Jennifer Kewley Draskau - a tribute

Jennifer Kewley Draskau - a tribute

Fri, 25 Oct 2024

Jennifer at the launch of her book about the Lusitania

Culture Vannin is saddened to hear of the passing of linguist, historian, author, horsewoman, and all-round force of nature, Dr Margaret Jennifer Kewley Draskau.

Jennifer was well-known for her work with Manx Studies and within Manx culture more widely, and as someone who never believed in half measures. She loved language, literature, and life, and animals more than most humans (with some notable exceptions), and was happiest when she had horses and German Shepherds by her side.

Jennifer had what can only be described as an extraordinary life. She lived in many countries around the world, spoke at least seven languages fluently (and smatterings of many more), and worked as an academic, a teacher, a radio show host and a journalist. She spent her youth with Welsh-speaking cousins in Wales, riding horses bare-back in New Zealand, and in her beloved Isle of Man, where she attended the Buchan School. Jennifer held degrees from the universities of Manchester and Copenhagen, and was made a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Liverpool through her work with and for the University’s Centre for Manx Studies. She had lectured at various universities, and was a much-loved tutor to the royal family in Thailand. Once back on the Island, she taught German at Ramsey Grammar School, and supported Manx Studies in the curriculum, authoring, for example ‘10 Famous Figures from Manx History’. She felt most at home once she had re-connected with academia through post-doctoral research projects at the Centre for Manx Studies, and when researching, writing and publishing her own books.

Jennifer is the author of many historical and reference books, including Practical Manx (2008), Illiam Dhone: Patriot or Traitor? (2012), The Tudor Rose: Princess Mary, Henry VIII's Sister (2013), The Lusitania: Tragedy or War Crime? (2015), and Lady Derby the Great Whore of Babylon (2020).

She was an award-winning playwright, poet and writer, with novels Margaid of Baldhoon (2000), Black Tiger (2013), and Transportee (2020), and plays such as ‘The Sinking of Immaculate O’Shea’ (c.2010), written for her sister, Elizabeth, and performed in the Isle of Man and New Zealand.

She had a love of languages, linguistics, and in particular, translation. Her doctoral thesis in 1986 was entitled ‘The quest for equivalence: on translating Villon’, and this passion for working between languages never left her. In 2006, she published a new translation of the oldest text in Manx Gaelic, entitled An Account of the Isle of Man in Song for the Centre for Manx Studies. In 2019, she produced the English version of Jon Leirfall’s Norwegian perspective of the Isle of Man as A Thousand Years in Man for Culture Vannin. In her last years, she again turned to the translation work she loved, shaping the English versions of the ‘Daughters of Freya’ novels for Norwegian author, Gunhild Haugnes.

Her academic papers reflected her wide and varied interests, and include studies of drag performance in internment, policing during WWI, and modals with variable morphology in Manx Gaelic. She spoke at conferences around the world, and to Manx heritage and antiquarian groups, raising money for the Isle of Man Agricultural Benevolent Trust in 2013 through a lecture about her ancestor, Illiam Dhone, for Manx National Heritage. This was not the first time she helped to raise money for the community. In 2005, she curated a CD ‘Treasure of the Island Heart’ for the World Manx Association which brought Major Geoff Crellin’s recitation of T E Brown together with Manx music performed by Breesha Maddrell to raise vital funds for the organisation.

Jennifer contributed to both John Koch’s Celtic Culture: a historical encyclopedia, and the University of Liverpool’s A New History of the Isle of Man series. A bibliography of her contribution is being constructed and will extend beyond the listings in this short tribute.

Jennifer was swimming in the Irish Sea long before it became fashionable, and her profile picture online was of a bungee-jump achieved at an age when most would shy away from danger – of course, to her, it was just another thrill to be embraced. When not jumping insanely high fences on one horse or another, she loved to play the violin with Ramsey friends, and to sing with Manx choir Cliogaree Twoaie, being secretly delighted by the compliments paid to her high clear voice perhaps more than for anything else.

Jennifer was a fierce, dynamic, impulsive soul, with a love of language and a deeper love of life. She contributed much to an understanding of the Isle of Man, its history, language and culture. She will be missed.

We send our love and best wishes to her family and close friends.

Shee dy row er yn annym eck.