120th Anniversary
Ten young Irish potato pickers die in a horrific fire
MANY tragedies have occurred in the area over the years, but one of the worst was the Bothy Fire in Kirkintilloch in September 1937.
Ten young Irish 'tattie howkers' (potato pickers), all from Achill Island, County Mayo, Ireland, lost their lives when fire broke out in their living accommodation at Eastside.
The young victims had all been in the employment of W. & A. Graham, the Glasgow potato merchants, who were also owners of the premises. The bothy had been constructed as recently as 1932, apparently within the stone shell of an earlier dwelling.
The cause of the fire has never been properly explained, although it was suggested at the Fatal Accident Inquiry that the victims had died from carbon monoxide poisoning before being burned by the flames.
As dawn was breaking police began to remove the bodies to the recently opened Police Station in Townhead, beside the Canal Bridge. The garage there was hastily converted for use as a mortuary. About seven o'clock in the evening of Friday 17th September the ten coffins were taken from the police mortuary to St Ninian's Church in Union Street.
Crowds lined the streets to watch the slow progress of the motor hearses.
Inside the church prayers for the dead were read by Canon Jansen, the Kirkintilloch Parish Priest, and during the course of the evening Mr J.W.Dulanty, Irish Free State High Commissioner in London, arrived at St Ninian's. He was accompanied by Mr PJ.Ruttledge, Minister of Justice and Achill representative on the Dail.
EMOTIONAL SCENES
It had originally been intended to bury the bodies in the Old Aisle Cemetery, Kirkintilloch, but this plan was quickly altered when a telegram from Ireland bearing the words Beir Abhaile Ar Marbh ('Bring Home Our
Dead') reached Kirkintilloch.
After the Saturday morning Mass at St Ninian's (18th September) the coffins were immediately dispatched on their long journey to Achill.
Relatives of the dead walked behind the hearses from St Ninian's as far as the Kirkintilloch Burgh Boundary, where special buses were provided to take them to the Broomielaw, Glasgow.
There were emotional scenes there as the ten coffins were carried on board the Burns & Laird vessel Lairdsburn and laid on an upper deck. Survivors of the tragedy and friends and relatives of the victims came on board, many weeping bitterly, and the ship sailed at four o'clock in the afternoon.
After an overnight voyage the Lairdsburn reached Dublin and came slowly up the Liffey, her flag at half-mast, watched by an estimated
six thousand people on the quayside. At about nine o'clock in the morning it tied up at the Burns & Laird wharf.
The coffins were transferred to the three rear coaches of an awaiting train, and with survivors, relatives and friends further forward, at 10.30 the overland journey to Mayo began.
On Monday 20th September the coffins were transported across Achill Island, each one on the roof of a motor car, and were buried in a mass grave at Kildownet Cemetery in the south of the island.
THE DISASTER FUND
At a meeting of Kirkintilloch Burgh Housing Committee on the evening of Thursday 16th September 1937 it was agreed to open a public subscription fund for the survivors, and £25 was contributed as a 'starter' donation.
Many well-known local people soon gave substantial amounts of money, including Benny Lynch, the world champion boxer, who was training at Campsie at the time. A door-to-door collection was also begun and had raised £184 by Sunday 19th September, in Kirkintilloch, Croy, Twechar, Lennoxtown and Torrance. Contributions to the victims were
by no means limited to the local area and came from all over Scotland and Ireland.
The Directors of Celtic Football Club, for example, gave 100 guineas, and as a separate initiative the sum of £116 5s 5d was raised in a collection at Celtic Park on Monday 20th September.
Captain Robert Maguire, J.P., a Glasgow solicitor who resided at 'Loretto', Bellfield Road, Kirkintilloch and was a St Ninian's parishioner, looked after the interests of the Bothy Fire families, and handled many of the donations to the fund, especially in the Glasgow area. The final total was said to be £18,233.
In the immediate aftermath of the Bothy Fire many voices were raised for improvement in conditions for seasonal Irish labourers.
Prominent among them was that of Tom Cassells, MP for Dunbarton-shire, who suggested that if Parliament was forced to pass legislation for better conditions the young Irishmen might not have died in vain.
All ten of the victims of the Kirkintilloch Bothy Fire came from Achill Island and many of the victims and survivors were related to each other, Among the girls who survived, Mary Mangan lost three brothers (John, Thomas and Michael); Kate Kilbane lost two (Patrick and Thomas) as did Bridget McLoughlin (John and Martin); Kitty Cattigan lost one (Thomas).
CASE REOPENED
In late 1982 staff at the old William Patrick Library found to their surprise that there was a sudden upsurge of interest in the Bothy Fire. The old files in the attic were dusted down and made available to the numerous enquirers.
The reason, it transpired, was that the accident investigation had been reopened. An old lady, for some reason, had decide to reveal that her estranged husband had some time previously confessed to her that he had been responsible for starting the fire.
There was a great deal of revived interest in the fire at the time, but it was short-lived, for the Crown Office in Edinburgh soon came to the conclusion that there was insufficient evidence for a prosecution.
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