Social History
Originally known as Kilbirnie Ironworks village, Glengarnock was the title chosen by the community when it became large enough to warrant its own identity. The original Glengarnock was a medieval castle whose ruins are still visible some 3 miles upstream and north of Kilbirnie. The community consisted of a number of migrant workers from Ireland and Lithuania who were brought in to man the works and housed in the "raws", i.e., rows of terraced cottages. A significant community existed with a number of local shops and facilities but these slowly dwindled when the community moved to better housing in Kilbirnie itself and by the 1970s had declined to only a small number of local shops. When the steelworks closed in the 1980s Glengarnock as a village consisted of two pubs, a hairdresser's and a post office.
One of the first libraries in North Ayrshire was formed by Mr William Rabey who opened a Reading room at the Steel Works.
Read more about this topic: Glengarnock
Famous quotes containing the words social and/or history:
“I am heartily tired of this life of bondage, responsibility, and toil. I wish it was at an end.... We are both physically very healthy.... Our tempers are cheerful. We are social and popular. But it is one of our greatest comforts that the pledge not to take a second term relieves us from considering it. That was a lucky thing. It is a reform—or rather a precedent for a reform, which will be valuable.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)