Since my grandmother and her sisters worked in the spinning mills in Belfast in the early 20th century, I used Si Kahn's song as a basis, and added a couple of extra verses, which Si himself acknowledged in the Dec./Jan. edition of Dirty Linen.
I got the idea from my grandmother who old me about all the various jobs the women (and men) did in the mills.
But Si wrote a truly brilliant song to begin with.

BELFAST MILLS (Aragon Mill)
(SI KAHN/Copyright Mgt., addt'l verses S. KENNEDY)

At the east end of our town, at the foot of the hill,
There's a chimney so tall that reads "Belfast Mill"
But there's no smoke at all coming out of the stack,
For the mill has closed down, and it's never coming back.

Belfast is a city built on factory and mill,
Though her heart has been broken, she's a mill-town still.
The Catholic, the Protestant, we all could work the flax,
And we clothed the world in linen from beneath those old smoke stacks.

CHORUS:
And the only tune I hear is the sound of the wind,
As she moans through the town, "weave and spin, weave and spin."

Clonard, Rosses', Greeveses', the great mills are no more,
The Pound and the Milewater, have shut down and closed their doors;
There are no children playing in the wee, dark narrow streets,
Now the mills have all closed, it's so quiet I can't sleep.

I was a hackler in Campbell's, 'twas the only job I know,
So what will I do now, tell me where will I go.
I'm too old to learn new work, but I'm too young to die,
So we'll just live off our pensions, my dear old girl and I.

CHORUS:

Now the doffers are all gone, no weavers at their looms,
The singing of the spinners is an echo from a tomb;
No more laughing women going home with their friends,
No more we'll hear the doffing mistress cry "lay up your ends!"

Hacklers, tenters, band-tiers -- workers from the past,
Warpers, winders, reelers, spreaders, nothing ever lasts.
Work is here for a day or two, then the next day it is gone,
So you do your job as best you can, and the world goes on and on.

CHORUS: