The story of Tibbie's Brig at Muirkirk - who was she?

An old stone bridge, officially named the Garpel Bridge, it gets its common name from an old poetess who was a contemporary of Robert Burns.

Tibbie was a daughter of the parish of New Cumnock, but made her name in Muirkirk, where she is venerated to this day.

Isabel, or Isabella Pagan was born in 1741, around four miles from Nith head according to herself. This places her birthplace around Nith Lodge or thereabouts.

Research into some early parish records finds a Janet Pagan who lived at Righead around that time, and it is has been speculated that Tibbie was probably a daughter of hers, she having an illegitimate daughter born in August 1740.

One of Tibbie’s poems gives a little information on her life, perhaps the only reliable source for this. She wrote:

I was born near four miles from Nith-head,

Where fourteen years I got my bread;

My learning it can soon be told,

Ten weeks when I was seven years old.

With a good old religious wife,

Who liv’d a quiet and sober life;

Indeed she took of me more pains

Than some does now of forty bairns.

With my attention, and her skill,

I read the Bible no that ill;

And when I grew a wee thought mair,

I read when I had time to spare.

But a’ the whole tract of my time,

I found myself inclin’d to rhyme;

When I see merry company,

I sing a song with mirth and glee,

And sometimes I the whisky pree,

But ’deed it’s best to let it be.

A’ my faults I will not tell,

I scarcely ken them a’ mysel;

I’ve come through various scenes of life,

Yet never was a married wife.

For some reason, Isabella moved to Muirkirk in 1755, and she lived at a cottage at Muirsmill, just west of the village, until 1790.

She appears to have moved around then (some say in 1785) to a converted building at Garpel Bridge. The brick-built structure had been a brick store used as part of the local tar works, and she was allowed the use of it by Admiral Keith Stewart.

Tibbie was disabled from birth, and had a large tumour on her side, a deformity to one foot (resulting in her calling herself, ‘pistol-fit’), and a squint.

One description of her states that she had ‘a very unearthly appearance’.

As she aged, her twisted foot meant that she had to use crutches to get about. Those who didn’t know her were unaware of her quick wit and piercing rebuke, whereas she was a character whom many enjoyed visiting to hear her stories and songs.

Robert Burns is known to have visited John Lapraik at Muirkirk in 1785, and some think that Tibbie Pagan may have met the bard at that time.

One of Tibbie’s poems or songs is ‘Ca the yowes tae the knowes’, which Burns took and refined them into the song we know today.

Burns wrote to George Thomson in September 1794, ‘I am flattered at your adopting “Ca the yowes to the knowes” as it was owing to me that ever it saw the light. About seven years ago, I was well acquainted with a worthy little fellow of a clergyman, a Mr Clunzie, who sang it charmingly; and at my request, Mr Clarke took it down from his singing. When I gave it to Johnson, I added some Stanzas to the song, and mended others, but still, it will not do for you.’

Thomson appears to have used a second version of Burns’ song and set it to a different tune in his publication of 1905. The original version sent to Johnson in 1790 for his Museum, is the one that is popular today.

At her home in Muirkirk, Tibbie is said to have knitted items for sale.

She also ran an alehouse, though this was an unofficial place for drinking. Her home was regarded as something of a howff, where weary miners and other workers would resort for some ale and conversation.

There are a few contemporary accounts of Tibbie.

Hugh Anderson of Greenockdyke, Muirkirk, knew Tibbie and described her: ‘She was an old body, just had on her wearin’ claes, and was not what one would call a braw woman. She drank a good deal, and was a bit lame, and it was a pity of anyone who came into her clutches, for she had an awful tongue.’

Paterson, in the Contemporaries of Burns, claims that she was ‘at one time courted by a person of the name of Campbell, to whom she had a child, and was on the eve of marriage when he deserted her’. How true this was is unknown, and no mention of a daughter appears again.

The kirk session records of Muirkirk note payments to Tibbie from the poor fund. In 1800 she was given five shillings.

In 1816 a ‘Mary’ Pagan of Garpel Bridge was gifted five shillings, and in 1818 Isabel Pagan was granted four shillings.

In 1803 a small volume of poems by Tibbie Pagan was published, entitled Songs and Poems on Several Occasions.

Tibbie couldn’t write, and it is thought that a tailor named William Gemmell wrote them down for her.

In the book were verses on the grouse-shooting which took place on the moors there, perhaps planned so that she could sell copies to the various shooting parties that came there each August, and who often visited her for a drink.

Tibbie died on November 3,1821. Although unmarried and with no children of her own, the people of Muirkirk saw to it that she received a decent burial to which crowds flocked. Her corpse was taken from her home at Garpel-side to Muirkirk kirkyard on a cart.

At her grave a subscription paid for a memorial stone, which reads:

In memory of

Isabela Pagan

Who died 3 Novr 1821

Aged 80 years.