I have started a new audio archive with many of my recordings about local history, South West Scotland and other things I have made over the years. You can hear it by clicking on the menu at the side of the site – I’m still testing it and adding new content. I am aware that right now everything is lumped together.
As I add more content, it will sort itself out.
On mobile devices, it is appearing at the bottom of the page.
Joseph.
You can access it here:
I have added an audio version to my book about the Knox Family of KIlbirnie.
You can hear it on the page, here.
This is another document I wrote as part of my University course – it is called:
Away with the Fairies: Folklore and Mental Health in the Scottish Highlands
This is a research document I prepared for my University Course about Culture and Heritage. I researched “Continuity and Change in Scottish Death and Burial Customs, 1875–2025”. I used headstones in cemeteries in Kilbirnie as examples, as well as family stories. There’s pictures in the appendices.
I was down in Kilbirnie this week and took some random pictures of graves in the Kilbirnie Cemeteries:
Old Knox Grave behind the kirk. I will add these to the Knox Section.
Francis Cowan – a 20 year old KIlled in a freak accident in the Steel Works
Bell/McKelvie/McTaggart
Crawford Mausoleum
Random picture of a lady I knew in Dublin in the 1990s called Maureen Dempsey Higgins.You can read the life story of her brother Charlie, growing up in Dublin here
As you might know, there was a Church in Beith, Head Street which became a cinema, Orange Hall and latterly a Boys Brigade Hall, it has/had a cemetery around it.
Records of burials and lair occupancy.
The first half of the booklet contains the names of people who were buried, the second half contains names of people buried in each lair.
click here to download the booklet as a zip file from archive.org
Lochwinnoch Calder Church
Lochwinnoch Parish Church now closed:
These pictures of the inside and outside of Beith Auld Kirk are very striking. The first line of pictures show a monument
One version of the story tells me that this is a monument which was installed up at Spiers School. After that was demolished in the 70s the monument was removed and placed behind the Kirk in 1985…. in the Kirk yard where you can still see them today. Another person told me these were actually from Gielsland House and are called “the Gielsand marbles”.
If you know the history of these, please let me know.
