Paddy's Market: Remembering Glasgow's lost market that once rivalled The Barras

Noisy, chaotic, rough around the edges and full of character, Paddy’s was the kind of place where you could find almost anything if you were willing to look hard enough.

The market’s origins stretched back nearly 200 years and were closely linked to Glasgow’s Irish immigrant community. In the nineteenth century, Irish families created informal trading spaces selling second-hand clothes, tools and household goods around the Saltmarket and Jail Square area.

Over time the market shifted locations before settling around Shipbank Lane, where generations of hawkers traded beneath the arches and along the narrow lane.

Traders shouted over one another while radios blasted music from stalls piled high with second-hand clothes, old records, tools, furniture, electronics and boxes of mysterious odds and ends. There were characters everywhere. For many people at the time it represented a part of Glasgow’s humour and sense of belonging.

By the early 2000s Paddy’s Market had become increasingly controversial. Glasgow City Council argued that the area had become associated with counterfeit goods and anti-social behaviour.

Traders fiercely disputed that reputation and accused the authorities of abandoning a historic community in favour of redevelopment plans for the city centre. Despite protests and campaigns to save it, Paddy’s Market finally closed on 15 May 2009, bringing an end to one of Glasgow’s oldest surviving street markets.

Memories of Paddy’s Market still survive in stories, photographs and the affection of the people who remember a part of Glasgow with bargains and banter.

Have a look at this collection of photographs and let us know if they spark any memories.