"Paddy's Market", a song which has been preserved in a scrapbook entitled Old Glasgow Street Songs etc, 1850 and is held at the Mitchell Library.
A second-hand clothes market grew up in and around Jail Square at the foot of Saltmarket in the 1820s. Most of the dealers were Irish, giving rise to the market's nickname. In the 1850s the Town Council set up a covered market in Scanlon's Close, south of Bridgegate, and it became the centre of the city's second-hand clothes trade until it was demolished in 1866 to make way for the approach lines to St Enoch Railway Station. It is the subject of this song.
The song lists the wide variety of second hand goods that could be purchased at the market. "With whisky kegs and wooden legs all selling on the stall, sir."
Reference: GC 398.5 GLA
Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Libraries Information and Learning
Keywords:
closes, folk songs, Irish, lyrics, market stalls, markets, Old Glasgow Street Songs etc, 1850, Paddy's Market, poetry, rag trade, second-hand clothes dealers, second-hand clothes markets, street songs, street traders