Barlinnie's one million men: The prisoners' history

Barlinnie’s most high profile prisoner was the man convicted of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, which resulted in the deaths of 243 passengers and 16 crew.

The Libyan was transferred there in 2001 after being sentenced to life for murder, following a trial at a specially convened Scottish court in Camp Zeist in Holland. He was housed in a purpose-built, double cell complex, in Barlinnie which had a private toilet and shower, a TV, kitchen facilities for the Libyan to cook his own halal meals and an exercise area.

Dubbed the Gaddafi Cafe - after the Libyan leader of the time - it was said to have cost around £1.5million to construct, including security measures.

In 2002 Megrahi was visited by Nelson Mandela - arguably the most famous person to walk through the gates of Barlinnie.

The former president of South Africa discussed a campaign for Megrahi to serve his sentence in a Libyan prison. Mandela himself spent 18 of his 27 years in jail on Robben Island after being locked up by the South Africa's apartheid government.

The two talked for more than an hour and Mandela gave a press conference calling for a fresh appeal into the case and asked that Megrahi be transferred to serve his sentence in his home country.

What Mandela thought of the conditions at Barlinnie compared to Robben Island is not known. However he did describe Megrahi's imprisonment in Barlinnie as psychological persecution. 

Read the full series here: Barlinnie: The story of Scotland's super-prison

Megrahi was later moved to Greenock prison in 2005, before being sent home to Libya in 2009 on compassionate grounds with terminal cancer.

Possibly it's most infamous inmate was serial killer Peter Manuel, from the village of Birkenshaw in Lanarkshire, hanged there 66 years ago for the murders of seven people.

Notorious underworld figures such as crime boss Arthur Thompson and bank robber Walter Norval, have all spent time behind the jail's intimidating blackened sandstone facade.

Among the most recent admissions was Iain Packer sentenced to life last month at the High Court in Glasgow for the murder of sex worker Emma Caldwell in 2005.

One of the first inmates in the shiny new jail 142 years ago was 11- year-old schoolboy James Donaghy. Another early prisoner was petty thief Adam Sloan who at 7ft 7in is Barlinnie's tallest ever prisoner.

The jail's first celebrity inmate was Charging Thunder, a Native American and star of legendary Buffalo Bill's popular Wild West Show. Thunder was given 30 days in 1891 after attacking the show's manager for selling valuable artefacts to the Kelvingrove Museum.

Inside Barlinnie in 2024 (Colin Mearns/The Herald) (Image: Colin Mearns/The Herald)

Former Dragons' Den star Duncan Bannantyne was given 10 days in the 1970s for failure to pay a £10 court fine. Duncan Ferguson, who went on to play for Everton and Newcastle, served 44 days of a three-month sentence for headbutting a Raith Rovers player in 1994.

In 2011 ex Scottish Socialist MSP Tommy Sheridan was sent to the Barlinnie to serve a three-year term for perjury. Former world featherweight boxing champion Scott Harrison was the prison's most recent high profile resident. He was released in June 2018 having completed a four-year term imposed in Spain for attacking three men in Malaga.

During both World Wars a number of political prisoners were kept behind Barlinnie’s iron bars, many of them conscientious objectors protesting against the conflicts. James Maxton, who later became a `Glasgow MP, spent a year in Barlinnie during WW1 because of his opposition to the war against Germany.

It's most famous inmate during that time was fellow teacher and Red Clydesider John McLean who was imprisoned for lengthy periods both in Barlinnie and Peterhead, also for his outspoken opposition to the Great War.

Another notable prisoner was Arthur Donaldson who was held in Barlinnie for six weeks in 1941 for his support of the Scottish Neutrality League. He was released without charge and went on to lead the Scottish National Party between 1960 and 1969.

Read more: The story of Barlinnie: From beacon of prison reform to notorious superjail

Following the Easter Rising of 1916 in Dublin a number of Irish prisoners were taken to Barlinnie. Part of the jail was also used as a military prison during WW2 for soldiers such as deserters.

In 1941 when Britain was suffering huge losses in its merchant navy fleet five Barlinnie prisoners were recruited as merchant seaman on full pay on an American built ship the George Washington. However the five created mayhem while on board, particularly on stops to Nova Scotia, New York and Montreal. They all ended up jumping ship at various points and eventually disappeared without trace.

The Rev Ian McInnes was chaplain at Barlinnie for more than 25 years before he retired in 2022 and became friends with Megrahi during his spell there. Even after the Libyan was moved to Greenock he continued to receive Christmas cards.

Mr McInnes is currently minister at church in nearby Dennistoun New Parish Church. He said: "I and the other chaplains got to know Megrahi well during his time in Barlinnie. He was a real gentleman. I recall having quite a few chats with him over the months he was there.

"He would sometimes come to our services and we would also arrange for him to see an Imam."

The Rev McInnes says the emphasis on the new jail currently under construction must be on rehabilitation and like most remembers his first day 'inside' well.

"I began on April Fools Day," he said. "My early impressions were that Barlinnie was very primitive because it was so Victorian.

"It was a surreal experience. The first thing that struck me was the greyness of the walls and the cold. I have seen improvements in recent years and moves towards rehabilitation. The place is now a lot better and more humane."

Mr McInnes’s job was to offer pastoral support to the prisoners, and listen to their problems and grievances both spiritual and temporal. Over the years he has both married and baptised prisoners.

"I provide a friendly face and I am non judgemental. Prisoners reflect a lot more on their lives when they are behind bars. They reflect on why they are in prison and how they can change."

Read more: Days of Rage: Inside the Barlinnie prison siege of January 1987

Before he became a minister Mr McInnes worked as a gasket cutter, hospital storeman and bartender. It meant he had seen all sides of life before he got the calling. The minister welcomes the closure of the old jail and a move to a more modern facility. He has also welcomed the introduction over the years of flushing toilets, TV's and phones.

Visitors to Barlinnie are currently met with a revolving door at the front entrance which the veteran minister always found symbolic.

"Over the years I have seen many of the same prisoners leave and then return on more than one occasion. Sometimes when they do not return you wonder what has happened to them. You hope that they have turned a corner but sometimes it can mean they have died or passed away."

Mr McInnes is an ardent admirer of the work done by Barlinnie’s prison officers and added: "I think that they do a fantastic job and society owes them a debt of gratitude.”

Inside HMP Barlinnie in 2024 (Image: Colin Mearns/The Herald) (Image: Colin Mearns/The Herald)

Graeme Pearson’s first memory of Barlinnie was as a rookie cop in 1970 when he took a prisoner who had been remanded in custody at Glasgow Sheriff Court. Then most prisoner transfers was done by police officers, before the task was passed to a private security firm.

Seven years later Mr Pearson was a Detective Sergeant and had been tasked with investigating the death of one of the members of the Special Unit Larry Winters in 1977. He had been found dead in a toilet having overdosed.

Mr Pearson interviewed all the residents of the unit at the time including its most famous member Jimmy Boyle. Over the years he rose through the ranks to become Director of Scottish Crime and Drugs Enforcement Agency and following his retiral from the police as a Labour MSP speaking on justice matters.

He says Barlinnie did not like to encourage detectives to go into prisons because of the disruption that it caused, explaining: "Larry Winter's death was a bit of a scandal at the time that someone in the unit had died in this way. There was always a warm welcome if the prisoners knew you were a police officer. Word would get around that you were in the prison and some poor soul would end up being assaulted because they suspected of blabbing to the police.

“I was involved in a lot of major trials, particularly during the 1970’s, and there would be people that I had put in there. If I did go into Barlinnie it would be in the hope that the person I was speaking to might have information on an inquiry I was working on. I would only go there if it is absolutely necessary and the prison could manage it safely.”

"Barlinnie was a very intimidating place particularly for a young police officer. You were aware of the ongoing and ever present threat of the place. I always had a high regard for prison officers because it was a very difficult job that they did."

The last time Mr Pearson was in Barlinnie was about ten years ago when he was an MSP and reflected: "There had been a change and the atmosphere was completely different. It was more relaxed and prisoners were wandering about with towels under their arms. Barlinnie had changed its approach and it was very marked when you looked at it. You didn't have the same sense of pending violence in the halls. There wasn't the same noise of prisoners being marched up and down the gantries."

Mr Pearson continued : "Barlinnie is like no other prison in my experience. The Victorian Hall, the big metal bars and the gantries. The other jails were less intimidating in the way they had been built. "In my opinion it would make an ideal museum."

Mr Pearson would also like to see the new Barlinnie tackle the issue of literacy and numeracy among prisoners. He added: "The profile of prisoners in this century matches the profile of prisoners in the last century, the vast majority are illiterate or innumerate.

"They come out still illiterate and innumerate and then you wonder why they are reconvicted. If they can't fill out a form for a job then they are always going to have problems becoming a normal member of the community. I would like to think that a new prison will be more focussed on education and preparing prisoners for life on the outside.”