Keir Hardie Trail - Ayrshire

You can visit the sites associated with Keir Hardie in Ayrshire.
For directions there is an interactive map here

Baird Institute
​This is the local museum for Cumnock and houses the Lochnorris collection of Hardie’s papers and artefacts. There is a room dedicated to Keir Hardie with a number of exhibits from the collection, including furniture, books, ornaments and documents.

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Cumnock Town Trail
​Keir Hardie moved to Cumnock in 1880 at the request of Ayrshire miners. He also wrote for the local newspaper, the Cumnock News. His house, Lochnorris, still stands today and there is a walking trail that takes in the main Hardie sights. These include the memorial stone in the cemetery, a bust outside the Town Hall and Lochnorris itself.
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Cumnock Cemetery
Keir Hardie’s funeral and cremation was held in Maryhill, Glasgow on 29 September 1915, where his parents had been cremated. The cortege stretched for a quarter of a mile and the route was lined by large crowds. Contrary to Scottish tradition women marched to honour Hardie’s stand for women with a wreath from Sylvia Pankhurst in suffragette colours. There is a memorial stone in the town cemetery in which all the Hardie family ashes were gathered in and buried. 

Cumnock Town Hall
​Cumnock Town Hall was designed by Robert Ingram and built in 1884. The bust of Keir Hardie outside the main entrance was commissioned by the National Keir Hardie Memorial Committee and sculpted by Benno Schotz RSA. It was unveiled by Hardie’s daughter, Provost Nan Hardie Hughes, in August 1939, at a ceremony attended by Fenner Brockway, James Maxton and others. The choir sang “Banner of Freedom, Hardie’s poem set to the music of a Welsh hymn.

Irvine Moor
Keir Hardie gave his first recorded political speech at a mass outdoor meeting on Irvine Moor in October 1887, at the age of 31. He emphasised the need for working class representation in parliament saying, “The Liberals and Conservatives have, through their organisations, selected candidates. They are both, as far as I know, good men. The point I wish to emphasise, however, is this: that these men have been selected without the mass of the people being consulted. Your betters have chosen the men, and they now send them down to you to have them returned.”

Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald Offices
Between 1882 and 1887 Keir Hardie wrote a weekly column for the region’s main Liberal paper the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald under the pseudonym ‘The Trapper’. He was recommended as temporary replacement by his local minister and his copy was topical, readable and lively, so the Editor kept him on. At one pound a week the pay was good. ​