Kilbirnie

Kilbirnie () is a town situated in the Garnock Valley of North Ayrshire, on the west coast of Scotland. It is around southwest of Glasgow and approximately from Paisley and from Irvine respectively. Historically, the town's main industries were flax production and weaving before iron and steelmaking took over in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The suburb of Kilbirnie in the New Zealand capital of Wellington is named after the town.

== History == thumb|left|170px|Barony and Castle of Kilbirnie|Kilbirnie Place, where the Scots mustered under Alexander III before the [[Battle of Largs]] Archaeological digs conducted in the 19th century have shown that the area was inhabited during the Bronze Age. A crannog with a connecting causeway was discovered in Kilbirnie Loch. In 1792 Mr Dickie, the miller at the Nether Mill, was building the road near the mill pond when he uncovered an empty stone coffin, 6.5 feet long by 2.5 feet wide. He is recorded to have broken up the coffin and used it in the road's construction. The earth mound known as the 'Miller's Knowe' has been identified as an 'ancient sepulchral tumuli', a burial mound, in the New Statistical Account of Ayrshire.