Paisley

Part 1

The Burgh of Paisley is situated in the County of Renfrew, on both sides of the White Cart, about seven miles to the south-west of Glasgow, and from two to three miles to the south of Renfrew, in latitude 55.51 N. and longitude 4.26 W.

Of its origin nothing is known.

 The Romans had a station on Oakshawhead, where the John Neilson Institution now stands, with outposts on Castlehead and Woodside but the original site of the town was in Seedhill, on the north bank of the White Cart and to the east of the ancient mill. Its original inhabitants were probably Iberians, to whom were subsequently added, either before or immediately after the departure of the Romans, a number of Goidels and Brythons.

Its oldest recorded name is Paslet, Passelay, Passelet, Passeleth. The spelling varies at different periods but there is no evidence that the place ever bore any other name than some form of the word " Paisley." Chalmers conjecture that the Romans called it Vanduara rests apparently upon the mistake of a copyist who wrote "Vanduara" instead of Vandagora, the name of a place, which, according to the position assigned to it by Ptolemy, corresponds very closely with Loudon Hill on the river Irvine.

Paisley is first mentioned in connection with St. Mirin, who was long regarded as the patron of the town, and still figures as a mitred Abbot, pontifically vested, on the common seal of the burgh and on the seals of most of the public institutions of the town. A native of Ireland and a Scot of Dalriada, he was educated under St. Comgal at the monastery of Bangor, of which he was subsequently appointed prior. After discharging the duties of that office with distinction, he took to wandering, like most of the Irish monks of the period, and finally settled in Paisley.  Here he built a church, and continued for the remainder of his life to preach the gospel and to teach the arts of civilization.

 In the neighbourhood of his church he is said to have built a monastery. He may have done so but the grounds upon which the statement is made, are slight and scarcely trust- worthy, being nothing more than the occurrence of his name in one or two lists of abbots of doubtful accuracy. His church stood in the Seedhill, and down to the Reformation was used as the parish church of the town. Connected with it was a graveyard and a priest's house. 

St. Mirin is supposed to have settled in Paisley about the year A.D. 560. While at Bangor, he became acquainted with St. Columba, and is said to have accompanied St. Comgal on more than one of his visits to the great apostle of the Northern Picts, at lona. According to Joceline, Columba visited St. Mungo or Kentigern on the banks of the Molendinar. If this meeting of the two saints took place after the settlement of St. Mirin at Paisley, it is not unlikely that St. Columba turned aside and visited the pupil of his friend St. Comgal on the banks of the White Cart.

For over 500 years after the death of St. Mirin, or till shortly after the year 1141, nothing is heard of Paisley. The country was perpetually engaged in internecine strife or in repelling the invasions of the Saxons and Norwegians. From the silence about Paisley, it may be inferred that during the whole of these centuries nothing striking was done by the men of Paisley, and that nothing of importance took place in their immediate neighbourhood. Still it is scarcely possible that Paisley was altogether untouched by the strifes and commotions of the time, or that its fortunes were in no way affected by them. More than once the Northumbrians penetrated as far west as Cunningham, and were masters of Strathclyde. In 867, Olaf the White, the Norwegian King of Dublin, sailed up the Clyde, and after a siege of four months captured Dumbarton, the Cumbrian capital.

Many of the local names about Paisley are obviously of Celtic origin, but others of them are as obviously derived from the Norse or Saxon; such, for instance, as Todholm, Barterholm, Northholm, Nethercraigs, Oxschaw, Broomlands, Wellmeadow, Meikleriggs, Arkleston. Some of these may have come in much later, but some of them may have come in as early as the seventh or eighth century.

 In the middle of the twelfth century there is clear evidence of a Norse or Saxon element in the neighbourhood. At that time a carucate of land was held at Arkleston by one Grimketil. One swallow does not make a summer, but it is far from probable that Grimketil, who was evidently from his name of either Saxon or Norwegian origin, would settle down in a country so essentially Celtic as the district around Paisley then was, without a following of his kinsmen capable of rendering him efficient support in the event of his being attacked by his Celtic neighbours.

end of part 1