Kilbirnie (Scottish Gaelic: Cill Bhraonaigh) is a small town of 7,280 (as of 2001)[2] inhabitants situated in the Garnock Valley area of North Ayrshire, on the west coast of Scotland.

Historically, the town's main industries were flax production and weaving before iron and steelmaking took over in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Half a century later, the town had grown substantially; in 1851 Kilbirnie contained 5,484 people, due to the Industrial Revolution.

[6] The 1913 networkers' strike in Kilbirnie was agreed at a National Federation of Women Workers meeting in late March.

[9] Glengarnock Steel Works opened its blast furnaces around 1841 which caused a massive influx of people from all over the country, as well as all over the world.

Initially, these works were owned by Merry & Cunninghame before being taken over by David Colville & Sons and eventually nationalised as part of British Steel Corporation and finally closed in 1985.

Robert Burns refers to the town in his poem "The Inventory" about a plough-horse that he purchased at the fair:[15] "My furr-ahin 's a wordy beast, As e'er in tug or tow was traced.

derive their sobriquet "the blasties" from the poem, a suitable appellation and an epithet which remains to this day due to the town's past of steel and iron production, as a reference to the blast furnaces.

The hills between Kilbirnie and Largs were often black spots for aircraft passing over and many crashed due to low fog.

[33] Lying two miles (three kilometres) north of Kilbirnie on a promontory overlooking the wooded ravine of the River Garnock is Glengarnock Castle, a ruined 15th century keep.