Speaker Tom Wilson

Rotary Club of Stirling meeting Friday 13th October 2017  

President Stewart Wilson welcomed members along with visitor Jody Beck from
Hamilton Ontario, to our Friday meeting.   Past president Tom Wilson was
introduced as speaker for the day and had taken as his topic “Maggie o’ the
Bog” she being a well kent lady who lived with her daughter Tibby in a
thatched cottage on the bog of the lands of Pendriech which would be on the
west of the Sherrifmuir Road, six miles distant from Stirling and not far from
the Mill of Pendriech.

John Montieth of Dunblane relates (in 1835) that Maggie’s was a “well-known
houf” where she would entertain English cattle drovers and numerous locals with
smuggled, non-duty - paid whisky.  It must have been an entertaining
establishment to visit with its wooden shutters instead of windows, a crude
representation on the wall of a bottle and glass (which Maggie had painted
herself using her finger) and a flock of ducks which were wont to parade in and out.
Nonetheless it attracted as customers “gentlemen” from a distance around and
it was said that during the latter part of the Eighteenth Century there was not
a single British Regiment of the Line in or about Stirling who didn’t know
"Maggie’s in the Bog”.   On a Sabbath day in summer dozens of
soldiers and others might be seen about Maggie’s premises but despite the
popularity of her establishment and the amount of illicit whisky she sold, she
never became rich and eventually died, still plucky and defiant of the law at
the great age of 99.

Her daughter Tibby then took on her mantle, retailing whisky in the face of
competition from rival establishments and harassment from the licensing
authorities until 1811 when old age and infirmity compelled her to abandon the
whisky and the bog. She died a few years later in Stirling and her erstwhile
home is now level with the moor with nothing to show where it had been.
A witty vote of thanks was given by Martin Ross and a well-deserved round of applause
followed in appreciation of Tom's talk.
 
There being a Council meeting on Monday, next Friday’s meeting is a business meeting.
Visitors’ host will be Mike Queen.

Crawford Gordon,
Secretary, Rotary Club of Stirling