Biddy McCoy - NZ Woman of the Wild West: In celebration of International Women's Day, 2019
Biddy McCoy (McLoy) - Born Mary Anne Clerkin in 1820's; From County Fermanagh, Ireland. ‘Claim to fame’: Had a somewhat undeserved reputation as a 'wild woman' across Western Southland in early days. Most people in Southland have heard of the fearsome Biddy McCoy, who had apparently poisoned her partner and gone to prison for it; but when you dig a little deeper into the story, that is not actually true and the difficulties that Biddy faced as a child during the Great Famine of Ireland and her ensuing transportation and sentence served in the rough convict days of Tasmania, along with the loss of her husband at an early age - leaving her unsupported with young children, show that her wild and wilful reputation may have well merely been her trying to survive by desperate measures in desperate times... 'Biddy' McCoy was born Mary Anne Clerkin, but was called Biddy. Her father one John Clerkin was a farmer and her mother Ann, had been a M