Parish priest who survived the Glen Cinema disaster

Born: May 5, 1919;

Died: June 28, 2016

FATHER James Reilly, who has died aged 97, was Glasgow's oldest priest and a survivor of the Glen Cinema disaster in Paisley in which 69 children died.

The disaster happened on December 31, 1929, when a smoking reel of film led to panic and a stampede towards the exits in which many of the children in the audience were trampled underfoot. The young James was one of those pronounced dead at the scene and was taken to a mortuary where a nurse realised he was still alive.

He and his family had originally come to Paisley as Irish immigrants and lived on Silk Street in the town. The young James was educated at St Catherine’s Primary School and St Mirin’s Academy, Paisley. He then attended St Mary’s College, Blairs, Aberdeenshire, and St Peter’s College, Bearsden, Dunbartonshire, and was ordained by Archbishop Donald Campbell at St Andrew’s Cathedral in Glasgow on June 29, 1945. He served in many parishes including St Stephen’s in Dalmuir and St Lucy's, Cumbernauld, from which he retired in 1984.

When the Glen Cinema disaster happened, he was just ten years old and had gone to the cinema with around a thousand other children to see a Western, The Dude Desperado, which was showing as a matinee on Hogmanay 1929.

Within a short time of the film starting, smoke from a reel of film began filtering from the projection room into the cinema and panic ensued. The audience rushed to the exits, which were locked, and many of the children were caught underfoot and suffocated. Hundreds more suffered smoke inhalation injuries or were otherwise injured, many of them seriously as they pushed to get through the doors.

Years later Father Reilly explained to his local newspaper, the Paisley Daily Express, how he was pronounced dead and taken to the mortuary.

He said: “My mother was informed I had died and that my body was in the mortuary. However, when I woke up there was a nurse pumping away at my chest.

“I was in the basement of the mortuary and there were other children lying around me. They had been looked at by the doctors and were probably all dead, but this nurse must have passed close to me and, by luck, she saw some flicker of life in me.

“The next thing I remember was waking up in a bed in a hospital corridor. I must have blacked out again because I don’t know how I got there.”

“After what had happened to me, I was afraid to go to the football and the cinema because, everywhere I went, I was looking for exits. I’ve never forgotten that dreadful day and I never will.” In all, 71 people were killed.

Father Reilly was a quiet, highly educated man and a caring pastor who touched the lives of many people who came into contact with him. He celebrated the 70th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood last year when there was a Mass for jubilarians in the cathedral.

He could not attend because of his physical frailty, but he told Archbishop Philip Tartaglia that he would follow the Mass on the live webcam. The Archbishop saluted him at the Mass and Father Reilly said he waved back when the Archbishop addressed him directly.

Father Reilly died at his home in Cardross, Dunbartonshire, after a short illness and on the eve of the 71st anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Glasgow.

BILL HEANEY