Friends of the Factories |🏭

Sharing the Shirt Factory Industry legacy| WHN Award Winners ’21 |Award Finalists’22| For updates pls visit the FB group⬇️| #FactoryGirls #ShirtFactories

[Friends of the Factories |🏭 @FOTF21]

‘You are invited to link arms, walk around the City & look up at the plaques & iconic buildings, remembering the women & workers that came before us, on whose shoulders we now stand.’ #factorygirls #derrygirls #shirtfactories

[Irish History Bitesize! @lorraineelizab6]

#Otd 2012: Titanic Memorial Garden, #Belfast City Hall opened. Centrepiece=1912 female personification of Death/Fate, holding laurel wreath over head of drowned sailor raised above waves by pair of mermaids. New 9 metre Plinth has names of 1,512 victims. https://t.co/qnVWRjVjRg

[Garrett Hargan @GAHargan]

I've worked on a long-read piece about a cultivated crisis in Derry's education system—primary to higher.

Timing is coincidental on the back of UU job losses, yet makes it more pertinent.

It's an ugly picture of neglect.
I hope some people will read it:
https://t.co/OC3x3kZx7N

[Catherine McGinty @CathMcGin_Tea]

Sinn Féin (@DerrySinnFein) councillor claims Rosemount Factory Community Wealth Building Model ‘seriously in doubt’

‘Foyleside Developments did not engage appropriately with Rosemount residents’ - Cllr Brian Tierney (@BrianTierney09)

✍️ @DerryNow

https://t.co/7ht6140mFi

[Catherine McGinty @CathMcGin_Tea]

Amy Doherty: Guildhall vigil in memory of murdered woman

'All we want is justice for Amy' - Sharon Doherty, Amy's mother

✍️ @DerryNow

https://t.co/eWRipV5dmN

[Derry Now @DerryNow]

Public meeting held to discuss Rosemount Factory 100-bed student accommodation proposal https://t.co/ARklnsth6R

[Department for Infrastructure @deptinfra]

Have YOUR say on exciting new proposals to revitalise Derry’s Central Riverfront area.

The £45million project will be delivered as part of the Derry and Strabane Region City Deal.

You can find out more information and give your views via the website at: https://t.co/woQ77TGLbQ

[Catherine McGinty @CathMcGin_Tea]

Public Meeting on 100 Student Accomodation units proposed for Rosemount Factory - Derry News (@DerryNow) digital report.

More than 100 residents from the Rosemount area of the city attended a public meeting in Brooke Park Leisure Centre organised by Derry City and Strabane District councillor Shaun Harkin (People Before Profit).

The meeting, held to discuss the 100 student accommodation units proposed for Rosemount Factory, took place on Tuesday evening.

The plan for the student accommodation forms part of the overall redevelopment of the Factory brought forward by Glen Development Initiative, The Village Hub and Ballymagroarty Hazelbank Community Partnership, and Foyleside Developments.

During the meeting speakers raised concerns about what they described as the lack of consultation around the proposal; traffic congestion; and public money totalling £1.5 million being paid to a private developer to purchase the Factory.

Those at the meeting also voiced opposition to 100 student accommodation units being included in the plans for the Factory and urged developers, Ulster University and the Magee Expansion Taskforce to consider non-residential areas such as the Fort George site in the Pennyburn area of the city.

[Catherine McGinty @CathMcGin_Tea]

View from The Derry News (@DerryNow) office tonight, at the CRAM (Concerned Residents Around Magee) campaign's public meeting in Brooke Park to discuss the proposal for the refurbished Rosemount Factory to contain 100-bed student accomodation.

[Friends of the Factories |🏭 @FOTF21]

@MervynMerrifiel @GAHargan Great memories - the Rosemount Factory is a listed building & its heritage & place in the Cities history should be protected. 🏭

[Friends of the Factories |🏭 @FOTF21]

Plans to transform one of the most recognisable buildings on the city's skyline - right in the heart of a residential area already struggling with the impacts of studentification and the spread of HMOs - is reported as causing further distress for those living nearby.
#heritage

[County Derry Post @derrypost]

CRAM opposes Rosemount Factory 100-bed student accomodation https://t.co/i7BniwxZt5

[Friends of the Factories |🏭 @FOTF21]

Residents have reported low awareness of the full proposals, a lack of meaningful community support and engagement, and unclear information about the partnerships and agents involved. @dcsdcouncil @HeritageNI @HeritageHubIRE @ArchHFund @ulsterahs

[Catherine McGinty @CathMcGin_Tea]

Ambitious plans unveiled for Derry’s Rosemount Factory

Further discussion called for 100-bed student accommodation sticking point

✍️ @DerryNow

https://t.co/vdQPKXqJLg

[Friends of the Factories |🏭 @FOTF21]

The @dcsdcouncil is set to discuss a proposal to turn the iconic Rosemount Factory into one of the worst examples of “studentification” this Wednesday.

[Garrett Hargan @GAHargan]

On radio today, a local group spoke of redeveloping the Rosemount factory.
Part would accommodate students.

Cost: £5m to purchase/renovate.
The group said UU told them it couldn't afford to contribute.

REMINDER: UU pays back £6.3m yearly for a loan needed to build UU Belfast.

[Catherine McGinty @CathMcGin_Tea]

Derry HMO cap to be reduced from 30% to 10%

@dcsdcouncil) to engage with Infrastructure Department on HMOs as soon as ‘practically possible’

✍️ @DerryNow

https://t.co/tFCdOQqDc9

[Catherine McGinty @CathMcGin_Tea]

CRAM opposes Rosemount Factory 100-bed student accomodation

Proposal to be discussed at Full @dcsdcouncil Council on Wednesday, March 25, 2026

✍️ @DerryNow

https://t.co/ZNW5iXz01u

[Sara O'Neill 🐚 @SaraONeillArt]

My great granny Cissie was a Jacob’s factory girl. I featured her in one of the @WomensAidNI Christmas cards…

[BUCHANAN: Dublin Time Machine @RobLooseCannon]

The history of Jacob’s biscuits is baked into the very fabric of Dublin. What began as a modest Quaker enterprise in Waterford soon became one of the capital’s most recognisable industrial and cultural landmarks. The company was founded in 1851 by brothers William and Robert Jacob, and within two years they had uprooted to Dublin, setting up shop in a former coach house on Peter’s Row in the Liberties.

The move was a gamble, but by the 1880s, Jacob’s had grown into a sprawling red-brick factory complex dominating the Bishop Street skyline. It was here in 1885 that their most famous creation was born, the Cream Cracker.

The Jacob’s biscuit factory was like a mini city unto itself. At its height it employed thousands, many of them women, who found in its gates not only work but community. The company provided a swimming pool, recreation rooms, and free medical and dental care long before such welfare schemes were more common. For generations, Jacob’s became part of Dublin family life, its clock tower visible from the south city, its baking aroma drifting across the Liberties.

In 1913, the site was one of the flashpoints of Larkins great Dublin Lockout. Workers protesting there included the young Rosie Hackett, who would eventually lend her name to one of the city’s bridges. Three years later, in the turmoil of the 1916 Rising, the Jacob’s factory took on an altogether different role. With its fortress-like walls and commanding height, it was occupied by the Irish Volunteers.

Fifty years later in 1966, the company merged with its old rival Boland’s, forming Irish Biscuits Ltd. Of course Boland's Mills also served as the hq for the 3rd Battalion of the Irish Volunteers during the Easter Rising, commanded by Dev in 16. Anyway a decade later in 1976, the Jacob’s Bishop Street works fell silent, as production shifted to a new purpose-built factory in Tallaght. The departure marked the end of an era. The Liberties lost one of its great employers, and the city lost one of its most distinctive industrial landmarks.

Yet Jacob’s endured as biscuits continued to roll off Irish production lines a while longer until 2009, when operations finally ceased after 156 years. The Tallaght factory closed, and the brand passed into new ownership, eventually becoming part of the Valeo Foods empire.

A section of the Bishop Street factory still stands, its brickwork incorporated into the National Archives and the Dublin Institute of Technology. Behind those walls are the archives of the company itself. Theres pay slips, photographs, and the faint record of a little city of women within a city.

[Friends of the Factories |🏭 @FOTF21]

📍🪡📍🏭
Hello November 🍁
Iconic Factory Girls at work:

“Not factory women, factory girls.
Everyone here is a factory girl.
Factory girls never grow old and they don’t fade away”

Frank McGuinness, The Factory Girls, 1982
@AbbeyTheatre
#FactoryGirlsForever
#stitchintime

[Friends of the Factories |🏭 @FOTF21]

An honour to have tea & buns with the inspirational team @StageBeyond
Presenting a donation from the proceeds raised from our 2025 Shirt Factory Calendar - which shares the legacy of this important #herstory and heritage from the City.
#FactoryGirls 🏭
https://t.co/A14H58sROo

[John Sowle @johnsowle]

We then arrived at our accommodation in Derry and had a wander whilst looking for a restaurant. We crossed the Peace Bridge, saw the Guildhall, the cathedral and the’Stitch In Time’ artwork on the old Rosemount Shirt Factory which looked amazing at dusk!

[ITCommonGround @ITCommonGround]

Derry’s shirt factories: ‘You can still see the imprints of the factory girls’ feet on the concrete stairs’ https://t.co/kd0T6k2cPY