Three months ago, if someone had predicted that I would be the interim chair of the Carnegie Oldpark Library trustees in North Belfast, I would have riposted ‘unlikely’; if they had then explained that the purpose of the trust would involve a #BackToLife endeavour, reimagining an abandoned Carnegie Library as a centre for celebrating the legacy of Belfast weaving tradition and a residence for working weavers, I would have asked if their coffee had been spiked!
But here I am in the role and loving it. As is so often the case with unlikely happenings, it transpires that they are not so unlikely as first thought. That realisation came to me last week at a showcase event in the library opened by the Lord Mayor of Belfast, herself from Belfast’s Sandy Row, which had a rich weaving tradition.
It was the screening of a BBC documentary by Triplevision, featuring Deborah White, weaver extraordinaire, which was indeed eye-opening. Not only did that documentary cover Deborah’s work in reclaiming and rebuilding a 300-year old loom, but it also included archive footage of the process; whilst this was clearly a skilled process, I was surprised by the extent of the links between Scotland and Ireland, across that ‘Narrow Sea’ I know so well, and between craftsmen and artisans from specific counties traversing the North Channel and Irish Sea.
What interested me most was the reference in the documentary to the 1787 strike and demonstration by weavers in the East End of Glasgow, some of whom were from Down and Antrim; their demands for higher pay and better conditions were met with brutal force from the authorities, who opened fire and shot dead six people. As a committed trade unionist, steeped in the history of the movement, it piqued my interest.
Those weavers’ activities were the basis of a nascent trade union movement that emerged in the following century and were part of the last armed insurrection on British soil. After the end of the Napoleonic War in 1815, in which Great Britain consolidated its dominance, the country was affected by an economic depression which saw wages cut and living standards collapse. Britain was at fever pitch after the discovery of a plot to assassinate the whole of the British Cabinet, the Cato Street conspiracy, and saw sedition and revolution everywhere!
At the same time, workers such as weavers were becoming more radical, with harsh living conditions pushing them to the brink of revolution; it did not take much to spark it. On 1st April, a proclamation in Glasgow, by order of the ‘Committee of Organisation for forming a Provisional Government’ was effectively a petition for redress from hardship and a demand for rights. By 3rd April 60,000 weavers, shoemakers and other workers had downed tools, and armed insurrection broke out throughout west and central Scotland.
From the weaving village of Strathaven, 100 Radicals marched on Glasgow and met with another group of striking weavers, led by Andrew Hardie [a relative of Keir Hardie] then attempted to seize cannon from Carron Ironworks only to be ambushed by Government troops at Bonnymuir [Bonnybridge].
Three of the ringleaders were executed, 19 transported to Australia, and hundreds of Radicals escaped to Canada. Many weaving communities were broken up, left unemployed and destitute.
Those who were not executed or transported were given hard labour and the back-breaking job of building a road up Salisbury Crags beside Edinburgh’s famous Arthur’s Seat – called the ‘Radical Road’ in their memory – a walk I used to traverse regularly when I lived in Edinburgh.
I knew that story well. The union of which I was a member organised the white-collar staff in the textile and linen factories in Scotland, and the bravery of the weavers was a constant reference point, whether on our colourful banners or as educational material on the importance of trade union rights.
The film helped me realise how our stories and our lives are more inter-connected, inter-woven, as it were!
Enriching these connections between the past, the present and a better future is what the #BackToLife project in the Carnegie Oldpark Library represents.
Brian Cavanagh
November 2025