Glasgow Gallivanting: January 2026

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Buena Vista Allstars

If it’s January, it must be Celtic Connections! Glasgow’s winter music festival is an annual highlight for us: this year we attended six concerts in just over two weeks, one of which had been postponed from last year when Storm Éowyn wiped out a whole day’s events. No such disasters this time! We heard a variety of musicians from Scotland, Ireland, England, America, Cuba, and probably many more nationalities in backing bands – especially given that two of those were larger than average, i.e. the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Northern Sinfonia.

Selected musicians
Selected musicians and step dancer

We went to two really good exhibitions. The first, Views of Glasgow at the Hunterian, combined images from the permanent collection with material selected by residents of the Woodlands area to explore how communities are formed, threatened and renewed. I was particularly drawn to the colourful quilt in the gallery below and the story of how it contributed to creating a community.

Exhibition poster
Quilt
Quilt info

As for community destruction, nothing encapsulates that better than the two images in the photo below showing Charing Cross at the beginning of the 20th century and while the M8 urban motorway (opened 1972) was under construction. You can orient yourself with the fancy roof of Charing Cross Mansions which appears in both photographs and still exists today – as does the M8. Many communities were displaced to create it and it remains, as foretold at the time, a scar that will never heal.

Two views of Charing Cross over 60 years apart

The other exhibition was Nationhood: memory and hope at Street Level Photoworks, an exhibition “of powerful and poignant photography celebrating the diversity of the UK today”. At the Hunterian exhibition I had been interested to spot one photograph of someone I knew – at Street Level there were three, all met through the Women’s Library where the photographs in the collage below were taken. The outer two are by Ethiopian photographer Aïda Muluneh, while the central portrait is by Miriam Ali.

Anita Shelton, Syma Ahmed, Adele Patrick

The necessity of seeing, a collection of constructed images by Muluneh, was also included. My favourite, The present past (2024), is below (yellow frame my addition).

I also visited the Cathedral to see two new elements added for Glasgow’s 850th birthday last year, a stained glass panel and the refurbished holy well of St Mungo in the crypt. The window, by Talia May Blatt, combines Christian stories with historical and cultural references to Glasgow city life. It’s beautiful, but I think its location could be better – it’s in the porch facing into the nave, so easy to miss as you come in the doors to the side, with the outline of the left hand door obscuring part of the design. However, apparently there were no more window spaces available.

Window by Tania May Blatt, 2025

The well is even more stunning. It has sat there for centuries, maybe as far back as St Mungo himself, but was in a state of neglect until it was cleaned out and revived last year. Mosaic artist Joanna Kessel and a creative team at Aproxima Arts have decorated it with nearly a thousand gilded, handblown Venetian glass tiles. This BBC article has the full story.

The Wellspring
Looking down the well

The tapestries in the crypt are also gorgeous.

Tapestries in crypt. The middle one has all the elements of Glasgow’s Coat of Arms.

Also seen around town, the canal at Stockingfield Bridge now has information boards. Bella, in the background, looks as lovely as ever!

Information boards and Bella

Some new street art spotted around Byres Road:

By Nancy Nightingale and Pall3y (sic)

Finally, the January weather wasn’t always great for cycling, but I’ve selected my two favourite sunny images from John’s collection. Can you spot the hikers near the centre of the first one? And I’ve left the Garmin info on the second one, chosen for its reflections, so you can see how fast he was riding into that puddle.

Kilpatrick Hills

Linking to Natalie’s monthly wrap-up and I could probably get away with her public art theme too. Happy February!

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56 Comments »

  1. Pingback: February 2026 Highlights – Natalie the Explorer

  2. Wow! You had a very busy January. I don’t know how on earth you went to so many concerts. I love music but I can only sit still for concerts maybe once a month. I love the exhibitions you’ve seen, especially the quilt and the story behind it; I also love the upgrades to the Cathedral. A fun-filled month!

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  7. It looks like there’s plenty to see and do in Glasgow at this time of the year. I haven’t visited Scotland in quite some time and I definitely think I need to plan a trip… I somehow missed the cathedral when I visited Glasgow.

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  9. It looks like you stay plenty busy in the winter as well, Anabel. That cathedral has some stunning features and I love the two images you picked out of John’s cycling photos. I’m quite happy to see that you have a Bella in Glasgow, too. She looks very cute!

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  11. Thank you Anabel, your January has really brightened up a dull wet February morning. I was particularly struck by the stained glass window, what a talented young artist, and the dalmation dog in sun glasses certainly gave me something to smile about.

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  14. When I think of Celtic Connections and in particular on this occasion the Buena Vista Allstars, I definitely hanker for city life. Sometimes seeing a fungus just doesn’t cut it. Great vista of the hills from John too.

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  16. You have been busy! Those new works in the Cathedral are simply stunning. I think Mungo would be pleased. January for us was quiet and restful, apart from the week I went to Melbourne with my sister to go to the Australian Open tennis. We had a great time and saw some excellent tennis.

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  17. I think David would have loved the Celtic Connections, I do remember you introduced me to Su-a Lee and I bought her album for his birthday. Love the windows and that well in the cathedral. I am rather cathedraled out, but I must admit yours looks well worth a look if I ever get that far north again. Glasgow certainly has lots to offer and is a much better place to be in January than the countryside!

    As for John and that puddle – a good job he didn’t get up to his middle!

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    • Oh, that’s marvellous about Su-a’s CD – I hope David liked it. I think it would be hard for any music lover not to find something in Celtic Connections that they were interested in. I must go back to the cathedral and spend more time gazing into that beautiful well, once the initial interest has died down. It was only opened to public view towards the end of last year.

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  19. I can hardly keep up with all your Glasgow gadding about! Amazing to see the variety of events happening in the city and all so well recorded and shared by you! I have my favourites…The Present Past, looking down the well…such a brilliant design and idea and Reflections in the puddle! Bet he got wet but enjoyed himself shouting out Whee! Thank you.

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  20. Celtic Connections has been going for years – I had a friend who used it as a case study for her PhD and that is going back a bit! Interesting photos of old Glasgow. Remember the bit of road that went nowhere and just hung in mid air?

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    • I can’t remember if it was last year or the year before that Celtic Connections celebrated its 25th birthday. It goes from strength to strength. I can think of quite a few bits of road that were built for junctions that didn’t happen! The bridge at Charing Cross had an office block built in top of it eventually, and I think that’s now to be demolished.

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  21. The new stained glass window and the tapestries in the cathedral are beautiful, but the well is spectacular. It’s such a clever idea! The Celtic Connections sounds like a lot of fun. I visited the Buena Vista Social Club in Havana years ago and I can’t think of a better way to liven up dreary January than with the Buena Vista All Stars 🙂

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    • We went to Cuba in 1999 which is around when Ry Cooder was creating the Buena Vista Social Club tour. It came to Glasgow so we went to get in the Cuban mood! All the main players then were in their 70s or even 80s and died not long after, so I think this is the third generation we have seen. Still amazing!

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  22. I was wowed by Celtic Connections and the two exhibitions but the new elements added to the Cathedral look stunning. I remember visiting and taking pictures in the Cathedral. The street art are eye-catching. I can feel the joy of cycling via the two pictures you shared. Well done, John! Thank you for your contribution to the Monthly Wrap-Up linkup and Public Art photo challenge. Have a great week!

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  25. Funnily enough, although I like certain types of folk music Celtic Connections has never appealed. I’d liked to have seen all the good tenement districts around Charing Cross saved although my own street in Kinning Park was also demolished for the M8 without which I might never have experienced a charmed 1960s nature filled childhood in a rolling wood, meadow, stream and lake filled paradise on the outskirts of the city instead. Bob. BSS.

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    • We didn’t go to Celtic Connections for maybe its first 10 years or so, then we got hooked. I think we thought it might be a bit too kail-yardy then we realised how international and varied it was. I read an article somewhere about two friends who had to move as boys for the M8 junction in the post to be built – they ended up in completely different places then met each other again quite recently and still got on!

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  26. I meant to do a wrap-up… it was a fraught weekend. I suppose it’s not too late…

    I do envy you the Celtic Connections. I now follow Su-a Lee, and would love to see her live, but I don’t think she ever leaves Scotland, and certainly not this far south. But still…

    As for the M8… I appreciated the smooth crossing of the city en route from Oban to the south, but I had not idea of the desecration it created.

    Great post, as always

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    • Su-a Lee plays for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra so she was there the night they played, but we didn’t see her in any individual projects this year. The M8 split up communities when they demolished whole areas to build it. That interchange in the picture has been upgraded lately but it’s still an ugly gash. There was talk of covering it over and putting a park on top but that came to nothing.

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  27. It sounds like it was a very busy month Anabel. The well has certainly got the ‘wow’ factor and the cathedral window looks beautiful, a shame it’s partly overshadowed by a door. If John was cycling at that speed the puddle would have been quite a water splash – he must have been wet through 😀

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  28. My son attended two of the Celtic Connections concerts – and thoroughly enjoyed them both. It is lovely to read your take on the festival and to look at your delightful photographs.

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