Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Mick McGreevy was born near Strokestown, County Roscommon, Ireland on 24 December 1885. He was the fourth son of John McGreevy and Ellen Boland.
The five McGreevy brothers were expert horsemen in Ireland and often “rode with the hounds” . The eldest two brothers were carriage makers at that time and remained in Ireland. Their family was large by today’s standards having five boys and four girls.
Mick arrived in Sydney in October 1910 on the ship “The Essex” with his sister Anne (my grandmother).
Another sister (Mary in 1895) and an older brother (Patrick 1903) had preceded them. Patrick McGreevy was by then in charge of the police station at Coolangatta. Patrick was also a sharp shooter and as a result of these skills was on security detail for the Governor of Queensland before his posting to Coolangatta in 1908. Apparently while Pat was training in the police force he boarded at an establishment run by Mrs Bodkin at North Quay in Brisbane.
By March 1912 they were joined by the youngest brother, John (Jack) and another sister, Catherine (Kitty) as part of the Irish Diaspora that had continued well after the Potato Famine in Ireland.

So five of the McGreevy siblings worked in Coolangatta. Mick, Anne, and Kitty all worked at the Hotel Tweed (later Hotel Coolangatta) at some stage. In 1913 Anne was working as in the dining room at Hotel Tweed (electoral role). In 1915 she married Arthur Shepherdson, the son of a pilot boatsman at the Tweed River Mouth.

When Mick enlisted in the army his expertise with horses resulted in being assigned as a farrier (shoe-smith). That job was so essential for the mounted cavalry--Light Horse.

By 1919 Mick was working as an electrician at the same hotel and had married Mary Galbraith Bodkin in 1918, eight years his senior. She was the second daughter of the then proprietress of the Hotel Tweed. They had only one daughter Jean Ellen McGreevy in 1919. Sadly Mary died in September 1922.

Jean trained as a nurse at the Mater Hospital in Brisbane. She wed Geoffrey John Arthur and they lived subsequently in Canberra.

James Michael Pierce (grand nephew)