Town in Ayrshire, Scotland
Irvine
A medieval port where Robert Burns nearly lost his career in a flax-shop fire, and the knights of 1839 held a tournament that was washed out by rain.
Key information
- County
- Ayrshire
- Nation
- Scotland
- Population
- About 33,000 (2011 Census)
- Known for
- Robert Burns's flax-dressing days, the Eglinton Tournament, Scotland's fifth new town, the Marymass Festival
- Famous people
- Robert Burns (resident), John Galt, Archibald Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton
- Football clubs
- Irvine Meadow XI, Irvine Victoria
About Irvine
The year Robert Burns's career went up in smoke
In 1781 a young Robert Burns came to Irvine to learn flax-dressing, hoping to improve the family's prospects. He lodged in the town and worked in a heckling shop in the Glasgow Vennel, a narrow lane that survives today. It did not end well. According to the story, the shop caught fire during New Year celebrations in 1782 and was reduced to ashes. Burns went home to Ayrshire with no trade. Irvine still gave him plenty. He made a friend in Richard Brown, a seafaring man whose worldly ways left an impression on him, and he is said to have been encouraged here to take his writing seriously. The town's Burns Club, founded in 1826, is among the oldest in the world and keeps a small museum of its own. The Vennel is the best place to feel the connection. It has the same cramped lane and the same sense of a young poet working out who he wanted to be.
The port that was once Scotland's western gateway
Irvine became a royal burgh in 1372, and for centuries its harbour at the mouth of the River Irvine was one of the busiest on Scotland's west coast. Ships carried coal, salt and goods in and out, long before Glasgow rose to dominate the Clyde. The harbourside is now home to the Scottish Maritime Museum. Its collection includes vessels that once worked the Clyde and its coastline, among them the puffer Spartan, one of the little steam coasters made famous by Neil Munro's tales. The harbour is a pleasant place to wander, with masts and rusty hulls against the Firth of Clyde, and on a clear day the hills of Arran stand on the horizon.
A tournament ruined by the weather
In August 1839 the 13th Earl of Eglinton, Archibald Montgomerie, staged a full medieval tournament at Eglinton Castle, with knights in armour, jousting and a grand procession. Thousands of spectators came. Then the rain arrived. It poured, and the famous Eglinton Tournament became a byword for a grand idea that got soaked. Among the participants was Louis Napoleon, later Napoleon III of France. The castle is now a ruin, but its parkland is Eglinton Country Park, a mix of woods, trails and open grass on the edge of Irvine. The castle tower still stands as a reminder of that damp spectacle.
Scotland's fifth new town
In 1966 Irvine was designated a new town, the fifth in Scotland after East Kilbride, Glenrothes, Cumbernauld and Livingston. The aim was to bring new housing and jobs to an Ayrshire coast hit by the decline of heavy industry. The result was a place of two halves. The old burgh and harbour sit alongside planned neighbourhoods with their own shopping centre, roads and cycle routes. It grew rapidly into one of the larger towns in the area. The Magnum Leisure Centre, opened in 1976, became one of the best-known leisure complexes in Scotland and a symbol of the new town's ambitions. It closed in 2016 and was demolished in 2017. Irvine Beach Park stretches along the shoreline near the former Magnum site, with dunes, sand and views over the water.
Marymass and ridings of the old burgh
Each August Irvine marks the Marymass Festival, a revival of a medieval fair that goes back centuries. The week brings parades, a horse-riding tradition, street events and a festival spirit that takes over the town. It is a reminder that the new town grew around something very old. Local people take pride in the burgh's long identity, and Marymass is where it shows. On the football side, junior side Irvine Meadow XI and Irvine Victoria carry the town's name on Saturday afternoons.
The novelist who founded a Canadian city
John Galt, born in Irvine in 1779, became one of Scotland's most notable novelists, known for books about Ayrshire village life such as Annals of the Parish. He also had a second career as a colonial organiser. Galt helped to found the Canadian city of Guelph, Ontario, in 1827 as a Canada Company agent. It makes Irvine the birthplace of a man who left his mark on two continents. So the town offers a surprising mix: a poet's failed apprenticeship, an earl's rained-off tournament and a novelist who ended up planting a city across the Atlantic.
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