Hamilstonsbawn". The custom of hiring out farm labour at these hiring fairs is surely of more interest.

Edenaveys is a townland on the eastern outshirts of Armagh, and would be some mles west of Hamilstonsbawn, itself a small village about 5 miles east south east of Armagh.