ST MUNGO MUSEUM OF RELIGIOUS LIFE & ART

To St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art this grey and rainy morning, at the third attempt on this trip. We tried yesterday, but the museum now closes on Mondays, a new policy that only started yesterday!

This unique museum explores the importance of religion in people's lives across the world and across time. The building, which stands on the site of the medieval Bishop's Castle, was opened in April 1993. The museum promotes the understanding and respect between people of different faiths and none. Displays occupy three floors and are divided into four exhibition areas:

• The Gallery of Religious Art
• The Gallery of Religious Life
• The Scottish Gallery
• and a temporary exhibition space.

In the Gallery of Religious Art you can reflect on the awesome figure of the Hindu god Shiva, Lord of the Dance. The gallery is illuminated with a wealth of colours by beautiful stained glass windows depicting Christian saints and prophets.

The Gallery of Religious Life explores issues of birth, death and everything in between from the perspective of six religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism. In this gallery you can listen to people of all religions talk about their faith. You can also meet the Mexican Day of the Dead skeleton, which celebrates the victory of life over death.

The Scottish Gallery presents the story of how religion has shaped the culture and beliefs of people in the west of Scotland from earliest times to the present.

Although St Mungo's Museum was opened after I moved away from Glasgow, it has personal significance for me on a number of levels. There's very little evidence of the Bahá'ís of Glasgow (or anywhere else for that matter) in the museum. I can think of only five minor instances. One of them is the signature of the late Andy McCafferty, then Chair of the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Glasgow on the museum's charter (Andy is the one who taught me the Bahá'í Faith and has, on occasion, been referred to as my spiritual father). Another is a small photo (hardly bigger than a passport picture) of Sean O'Rourke, with a few words' testimony about how, for him, the Bahá'í Faith was the perfect union of church and state. Did he actually say that? I wouldn't know - and nearby there's a similar photo of my mum, quoting her as saying something I don't believe she'd have said in a million years. Added to that, the lettering is fading, making it all difficult to read anyway. Maybe that's for the best, given the rather ambivalent message.

In the Scottish Gallery there's another picture of my mum (unidentified) as part of a multi-faith group of women who created a quilt or banner for the Sharing of Faiths. she's also there in another, altogether more spooky form ...

A couple of years after my mum died, in the mid 1990s, her older sister - my Aunt Marion - phoned my dad's house and spoke to my brother Peter there. She told Peter that she'd heard our mum's voice earlier that day. At first Peter wondered what on earth she was talking about - and if she'd taken a funny turn. But she explained that she'd been visiting the St Mungo Museum and had listened to a recording of our mum, speaking about how she adopted the Bahá'í Faith, a few years after Peter and I had done so. Her voice is preserved on a series of recordings that visitors can listen to through a set of telephone handsets in the Scottish Gallery on the top floor of the museum. So now, whenever I visit St Mungo's, I go up there and have a listen to her. Thanks to that recording, Harry and Grace have been able to hear a little of the granny they never met.

So, apart from the (very) occasional and irregular appearance of someone or something Bahá'í, my old mum is flying the flag there, virtually single-handedly - and still, a decade and a half after she died. She's got staying power, God bless her!

Find out more about St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art (and see a variety of images inside and outside the building) on the Undiscovered Scotland website.

THE BARONY

The Barony Church, across the road from Glasgow Cathedral, was the church which served my old school, Allan Glen's. Barony (along with Greyfriars, Provand and Ramshorn) is one of the four oldest parish churches in Glasgow. These were the names of the school's four houses. This was a very impressive place for an 11-year old to attend for worship and other special school occasions. Once or twice, our orchestra played there (in which I was one of the flutes).

Three congregations worshipped at Glasgow Cathedral after the Reformation. The crypt became the place of worship for the new Barony Parish in 1595 and in 1648 the nave was partitioned off from the choir to serve the East Parish. In 1798, however, the Barony congregation moved from the Cathedral's dark and gloomy crypt to a new church in Cathedral Square. It continued to meet there until a new Barony Kirk was built on the opposite side of Castle Street in 1890.

Today, what was Barony parish has long been eaten up by the city of Glasgow. In the past it represented lands which were to the north of the city and which were, in those days, more rural - they included Maryhill, Lambhill, Bishopriggs, Kelvinside, Possil, Balornock, Springburn, Provanmill, Millerston, Dennistoun, Garthamlock, Carntyne, Parkhead, Calton, Barlanark, Shettleston, Tollcross and Barrachnie.

The former Barony Church is now Strathclyde University's Barony Hall and is their main hall for Graduation ceremonies. It is also available for hire for public and private functions.

CITY OF THE DEAD

"This area, the Necropolis and the cathedral precinct, is symbolic, emblematic, part of the common lot of every Glaswegian. No one comes here unaware of its history and its part in a legacy of Glaswegian lore and tradition." (Ian Spring, Phantom Village: The Myth of the New Glasgow)

There are many interpretations of the meaning of the name "Glasgow", the most commonly accepted of which is "dear green place". However, there is a constituency which argues for another interpretation: "the place of the grey rock". This refers to a particular locality which was called for a while the Fir Park, and is now known as Glasgow Necropolis. This site is as old as Glasgow itself and overlooks the Molindinar burn where St Mungo baptised his Christian converts in the sixth century CE. It is said that in earlier times a druidical grove crowned the brow of the Grey Rock. The Necropolis has been described as a "unique representation of Victorian Glasgow, built when Glasgow was the second city of the empire. It reflects the feeling of confidence and wealth and security of that time." It is a memorial to the merchant patriarchs of the city and contains the remains of almost every eminent Glaswegian of those days, especially the new class of merchants and entrepreneurs who had made vast fortunes in tobacco, spices, coffee and cotton. The Necropolis (which is modelled on Mount Louis, Pere Lachaise in Paris) remains one of the most significant cemetries in Europe, exceptional in its contribution to the townscape, its symbolic realtionship to Glasgow Cathedral and to the medieval heart of the city. It is a major attraction to visitors from throughout the UK and from overseas.

Arguably the most prominent single monument in the Necropolis is that dedicated to John Knox (1505-1575), most significant indigenous figure in the Reformation and its aftermath in Scotland - and one of the most influential figures in all Scots history. His imposing 70-foot monument was erected in 1825. This stunning monument predates the use of the Necropolis site as a cemetery and was originally intended as the centrepiece of the Fir Park. the haunting image of John Knox overlooking the cathedral has deep religious and political connotations and the monument has become an iconic image of Glasgow.

As well as showcasing the Protestant enterprise of the city, the Necropolis also records the existence of a settled and significant Jewish community in Victorian Glasgow. The first interment, on 12 September 1832 (half a year before authority was given by the Merchant Houses to dispose of burial places in the Necropolis and the cemetery was formally opened as a burial ground), was that of a Joseph Levi, a Jewish jeweller. Due to the Jewish custom of burying bodies one per grave, the available space was soon used up and by 1851 there was no more room for burials in this section.

The outcrop on which the Necropolis stands is a volcanic plug of igneous rock in the very centre of the city. It has a special significance for merchants of Glasgow, among whom I count myself, as Merchant is my middle name.

Much of the copy in this blog entry has been adapted from the pamphlet, "Glasgow Necropolis Heritage Trail", produced by Glasgow City Council.