Arriving in Belfast, one is met with the iconic image of the Harland and Wolff cranes, known locally as David and Goliath, which tower over the eastern bank of the River Lagan. Edward Harland purchased the Belfast shipyard, which was later responsible for the construction of the Titanic, in 1859. Two years later, Harland took Gustav Wolff on as a partner and by the turn of the century Harland and Wolff employed some 9,000 people. As was the case in other cities throughout the United Kingdom, shipbuilding was very much the iconic industry in early twentieth-century Belfast, but it was not the largest employer; that title belonged to the linen industry.

Linen was synonymous with Belfast at the start of the twentieth century; mid-way through the nineteenth century, Belfast had accounted for half the linen output for all of Ireland and there were twenty-eight linen mills in the city. Just over a third of these were located on the Falls Road, which runs south-west from the city centre towards Andersonstown along the foot of the Black Mountain. Sectarian divisions in Belfast were pronounced in its two main industries: while the shipyards were the preserve of the Protestant working classes, the linen mills provided a steady source of employment to Catholics, many of whom ended up living in houses built and owned by mill owners.