Our tours

City Centre tours

(Anti) Colonial Glasgow

Join us to walk through some of the histories of colonialism and anticolonialism in Glasgow, a city made opulent through exploitation. Learn about contested sites of colonial wealth and anti-imperialist struggle, revolutionary pamphlets, rousing speeches and brutal oppression.

Climate and the Clyde

This tour explores the history and future of social movements and climate justice as we walk along the banks of the Clyde. Learn about our radical and revolutionary histories, the challenges that the climate crisis presents today, and ways in which we can take collective action.

Glasgow: 850 Radical Years

Join us to walk through 850 years of radical history in Glasgow! From the Cathedral down High St (the city’s oldest street) to Glasgow Cross, through what was once known as the New Town before the 1980s rebrand transformed it into the Merchant City, to finish up in George Square.

Queer Glasgow

Join us to walk through some of Glasgow’s LGBT+ histories, from cruising and direct action to lesbian republican militants. Gay bars, queer poets and much much more – come on this tour to answer these questions:

• WHAT was described by the Lord Provost in 1977 as “kinky claptrap appealing only to mentally ill weirdos”?
• WHAT was the charge in 1600s Glasgow for owning a clay phallus?
• WHERE was the city’s Communist disco?

Migrants Made Glasgow

This is the story of a city, told through the lives of those who were not born, but became, Glaswegians. From its mythical founding by twin patron saints St Thenew and her son St Mungo, the history of Glasgow has been created by incomers. Migrants, refugees, travellers, pilgrims, fortune seekers and fugitives all made their way to the city, and made the city.

Red Clydeside

From the International Workers’ Memorial at the People’s Palace to the old James Watt shipyard on the Broomielaw, this tour spans 200 years of radical history along the river Clyde. Featuring songs, poems and revolutionary history from the Radical Rising to the Spanish Civil War.

Refugee Histories of Glasgow

Explore Glasgow’s refugee histories, across the world and around the city. From international solidarity campaigns to grassroots community action, refugees and asylum seekers have played key roles in the city’s cultural and political life in recent years. Learn about these struggles alongside histories stretching further back across the 20th century.

Whose City? Our City!

Stories of the people who shaped Scotland, the left and the world. Weavers, Anarchists, Feminists and Trade Unionists, from The Radical Rising, to the Rent Strike, from the struggle against apartheid to the fight for equal pay; this tour celebrates 200 years of radical Glaswegian lives.

Womens’ Organising and Activism

Visit a range of sites across Glasgow city centre, each one telling a different story from the city’s rich history of women’s organising and activism from Red Clydeside to the campaign for Equal Pay. Along the way you’ll hear about rallying Spanish Civil War speeches, rebellious street re-naming, and no shortage of grit and persistence from fighting women of decades past (and present too). 

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Southside tours

Gorbals

The Gorbals is one of the most changed neighbourhoods in Glasgow. Join us for a tour of its radical histories from workers circles and Soviet consuls, early Muslim and Jewish Glasgow, to slum clearances and urban transformation.

Govan

Take a journey through some of the many radical histories of Govan. From work-ins and red roses to rent strikes and the arms trade, celebrate the people, movements and moments that have shaped the area over the years.

Radical Pollokshields: The many histories of a Glasgow neighbourhood

Among the leafy avenues and tenement networks of Pollokshields can be found a surprisingly radical history. The South Side suburb holds stories of writers, artists, political activists, queer poets, Maoist bank-robbers, and Fenian dynamite-plotters! One of Scotland’s most diverse neighbourhoods, Pollokshields has a proud record of anti-racism: visit the site of the ‘Battle of Kenmure Street,’ where the community united to repel deportation events.

Radical Govanhill

Join Radical Glasgow Tours on this walk around Govanhill and learn about a few of the area’s radical histories, from sabotage and slavery to political song and anti-fascism. This tour was once famously described as being “packed with radical oral histories aka vintage leftwing gossip”.

Radical Southside

Take a walk through Pollokshields and Govanhill – you get not only queer poets, Maoist bank-robbers, and Fenian dynamite-plotters but also militant anti-fascism, Yiddish theatre and community occupations. One of our most popular tours!

‘Out For life and All That Life Can Give Us’: John Maclean

A hundred years ago this year, Glasgow buried its greatest revolutionary, a man praised by Lenin, loathed by Churchill, and loved by his comrades. Join a walking tour across the Southside, exploring the life, work and legacy of John Maclean: teacher, organiser, communist, and fighter for freedom.

Climate and the Kelvin

This tour examines the history and future of social movements and climate justice as we walk through our city. Join this walk through Govan and then following the River Kelvin through Partick, looking at our radical and revolutionary histories, the challenges that the climate crisis presents today, and ways in which we can take collective action.

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West End tours

Radical West End

Join us to celebrate some of the West End’s less famous residents and visitors. The sandstone walls of these tenements hold memories of subversive speeches, world-changing translations and back-room anarchist printing presses. In more recent days the area has seen student occupations, picket lines and direct action, alongside community campaigns and actions seeking to confront the city’s imperial past.

Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum (indoors)

We’ll go for a walk round the KG collections, seeking out radical histories in the objects and artworks. From direct action and imperial loot to international solidarity and revolutionary art, we can almost definitely guarantee that you will learn something new, even if you have been to Kelvingrove hundreds of times.

Climate and the Kelvin

This tour examines the history and future of social movements and climate justice as we walk through our city. Join this walk through Govan and then following the River Kelvin through Partick, looking at our radical and revolutionary histories, the challenges that the climate crisis presents today, and ways in which we can take collective action.

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Coming soon!

Tours in development include the Calton, Woodlands/Cowcaddens, the radical folk tradition and Crime, (In)Justice and Undercover Policing.