A small town in the Cunninghame district of North Ayrshire, situated 11 miles (18 km) northwest of Kilmarnock on the River Garnock, Dalry has good facilities including a number of shops, a post office, community centre, library, railway station, two primary schools and four churches. A bowling club and war memorial are located in Dalry Public Park, situated at Braehead in the north of the town and bisected by the Rye Water. Dalry Burns Club was founded in 1825 to commemorate the poet Robert Burns (1759-96) and has the longest continuous record of annual Burns' Suppers in the world.
The village developed in association with textile, iron, engineering, coal and brick making industries. There were once coal mines at Blair, Coalheugh Glen, Courthill and Crossroads, together with a number of other pits producing ironstone. A large factory producing vitamin C and food colourants opened in the 1980s. Dalry remains the headquarters of the McTaggart Group, a construction and engineering company established here in 1946 and now with a turnover approaching £75 million.
Notable individuals born in Dalry include locomotive engineer Andrew Barclay (1814 - 1900), American politician Daniel Kerr (1836 - 1916), Edinburgh Lord Provost, Sir Alexander Stevenson (1860 - 1936), Alexander Malcomson (1865 - 1923), who funded Henry Ford to start his motor company, and artist George Houston (1869 - 1947).
