Folklore is not all about rural people thatching cottages, milking cows by hand or wringing the necks of wrens at Christmas Time. Folklore is the "beliefs, legends and customs current among the common people; the study of these." A lot of the common people on this island, especially in the North, lived industrial lives. Their goings and songs are part of the common heritage. David Hammond is a notable in this regard. And in 1980 Blackstaff published a book by Betty Messenger, an American scholar, about "Life in Ulster's mills" called Picking Up the Linen Threads. Full of song and humour - and grim reality.
Take the Doffer's Song, (Doffing is part of the work in the linen mills). You will easy know a doffer/When she comes into town,/With her long yeller hair/And her ringlets hanging down,/And her rubber tied before her,/ And a picker in her hand,/ You will easy know a doffer,/ For she'll get her man. The rubber was an item of apparel for the job. Many of the women were barefoot winter and summer. Shoes were for Sunday. As a result they had "nacks", or splits in their skin. "My father would have to put cobbler's wax on them." They worked from six a.m.: And if you be a minute late/Robert McCabe will shut the gate.
The death rate was terrible. Public Health Officers declared that accommodation in hospitals was disgracefully inadequate. A veteran remembered having fever (probably typhoid) as a boy, being laid on straw and every time he woke up from his delirium, the people around him had moved - to the grave.
There were men to give their lives to making conditions of the workers bearable. Alexander Bowman, a nearpenniless flaxdresser from a humble farming background plunged into organised trade unionism. He was criticised in the North for his support for Gladstone's Home Rule Bill and the idea of a Dublin Parliament, which he thought would bring the people together. He won a seat on Belfast Corporation and in 1901 was president of the Irish Trade Union Congress.
His great grandson, Terence Bowman, Editor of the Mourne Observer has written a book People's Champion which will tell you a lot about Belfast and working class life.
A fine tribute to a pioneer in an area we would all be better getting to know. Deserves a serious book review. People's Champion, published by Ulster Historical Foundation, £9.99stg. Never a better time to get close to Belfast working class history. A great read.