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Meg McGravey

by Bernadette Weyde
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Castletown 100 years ago by Flaxney Stowell (d.1916)…

Mill Street branches off from Malew Street, about, half way up on the right hand side. It gets its name from the water mill which stands about three hundred yards north of it.

A remarkable character in Mill Street was Meg McGravey. Her maiden name was Margaret Kneale. McGravey, her husband, was a soldier, and fought against the French. Meg would go to the front with him, and together they fought all through the Peninsular wars. At Waterloo, Meg received a wound in her head. After that she had always to wear a silver plate over it. Her husband was killed, and Meg came home alone, covered with glory, in her own estimation, for Wellington was no prouder of Waterloo than Meg.

On a Saturday night Meg would go on a round of visits to loyal friends, and Jamaica rum being both cheap and plentiful, poor Meg had usually to be rolled home on a barrow or anything else handy. Better for her had she died at the wars, for then she would never have sunk into the degradation of drunkenness.


(source: A Manx Notebook; artwork by van Gogh ‘Weed burner sitting on a barrow’)

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