Kilbride, Arran

Kilbride is a parish on the isle of Arran, Buteshire, 20 miles south-west from Saltcoats, containing the villages of Lamlash, Brodick, and Lochranza. Others are Corrie and Sannox.

This parish derives its name from the dedication of its ancient church to St Bridget or St Bride. The parish, which occupies nearly one-half of the Isle of Arran, is bounded on the east by the Firth of Clyde. A church was erected at Brodick in 1839.

This parish is situated in the mouth of the River Clyde and forms the smaller of two very extensive parishes, which divide between them the magnificent and strikingly picturesque Island of Arran. The small Island of Lamlash, or the Holy Isle as it is sometimes called, also belongs to it. St Columba once resided on the Holy Isle, thus its name. The name of the parish is a compound formed by Kill, the Gaelic name for a burying-place, and Bride or Bridget, a once popular female saint whose name still lives in the names of so many parishes and other places. The etymology of the name of the island itself is disputed. Some derive it from the two Gaelic words Arr and Inn, the High Island; and others from Arr Fhinn, the slaughter or field of Fingal, conceiving it to have received its name from a battle said to have been fought at the north end of the island by Fingal against a son of the King of Norway, whose forces he totally exterminated. Kilbride occupies the whole of the east side of the Isle except a couple of miles at its south end. It varies in length from 20 to 22 miles and in breadth from two to four miles, and it contains about 42,000 acres. The most prominent feature in the general aspect of the parish is its alpine character. This parish is pre-eminently "a land of fountains and rivers of waters." There are limestone and rock-crystal quarries in the parish.

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