Tag: kilbirnie

Glengarnock Steel Social Night – Whist Drive, 1921

Names in this article and likely in the photo: James Gibson,  Mary Steele, G Jaffray,  E.Pirrett, M.Martin, Alan Walker,  Ed Kellett,  G. Hamilton, Doris Gaze, D McKee, Margaret Fulton,  WI Thomson, Tom Davidson, M. Kircaldy, (mentioned in some football results elsewhere)  E Hamilton, J. Graham, Alan Hamilton,  John Archibald, Bert Smith, WM Baillie.

Glengarnock Steel Works: War Memorials unveiled (including Kilbirnie) November 1922.

 

 

To avoid confusion, let me explain:

  1. There was a Plaque for both wars  inside Glengarnock Church (demolished) and details can be found here on the Imperial War Museum´s site and it resides now in the Auld Kirk of Kilbirnie along with another plaque for their own Kilbirnie parishoners.
  2. A memorial for WW1 was a plaque attached to a building at the steel works.   I have seen it as a boy and I recall that it was on the back of one of the steel works offices. I do not know if that contained names of the second war also. The Colvilles staff magazines in the early 1920s contained a pull out glossy souvenir about those employees who died during the first world war. Details are on this site.
  3.  A new Plaque was unveiled at Glengarnock Primary School for WWII only but that school has since been demolished  – it may have been transferred to the replacement secondary school at Glengarnock. The outdated Imperial war museum entry is here for that one. 
  4. A separate war memorial exists in Kilbirnie at the park gate covering both wars for people who lived in Kilbirnie. The Imperial war museum reference is here.

Here is the roll of Honour from the staff magazine about Glengarnock with the Steel works Employee names on there:

 

“Memories of the Rows. The Fading Breath of The Past”. By John McFarland of 29 Long Row Glengarnock

Many of you are asking if I have this booklet which was originally written in the late 1970s I believe.  It captures many names of people and places which vanished in the 1930s but has information going back into the 1800s. There is a little extract of it which is still around and can be found at http://www.kilbirnie.uk.net/toppage4.htm

I do not currently have a copy of this booklet but it is still circulating within the town. I last came across an audio version of it back in the 1990s  which was being used by the local blind society as part of their library they shared with locals. If it got that far then I´m sure it must be around somewhere perhaps in the local history dept of North Ayrshire library.

If anybody has a copy, please send it to me and I will put it up here.  Use the “contact me” button on this site please.

thanks

Joe

 

 

Poem about Kilbirnie #NorthAyrshire: The Mossend Mine

The Mossend Mine

While walking near the Mossend mine
I chanced upon a flower
I stopped and stared at beauty spent
and passed away the hour

Her leaves were yellow daffodils
where bees would pass the time
watching men go underground
While entering the mine

Her stem did sway with summer breeze
she slumbered on the brink
like a burdened miner walks
whilst thirsting for a drink

Suddenly a voice I heard
transported back in time
young men with blackened faces walked
deep inside that mine

Awaking, flowers, buttercups
Blessed me on my way
Whilst haunting thoughts of distant past
I carried through my day

So if a flower does call you back
to places, lands of yore,
dwell not in the realm of dreams
take only what is yours

Perhaps your flower is yet to come
in mountain, thoughts or clime
ne’er mind the times of centuries old
now is your only time

Martha Warnock Brisco, Kilbirnie.

Martha Warnock Standing by Knox´s mill where she worked, living at 12 Muirend Street, Kilbirnie during the 1930s. Her husband Charles Brisco died in Newcastle in 1906, at that time she brought their Children back to Kilbirnie.

They were:

Esther married Neil McTaggart, (Kilbirnie)

John, married Agnes K Docherty, (Johnstone / Paisley)

Mary married William Dignan (Kilwinning)

Margaret (Kilbirnie)

Joseph (New York and Dalmuir)

Martha married James Knox (Kilbirnie)

 

Townhead, Kilbirnie, Ayrshire C.1880

This is an interesting photo of Townhead, Kilbirnie Ayrshire. The remains of Martin´s Shed (only a bit of a wall) can still be seen today just down from the supermarket (which was Morrisons), on the other side of the road in a little alcove behind some bushes.  In this picture Martin´s shed is the white building in the middle. Kilbirnie Brethren Assembly first met here in the 1800s as well as the Good Templars Hall in Bridgend, Kibirnie, before they built the Gospel Hall in Schoolwynd 1897, on the site where Jamie Clifford was born.

Townhead – pre-1900s

Townhead – today

Major General Sir. Charles Mathew and #Kilbirnie War Memorial

An article written  in the 1990s while in Dublin for the Pioneer Magazine.

What Does Wexford and a small town in the

Southwest of Scotland have in Common?

General Sir Charles Massey Mathew, a celebrated War Hero from the First World War. Sir Charles was born in Wexford, Ireland in 1866, educated privately at Portsmouth Grammar School, started his career in the Durham Light Infantry, in 1884.

Continue reading “Major General Sir. Charles Mathew and #Kilbirnie War Memorial”

To Our Friends in Canada

Brightly burns the glow of friends
constant, true and pure
No one can claim he has no kin
where Love always endures

A lamp that´s lit by Kin´s red flame
of blood spilt on the earth
for need of Love, a better life
on your land boats did berth

The boys who glowed within the light
were taken in your arms
for in the darkness their was hope
of new lives safe from harm

So to friends on distant shores
for many and the few
and a toast to those we cannot name
lost in the sea of blue