In the second part of a two-part feature, STEPHEN COYLE highlights the vital contribution of Irish workers in developing Glasgow’s water supply
THE navvies took part in various popular sports and pastimes including football, draughts and tug of war competitions, which sometimes made the Edinburgh Evening News: “Football in Western Stirlingshire has been the rage during the summer months and matches and five-a-side com-petitions take place every week. At a game between Killearn and the Glasgow Corporation Waterwork Navvies, the latter discarded football boots as being too tight and prepared play-ing in their ordinary heavy footgear. Their opponents’ shins suffered severely.”
Alcohol
If the navvies sweated hard and risked serious injury during the week, they made up for it on Saturday, which was pay day, when there would be a mass descent on the village, where licensed premises were still more than adequate for all comers. In October 1886, William Smith, a publican in Cowlairs, near Glasgow, was granted a license for a public house at the reservoir site, serving only porter and ales during the construction of the reservoir.
Newspaper reports were prone to exaggeration about the extent of lawlessness, with one describing the construction of the reservoirs as the ‘wildest period in the history of the burgh,’ due to instances of navvies being charged with breach of the peace for drunken behaviour. However, we need to be circumspect about this. The Poor Law Magazine of 1891, stated of Milngavie: “The population is very orderly and law abiding, and there is comparatively little crime native to the district.”
The shopkeepers in Milngavie benefited greatly from the presence of the men. Every licensed house in Milngavie reaped a rich harvest with ten public-houses and one licensed grocer in the village during the years the reservoir was being built. Other shopkeepers also did extremely well. One of the older residents, then employed as a girl in a draper’s shop, remembers well the stir on a Saturday night, and the customers coming in from the navvy camp. The order was always the same: “A shirt and a pair of socks, miss!” And the price was two-and-ninepence—one-and-eleven for the shirt and ten pence for the socks.
Fatalities
Working on the reservoir was a dangerous business for the navvies, with fatal accidents and serious injury not uncommon. At least 20 workers are known to have perished on the Glasgow Corporation Waterworks Scheme. During the construction of Craigmaddie Reservoir, the following fatalities were reported in the press: “In December 1887, three men were hurt, one of them fatally, while working in the puddle trench, near cross section No.22, by stones falling upon them; in May 1892, John Main, was working in the bed of the Mugdock tunnel on Friday, when he fell from the roof and was killed; in April 1894, Daniel Castels was accidentally killed; in July 1894 John Bell and Daniel Meichan were both drowned in the reservoir; in January 1895 Hugh Donnelly, a labourer was helping to erect an upright steam boiler at the measuring pond, when the boiler overturned and fell on Donnelly, crushing him to death. There are press reports of instances of large stones loosening when the thaw set in and falling from the top of puddle trenches causing fractured skulls and broken bones to the workers below.”
A report prepared and presented by the engineer, James Gale to a meeting of Glasgow Town Council in January 1890, showing the number and nature of the accidents to workmen engaged in connection with the construction of Craigmaddie Reservoir and the Loch Katrine Aqueduct, was described as a ‘rather melancholy document.’ One commissioner believed the committee might consider insuring the workmen against
accidents. However, a colleague countered that the workmen were not in the employment of the Corporation, so no such assistance appears to have occurred.
Strikes
Reflecting back in 1973 on his experiences of working on Craigmaddie Reservoir, 93-year-old John Shearer who was paid 10 shillings a week, told his local paper: “It was very hard work... and we had no union. In the winter you had to keep yourself warm with your work.”
In November 1889, the navvies engaged in the puddle trench came out on strike with the objective of getting improved wages, the contention being that for such dangerous and unpleasant work, they should receive a higher rate of renumeration than the men who did not work in water. Being non-unionised, the men do not appear to have succeeded in their demand. Again, in September 1890, the navvies employed on the waterworks came out on strike for several days and a number left to find work elsewhere. They may have had partial success because the second contractor, Messrs Morrison & Mason decided on supplying stairs with handrails for the accommodation of their workers in the puddle trench. This provision was designed to avoid any fatal results in the case of any sudden giddiness on the part of any worker.
The Mickey Dam
I’m an honest Irish labourer and I come from the County Clare
Once I had a farm there with nothin’ much to spare
But I had to sell me donkey and me famous billy goat,
And with the money I received, to Glasgow took the boat
On the mornin' when I landed there, before me hair got dry,
I was started in the Mickey Dam in a place they call Mull Guy
The ganger that I started with, they called him John the Mouse,
And the very first day that I was there, at me he'd start to grouse
Well, I quickly surprised him and I said: “You little brat,
I'll tie a string around your neck and throw you to the cat.”
For I’m as strong as any lion. I was reared on eggs and ham I'm a terror to all fighting men ‘round the Mickey Dam
Well, this roused the mouse’s temper and at me he made to jump
He swore he'd paralyze me with the handle of a pump
But I quickly surprised him; I grabbed him by the throat,
And I shook that little monkey till the tail fell off his coat
For I’m as strong as any lion. I was reared on eggs and ham I'm a terror to all fighting men ‘round the Mickey Dam
Well, the big hotels we’re stopping at, they call them navvy huts,
And the bugs and fleas that are in the bed are as big as coconuts
And on Saturday nights, when I get there, I stand behind the door,
And as they come out, one by one, I bash them to the floor.
For I’m as strong as any lion. I was reared on eggs and ham I'm a terror to all fighting men ‘round the Mickey Dam
For I’m as strong as any lion. I was reared on eggs and ham I'm a terror to all fighting men ‘round the Mickey Dam
The song is about an Irishman who sold his farm and came to Milngavie to work on the Craigmaddie Reservoir. It is a witty song that tells of how he is treated harshly by the ganger (foreman) and defends himself. The song whose author is unknown was popular in Milngavie at the time of the construction of the reservoir, and is mentioned in an article in the November 23, 1889, edition of the Bridge of Allan Reporter. Two years later, it was reported that a ‘Mr Lees gave a rendition of The Terror of the Mickey Dam in good style.’
I discovered that ‘John the Mouse’ was John Rodgers, an Irishman who lived with his wife, mother, two sons and three daughters in one of the huts at the encampment. It was reported in the local papers in December 1889, that 50-year-old Rodgers was seriously assaulted in a public house in Milngavie by a navvy named Moore, who worked in Rodgers’ squad. It seems four of them had been drinking together, when a quarrel arose between Rodgers and Moore. The result was that Rodgers was expelled from the house and the police sent for. When the sergeant appeared, he found Rodgers, who was unable to account for his severe pains other than by saying that he had been kicked. With the assistance of his wife and another he was taken back to his hut. So serious were the internal injuries that it was feared he would die. Moore was removed to Stirling Prison and was afterwards brought before the Sheriff and charged with assault. He pleaded not guilty and was liberated.
The acclaimed Irish folk singer, Daoirí Farrell included the Mickey Dam in his album The First Turn in 2009. I had the pleasure of hearing him perform it at the Milngavie Folk Club on November 3, 2018. Daoirí made a point of visiting the reservoir during his visit to the town. The song was later recorded by the Battlefield Band on their Beg and Borrow album released in 2015. The Mickey Dam is also recalled in a poem titled The Craigmaddie Trench (author unknown, undated), which appears in Reminiscences of an Old Milngavie Man: Stories of Old Milngavie by David Roger.
Legacy
Many Irish navvies settled in Milngavie when the reservoirs were built. In 1856, a Catholic mission was established in the village to cater for the religious needs of the Irish Catholic workers drafted in to work on Mugdock Reservoir. This led to the creation of St Joseph’s parish. Towards the turn of the century, as the major dams were finished, the Catholic population dipped slightly as Irish workers moved to new building projects, but the significant number who settled in Milngavie formed the nucleus of a Catholic population which grew steadily and still exists today.
The most beneficial legacy of the navvies for the welfare of the community is the supply of drinking water. Milngavie Water Treatment Works continues to serve around 700,000 people in the city and Greater Glasgow area. According to Eddy Yacoubian, Friends of Milngavie Reservoir: “Around 170,000 people visit the reservoir every year and it is an area of outstanding natural beauty.”
Near the entrance to the reservoir a rugged stone plinth sprouting a drinking fountain, bears a weathered copper plaque from which the bushy whiskers of James Gale the municipal engineer bristle in bas-relief. The statue that should be there, but isn’t, is of a burly man, leaning on his shovel, gazing northwards over the deceptively calm waters of the Mickey Dam, a memorial to the formidable men who, crossing from Ireland on vessels little better than cattle boats, brought their muscle and their drouths and their songs to this place and battled with it to bring us fresh water. For an inscription to the knights of the jumper, drill, and forehammer, one is tempted to look no further than Patrick MacGill’s bitter testament of labouring life, Children of the Dead End, to the mighty figure of Moleskin Joe, and the wry echo of his catchphrase: “There’s a great time comin’, if we do but live to see it.”
In researching this feature Stephen Coyle would like to acknowledge the help he received from the staff of the Mitchell Library, Glasgow City Archives, East Dunbartonshire Archives, Rev Father Pat Currie of St Joseph’s Parish, Milngavie and Dr Máirtín Ó Catháin
Stephen Coyle is a member of both the Scottish Labour History Society and the Irish Labour History Society
Commenti