The final T-Shirt was cut at Fruit of the Loom's Ballymacarry plant in Buncrana, Co Donegal, yesterday as the remaining 40 production workers clocked out for the last time shortly after 11am.
Workers on the cutting-room floor listened to words of gratitude from production manager Martin McLaughlin, before exiting to the car park and the waiting media.
Owen Bradley, from Cockhill, Lawrence Hegarty, from Inch, and Shane Galvin, from Buncrana - all with between 14 and 18 years' experience at the factory - were among the first group to leave.
They said that they were happy enough with their redundancy packages, adding that they were going to take a couple of weeks off before making any decisions on future employment.
Another worker, Michael McLaughlin, said: "The feeling around here's not good; that there's nothing being done - we're being shown the door and that's it."
Christine Burke, a waste department worker, said although she had good times and bad times, she was sad to be leaving.
Ms Burke, from Westbrook, has worked at Fruit of the Loom for the last 27 years.
She has no new job lined up but has completed a Fás course and will be doing another in computers in September.
The mayor of Buncrana, Pádraig MacLochlainn, said: "This is the arrival of the inevitable; it's been well flagged over a long period of time.
"The economic reasons are not argued; what is argued in Buncrana, Inishowen and the wider Donegal area is that the strategy from central government to create jobs and regenerate this whole region has been badly lacking."
Fruit of the Loom employed over 3,000 people in Buncrana at its height. In 2004 it announced that manufacturing would be relocating to Morocco.