Taking a walk along the Shale Trail

THE days when an oil rush brought Irish Catholics flocking to work in the shale mines and oil refineries of West Lothian (above), are being recalled thanks to the establishment of a Shale Trail, linking Livingston with West Calder.

This formerly agricultural area boomed after Glasgow chemist, James ‘Paraffin’ Young, discovered a commercial method of refining oil from shale rock, by heating the rock to high temperatures. More than 100 shale mines and oil factories grew up in the area, as well as towns and villages to house the influx of workers from the mid-1860s onwards as the oil industry took off and West Lothian became the oil capital of Scotland.

West Lothian had been a temporary home to Irish navvies who were building the Union Canal in the late 18th century, and also to the men who built railways linking the area with Edinburgh and Glasgow in the 1840s, while seasonal agricultural labourers came across for the annual potato picking, the ‘tattie howkin,’ both before and after the Great Hunger of 1848.

But, few Irish Catholics stayed or settled in the area, which had enthusiastically converted to Presbyterianism during the Reformation, the religious revolution of the 16th century. It wasn’t until the boom years of the shale oil industry, that Irish workers began to get jobs in the mimes and refineries, and the Irish Catholic population of West Lothian soared from four percent in 1841, to 20 per cent by the 1870s.

“What’s remarkable about West Lothian, is that there are so many Catholic churches today, most dating from the days of the shale oil industry, when Irish workers decided to settle in the area, thanks to the work available in the shale oil industry,” Shale Trail project officer, Heath Brown, said. “As mine and oil company owners provided houses with the jobs, there was an incentive to put down roots. It also accounts for the number of Catholic schools today, but, without the rise of the shale oil industry, there would be no sizeable Catholic population in West Lothian.”

Conditions

Although there was social tension, including some serious pitched street battles, following the arrival of the Irish Catholics en masse, there is little evidence of job discrimination within the shale oil industry, although a large number of present-day Orange Lodges in the area, were founded to counter what was perceived as a Catholic threat. The Orange Lodge continues to have a high profile in West Lothian, today.

“The mine and oil company owners provided housing with the jobs they offered and we have plenty of accounts of that era.,” Dr Robin Chesters, director of the Almond Valley Heritage Centre, home to the Museum of the Scottish Shale Oil Industry, said. “Workers were provided with very basic accommodation, paid rent to the mine and oil company owners, and shopped in the company store, so it was a hard life. We also have a superb description of unbearable housing conditions in what was known as ‘Randy Row’, at Uphall Oil Works, written by Paddy ‘The Cope’ Gallagher, from Donegal, who lodged there in the early 1900s, when working in West Lothian. He describes the overcrowding, lack of washing facilities and toilets in his autobiography, My Story, Paddy the Cope, Gallagher published in 1939.”

The foundation of many Catholic parishes in West Lothian date from the shale oil years. Saints John Cantus and Nicholas in Broxburn for example—a shale oil boomtown—dates from 1862, while other parishes were founded throughout the oil era, whose heyday pre-dated World War I, with the last refinery closing in 1963.

West Lothian, shale products provided two per cent of the world’s oil needs in the 1890s, and light lamp oil, which replaced tallow in church sanctuary lamps in the 19th century, paraffin and detergent products were exported worldwide. Today, the most obvious remains of the industry can be seen in the enormous ‘bings’ around the area, made by tipping shale oil waste into mounds. The Museum of the Scottish Shale Industry houses artefacts, photographs and written records of workers and living conditions in oil villages and towns, including eye-witness accounts of the arrival and settlement of the Irish Catholics.

History and legacy

Visitors to West Calder can see a memorial to the Burngrange Shale Mine Disaster of January 10, 1947, in which an explosion took the lives of 15 men, including several Catholic miners. The 70th anniversary of the tragedy was marked in January 2017 with an ecumenical service at the memorial on the shale oil town’s High Street.

The 16-mile Shale Trail, which has information boards and on-line resources, details the arrival of Irish Catholics and their contribution to the development of West Lothian’s long-forgotten shale oil industry, included as an integral part of a fascinating story, which has left a rich Catholic and Irish legacy in the area to this day.